WRITING ACTIVITIES

Writing gives the child a means of

expressing feelings, ideas, and imagination.
The stages of writing from scribbling to
invented spelling should be encouraged and
interpreted to parents as showing growth and
understanding.
 Writing

Writing, as part of a kindergarten language arts program, gives students the

opportunity to turn their spoken language into written symbols. It is a means of
expressing the personal experiences, feelings, ideas and thoughts that are part
of a child’s life. When writing, students use high level thinking skills such as
retelling a story in their own words, sequencing events, remembering details,
conventions of print, and phonemic skills such as sound-spelling relationships
and word segmentation.

A strong relationship exists between reading and writing. Many students learn
to read through the writing process. The child becomes a reader when they share
their own writing with an audience, and often times a child’s first reading is
something meaningful which they have written. Robert Gentry, author of My Kid
Can’t Spell!, claims that writing… “Opens the gateway to literacy by helping
children to break the code and learn about sounds in words”. Kindergarten
teachers must strive to develop, in each child, the belief that they are readers
and writers.

Development of the Writing Activities

Writing activities can be accomplished at a student’s developmental level of

writing. The range of writing abilities varies greatly in classrooms. When all
stages of writing, from scribble to invented spelling to conventional spelling, are
accepted and encouraged by the school staff, students will develop into
successful and enthusiastic readers and writers.

When developing writing activities, whether they are to be completed in a

center or as group activities, the developmental stages of writing should be kept
in mind. Stages commonly seen in kindergarten are:
1. Scribble:
____The student is gaining control of the pencil.
____The student scribbles and uses writing-like behaviors in an attempt to
communicate
(may be left to right, top to bottom).
____ Student “reads” the scribble story to an audience.
2. Pictures:
____Student will draw pictures in place of, or to support, a “text”.
____Student “reads” the text to an audience.
3. Letter-like forms:
____Student will write letters or letter-like forms to represent writing, with no
sound-spelling relationships.
____Student will copy words with no knowledge of word meaning.
____Student is able to “read” the written message.
4. Letter Strings:
____Student uses letters to represent words. (May be copied). At this stage there
is no
knowledge of sound-spelling relationships.
____Student shares writing with an audience.
5. Letters to represent words:
____Student uses one or two letters to represent a word, usually consonants.
The child
is beginning to understand that letters represent sounds.
____Student will copy known words to fit into text.
____Student shares writing with an audience.
6. Invented spelling:
____Student uses invented spellings with initial and final consonants and some
vowels.
____Students ability to segment words is evident in writing.
____Student uses phonetic clues when writing. Student represents each sound
in a word
with a letter.
____Student applies many conventions of print to their writing.
____Student shares writing with an audience.
7. Transition to conventional spelling:
____Student spells many words correctly and others are phonetically correct.

Setting up Writing Activities:

It is the kindergarten teacher’s responsibility to provide students with a solid

understanding of the print found in their everyday lives. As daily writing activities
and/or centers are set up, the goal should be helping students see that writing
plays a useful, meaningful part of their lives. Like many kindergarten activities,
students will be imitating adult behaviors and activities through play. This is also
true in writing. Writing activities will give children opportunities to imitate adult
uses of writing and will encourage students to take control of their own writing.

Writing Activities

1. The Writing Center

This center is created to let students practice their developing writing skills by writing
books, stories, invitations, notes, letters, lists and signs. Most writing forms have been
modeled for children in a group lesson. The writing center provides students with an
opportunity to practice what they have learned in group lessons. Children will be
working at their own developmental stage and their creations will be personal and
meaningful. The teacher’s responsibility is to equip the center with a variety of tools that
will encourage students to write in a variety of genres. The writing center should offer a
table or several desks, which allow children to work together. It can be equipped with
pencils, colored pencils, crayons, markers, chalk boards, dry erase boards, a typewriter, a
computer, and a wide variety of paper and envelopes, ABC charts, number charts,
classmate’s names, and First Dictionaries for student references are also helpful. Book-
making materials may also be necessary, such as hole punches, yarn, staples and tape.
Children enjoy dating their work with a date stamp.
Holidays and seasonal activities fit well into the writing center. Students will
enjoy making up menus for Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas cards and gift tags
for families and friends, letters to Santa Claus, Valentines, and other holiday
messages.
The writing center can become a starting point before moving to other
centers. Students may write a story and then move into the art center to illustrate
it. After writing a shopping list, students may move into the grocery store for a
shopping trip. A student may draw out their plans for a building, before moving to
the block center. Students also enjoy writing simple stories to be performed in the
Puppet Theater. The writing center may easily be converted to an office center
by adding telephones and adding machines.

Recommended List of Writing Materials - listed in order of priority:

Typewriter
Dry Erase Boards and Markers
Chalkboards
Date stamp
Computer

2. Name Writing

A child’s name is one of the first and most personal words they will ever learn
to read and write. Kindergarten classes will find several name charts around the
classroom to be helpful teaching tools. Students can study the name charts and
participate in the following activities:
Sorting
Students will enjoy sorting names by the number of syllables, number of
letters,
names that start with the same letter, names that end with the same letter,
short
names/long names.

Rhyming
The class can invent rhymes with names or cover the first letter of each
name with a
different letter.

Segmenting and blending:

Students can segment names by syllable or phonemes and then blend.

3. Classroom Mailbox
 The teacher may support the reading/writing connection by placing a mailbox
in the classroom. Students can write notes to friends and teachers and place
them in the mailbox for delivery. The student who is designated as the mail
carrier that day can deliver the notes. Children are always excited to get mail
from their teachers and friends.

4. Journal Writing

Journal writing is an important part of a regular writing program. Journals can

be completed with groups of students or placed in the writing center. In most
journals, students will draw a picture, then dictate, or write about the picture.
They will also date each entry. Students are encouraged to use whatever letter-
sound knowledge they have to complete a journal entry. Many students will begin
the process in the scribble stage or the picture stage when the school year
begins. Journals may take on different formats:
! A monthly journal (i.e. My September Journal): For assessment purposes
students always date their entries. These journals go home at the end of
the month but the teacher may chose to copy significant entries for a
student file.
! Portrait Journal: This journal is kept in school all year long. Beginning the
first day of school, the students draw a picture of them and write their
name. Students continue drawing their portraits and writing their names as
the year continues. The growth in writing and drawing becomes evident as
the school year continues!
! ABC Journal: Students may write or draw pictures of familiar words in this
dictionary style journal. Many students may use this dictionary as a
reference in their writing. ABC journals may be completed in the writing
center.
! Science Journals: These journals are used to document daily changes
found in the natural world such as plant growth, stages of life from a
caterpillar to a butterfly, or changes in the seasons and weather.

5. Author’s Chair

Writers need an audience. The author’s chair is an excellent way to provide

those children who are ready to share their written work with an audience. As
the author reads their written work from the author’s chair, the other children are
practicing appropriate audience behaviors such as listening carefully without
interrupting, and saving questions and positive comments until the end of the
story.

6. Language Experience Activities

The “write aloud” activity described here may be completed in large or small
groups. Language experience activities are based on something that all the
students experienced such as a cooking activity, a fieldtrip, or a special visitor.
The teacher and students compose the text together. The teacher writes on a
large poster board or chart paper as the children watch and listen. While writing,
the teacher will say and spell the words aloud, commenting on spaces,
punctuation and capital letters. Through this reading / writing activity, students
are watching as their spoken language is turned into written symbols. They are
developing knowledge about conventions of print, sound-symbol relationships,
sight words and phonemic awareness.

7. Interactive Writing

Interactive writing is a powerful teaching idea to be used with young children.

The process offers something to learners at all developmental stages, connects
reading to writing, teaches the writing process, demonstrates the use of
Concepts About Print (CAP), teaches phonemic awareness, letter formation, and
encourages the development of sight words.
The process takes 15-20 minutes and should be done at least three times a
week. Both the teacher and students share the writing responsibility. The text is
edited as the writing takes place. Children are ensured success in this activity
because they are asked to contribute to the lesson only what they already know.
At the same time, their learning is being stretched by the contributions from peers
and the teacher.
Materials needed for interactive writing are:
! Chart paper
! marking pens (2 different colors)
! post-it type correction tape (referred to as “boo-boo” tape)
! pointers
! ABC chart (see black line masters )

Step 1: Fold the chart paper in half. The bottom half of the paper is used to
write the
class sentence. The top half of the paper is for instructional purposes, such as
showing rhyming words, word families, word endings, punctuation etc.
Step 2: A sentence is chosen which is based on an experience common to
everyone in the group. At the beginning of the year short, simple sentences are
more workable for beginning readers and writers. As the year continues the
sentence chosen can become more complex.
Step 3: After the sentence has been chosen the teacher and students repeat
the sentence several times and count the number of words in the sentence.
Step 4: Next, a student is chosen to stand by the teacher to become the
“space holder”.
 Step 5: Students determine the first word of the sentence and begin to
segment that word orally to determine the beginning letter. Once someone is
able to correctly identify the first word in the sentence they are asked to come to
the chart paper, identify the starting point, and write the first letter on the paper. If
a mistake is made the teacher provides guidance using the ABC letter chart, the
mistake is covered with “boo-boo” tape and the student writes the correct letter
on the chart paper. For difficult spellings such as silent letters, the teacher may
write the letter using a different color marker. As the year goes on, students work
together to make sure only they get to write the letters and the teacher’s marker
is never used! This process is continued until a word is competed. Only
conventional spelling is used. At the end of each word, the “space holder” puts
their hand on the chart paper to hold the space between words.
Step 6: This process continues until all the words and spaces in the sentence
have been written on the chart paper. The space holder may choose the correct
punctuation for the end of the sentence if they wish.
Step 7: Using the pointer, the class reads the sentence aloud, pointing to
each word as they read. Some students will enjoy a turn reading independently
to their classmates. Hang the chart in the room so children may read again later
in the day.
As students become familiar with the process, the teacher may add to the
Interactive Writing lesson using the following statements and questions:
- How many words are in our sentence?

- How many words have we written so far? How many words do we have
left to write?

- Now that we have finished this word, what comes next? (A space) What is
the next word?

- Should we use a capital or lower case letter?

Stretch out the words. What sounds do you hear? What letter makes that
sound? How many sounds do you hear? How many syllables are in that word?

- Can you find that letter on our ABC chart?

- Whose name starts like that?

- Who knows another word that starts like that?

- Who knows a word that rhymes with________?

8. Dictation

Dictation activities help kindergarten students understand that anything they

say can be written down. The teacher simply writes what a child asks them to
write. Dictation can take many forms. It can be a book-making project, writing
captions for children’s drawings, or writing down the title of a piece of art. After
the student has completed dictating and the teacher has completed writing, the
teacher may go back over the written words and reread what was written. This
activity will also reinforce conventions of print.

9. Mr. Bear’s Journal Activity

This writing activity is found in Bobbi Fischer’s book Joyful Learning in

Kindergarten. Mr. Bear is a stuffed toy who travels home with a different child or
staff member each night. He travels in a bag along with a composition journal,
pajamas, a toothbrush and other items he may have collected. A letter written by
Mr. Bear is on the front of the journal explaining where he came from and the
general procedure for his visits; Parents, children, and other family members are
encouraged to write and draw in the journal about Mr. Bear’s visit. Bobbi
Fischer writes “Mr. Bear’s journal provides a meaningful way for the class to
learn and care about each other, and involves the families in the classroom
community”.
(See Black line Master’s for an Introductory Letter from Mr. Bear.)

10. Kindergarten news: “A Weekly Newsletter for Parents”

Kindergarten news can be a single page divided in five boxes, one for each
day of the week. During closing circle a student (maybe the helper of the day) is
chosen to write or draw a picture in the square designated for that day. The
writing/drawing pertains to something all students experienced in school.
Depending on the students’ writing abilities, the teacher may write the simple
sentence under the picture as the student dictates. This activity is not only
important for developing writing skills, it also a quick method of family
communication.

SAMPLE LETTER FROM MR. BEAR

September 15, 2000

Dear Children and Parents,

(Teacher’s name) found me at a little store in
Vermont during her vacation this summer, when she
was spending a week at a lake with her husband and
two children.
Now that school has begun, she has suggested
that I spend a night with the children in her
kindergarten class. I have come with a toothbrush so I
can brush my teeth and a journal so you can write
about what we did together at your house.