Advice re Year 1 struggling writers, please!
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 1:04 pm
I have mainly Key Stage 2 teaching experience, but am currently running some 'catch up' literacy groups for year 1 children who are falling behind.
I have considerable of training and experience in teaching phonological awareness and synthetic phonics, and this will form the basis of much of my work with the children.
However, I do need some ideas for a context for their writing, and also about possible teaching strategies.
I need ideas for/ have questions about:
Handwriting:
-do you still do mark making eg practise zigzags/ curly patterns etc in this year group even though they can write some letters? (or is that usually done only in EYFS?)
-how much practise time for handwriting and how many days per week works best for those with poor pencil control?
- any other activities to promote good pencil control/ motor skills/ layout of writing on page/ finger spacing?
Sentence writing:
- to get them to 'hold a sentence', I plan to get them to rehearse simple sentences aloud and to count the number of words in a sentence
-then I thought we might use 'magic lines' to draw in lines to match the number of words (they can then just use initial/ final sounds at start /end of line if they cannot segment the whole word)
- building sentences by placing word cards in order
I would really like some suggestions of a meaningful context for sentence writing, as our work will not be part of a topic. I have thought about writing sentences based around a picture or a sensory experience eg trudging through leaves or blowing bubbles, for example. I have only 30 mins per session so need to have time for some sort of stimulus and to model and write a sentence or two. Any ideas?
To be honest, I am struggling a bit with wanting to make the writing accessible to them when they generally don't know any vowels digraphs and only a couple of consonant digraphs yet. It's very hard to write anything interesting composed of CVC words! Should I skip the creative stimuli bit for a while till they have a few more graphemes under their belt?? (And do lots of speaking and listening/ vocab work but not have the expectation for them to write at the same level....)
Also, I need help with how to give verbal feedback to (the few)children whose writing cannot be read without mediation, but they cannot remember what they've written!
Any further ideas/ comments on my ideas, greatly appreciated!
I have considerable of training and experience in teaching phonological awareness and synthetic phonics, and this will form the basis of much of my work with the children.
However, I do need some ideas for a context for their writing, and also about possible teaching strategies.
I need ideas for/ have questions about:
Handwriting:
-do you still do mark making eg practise zigzags/ curly patterns etc in this year group even though they can write some letters? (or is that usually done only in EYFS?)
-how much practise time for handwriting and how many days per week works best for those with poor pencil control?
- any other activities to promote good pencil control/ motor skills/ layout of writing on page/ finger spacing?
Sentence writing:
- to get them to 'hold a sentence', I plan to get them to rehearse simple sentences aloud and to count the number of words in a sentence
-then I thought we might use 'magic lines' to draw in lines to match the number of words (they can then just use initial/ final sounds at start /end of line if they cannot segment the whole word)
- building sentences by placing word cards in order
I would really like some suggestions of a meaningful context for sentence writing, as our work will not be part of a topic. I have thought about writing sentences based around a picture or a sensory experience eg trudging through leaves or blowing bubbles, for example. I have only 30 mins per session so need to have time for some sort of stimulus and to model and write a sentence or two. Any ideas?
To be honest, I am struggling a bit with wanting to make the writing accessible to them when they generally don't know any vowels digraphs and only a couple of consonant digraphs yet. It's very hard to write anything interesting composed of CVC words! Should I skip the creative stimuli bit for a while till they have a few more graphemes under their belt?? (And do lots of speaking and listening/ vocab work but not have the expectation for them to write at the same level....)
Also, I need help with how to give verbal feedback to (the few)children whose writing cannot be read without mediation, but they cannot remember what they've written!
Any further ideas/ comments on my ideas, greatly appreciated!