Writing begins with drawing. Writing at this age is all about getting your ideas on paper and not being afraid of the process.  Our goal is to try to write at LEAST 3 complete sentences. 

A sentence needs to also make sense.

A few things to remember when writing with your child:

•  Have your child talk about what they are going to write about with someone first so they have a plan even before you hand them paper and a pencil.

• Next, have them draw a picture of what they discussed and have them add details to their drawing.

• Now, have them write and describe the details of their picture they drew in their sentences. The sentences they write should match the drawing they drew.

• This is the hardest part, but don’t spell a word for them, instead encourage them to write the sounds they hear if you don’t know how to spell the word you want to use (remember, this not spelling). You can remind them of some of their reading strategies like Stretchy Snake to help them sound out a word. They can always write the first sound they hear and draw a line, but encourage them to write as much of the word on their own as they can.

• Remind them as they write don’t forget finger spaces between words. In class, we use spacemen . You can use a popsicle stick if you have one , if not just have them use their pointer finger to measure how much space to leave between words.

• Each sentence should start with a capital letter.
  • If they forget this, I always ask what did your forget at the begining of the sentence? 

• Each sentence should have an ending punctuation mark. (. ! ?)
  • ​If they forget this, I always ask what did you forget at the end of the sentence?

• Each Sentence should make sense.
  • ​If the sentence doesn’t make sense, I have them read it out loud and ask them what does that mean? They normally will catch that it doesn’t make sense and we work together to make the necessary corrections. 

Here is a link to some writing paper, you can download so that you can practice writing at home:

https://files.gabbart.com/1841/story-paper-portrait-landscape.pdf

Watch this mini lesson for tips on how the writing process should look: