I’m reading the new Ralph Fletcher book Pyrotechnics On the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing. My plan was to be part of the Stenhouse Ning group and work through this book with other educators and Ralph himself. (See my post about that here.) However, 2 days into the work, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the constant emails about posts and comments to posts on the Ning. It was just too much for me! So instead, I’m leisurely reading the book on my own. After finishing chapter 2, I’m convinced there is something BIG here for my work with teachers in the Fall… TALK.

More and more I’m learning how oral language development is the most important indicator of reading and writing success. Students who are strong orally are stronger writers and stronger readers. It makes sense, but this is something I don’t think I’ve really put emphasis on in my classrooms or even with my own daughter.

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating just letting children talk and talk and talk. Instead my emphasis would be on being a better listener to that talk. I plan to focus on engaging a child into moving further in her talk while practicing listening better to what is said.

Certainly there are direct links to conferring here, but really I’m thinking about the classroom environment. We need classrooms where children are taught how to talk; then given the space and time to do it. From KG1 (our PK4) to grade 5, developing talkers is an important step we need to take.

During our Staff Writing Celebration a few weeks ago I was asked to list some of the ways I have celebrated and published final pieces in writer’s workshop. Thinking this over was a great exercise for me, both as a coach and as a teacher. The more I worked on it, the more I realized capturing this in a document was a great way to show how the celebrations in one grade level as well as across grades, could spiral in their complexity. Attached is my 1st draft of this idea. Please click HERE to view it in Scribd.

Please let me know if you have any ideas for improving/adding to this document by commenting below.

This summer my friend and mentor, Bonnie Campbell Hill sent around an email asking if anyone had taught cursive handwriting in a sane, fun, productive way. I thought I had, so this is what I sent her:

Differentiated Cursive Work In Grade 3

I think handwriting is like all aspects of learning; children bring different levels of proficiency and therefore need differentiated instruction to grow in their mastery. To do this, I had my students focus less on learning how to write letters in isolation and more on writing words and sentences in cursive.

Early in the first month of school I asked students to copy the following sentence in cursive from the board onto a 1/2 sheet of lined paper: “I am excited to learn to write in cursive!” This sample was dated and kept in my teacher’s notebook so we had something to compare to later samples.
After reviewing each child’s sample, I ability grouped students. The early cursive writers were given the school purchased handwriting book to begin working on individual letter formation. The writers who had some control of cursive, but needed work on specific letters were grouped together with both the handwriting book and several sheets of large-lined paper. (The kind used in the lower grades with the red-dotted line down the middle.) The final group, who had a strong mastery of cursive handwriting, was given standard lined paper.
What followed for the rest of the year was a series of twice weekly handwriting sessions, which used poems, selected by the students for practice. With classical music playing, children worked at their own pace on either letter formation or copying poems into cursive. Ultimately, students would find that there were letters they needed to review and would use the alphabet guide in the back of the handwriting book or the individual letter practice pages in the handwriting book to help them review and work on that particular letter as they completed their poems. (Myself or another student would also demonstrate letter formation on the white board when it was requested.)
By the end of the year everyone had a “Poetry Pad” filled with large construction paper pages each containing a photocopied poem and the student’s handwritten copy next to it. Some students had 3 poems completed plus the bulk of the handwriting book. Others had worked on 20 poems over the year.
Finally, right before our spring parent-teacher conference, I asked students to write the sentence “I am excited to learn to write in cursive!” again on a lined sheet of paper and we compared this with the sample from earlier in the year. Students reflected on their improvement and on how their handwriting had changed and become more personalized. For many students they simply didn’t believe the first sample was theirs. Parents enjoyed seeing the growth students had made in handwriting over the year. By using the samples- it was readily apparent to all of us!

Photo credit: http://www.cowart.com/nikon/macros/page1/Handwriting.jpg