Literacy Coach's Corner
Writing Strategies to Help Your Child
The Importance of Writing
Writing is critical to becoming a good reader. Writing is an essential job skill. Writing is the primary basis upon which one's work, learning, and intellect will be judged—in college, in the work place and in the community. Writing equips us with communication and thinking skills.
Compose with Pictures - Emergent Writing
- Writing instruction can begin before students can write a letter or spell a word.
- Encourage your children to tell a story through pictures
- "Children begin to understand that writing is a form of communication and their marks on paper convey a message" (Mayer 2007, 35).
- Use the language below to encourage your writer!
- "And what else happened?"
- "Oh, wait. Who's that?"
- "What will she do next?"
- "Oh, I see. And then what?"
- "What does he say?"
- So, you said _______. (Retell story the student recounted to you, pointing to the parts of the pictures).
- The Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo (2017).
- http://applefortheteach.blogspot.com/2017/04/writing-strategies-goal-1-composing.html
Goal Setting
Ask your child to reflect as a "writer" by using prompts such as, what do you do well as a writer?
Use "Add a Page, Subtract a Page"
Have your child reread their piece. If there is a part that doesn't seem to fit, remove the page (an possibly replace it with a blank page to rewrite that part). If the piece seems like it's missing something, add a blank page in, and write what's missing.
Check out a conference video below:
https://youtu.be/gfAQCiiv0yY?list=PLCjbYzvV9DoJZjRAdL6SZPwufP1Y9ikdj
- The Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo (2017).
Use Words to Show What You Mean
Ask your child to look for places in their draft where they used vague words and encourage them to aim to choose words that say exactly what they mean.
Here are some helpful sites for word choice:
https://www.grammarcheck.net/boring-words/
Jessica Warner
Email: jwarner@somervilleschools.org
Location: 51 Union Avenue, Somerville, NJ, USA
Phone: (908)218-4105
Twitter: @VDVReading