Writing Standard 1: Habits and Processes E3b (teacher, peer conferencing)

E4A (language rules) E4b (revising)

Kindergarten

Children progress through a continuum of stages in writing, from scribbles and drawings, to a sentence that can be read by an adult familiar with children's writing development and the content of the piece. Most writing in kindergarten is represented phonetically, with children writing the sounds that they hear – usually the initial consonant sound in the beginning of the school year, and later incorporating some final and medial sounds, and some high frequency words. (See Appendix)

Kindergarten children are expected to:

· Participate in daily writing experiences in one or more of the following ways:

· Shared Writing

· Interactive Writing

· Guided Writing

· Independent Writing

This includes a print rich environment with opportunities to use materials throughout the classroom that motivate children to write, such as: a writing center stocked with paper and writing materials, chalkboards or white boards, label cards for block buildings, "literacy props" in the dramatic play area (pads of paper for "grocery lists" or "waitress orders" or clipboards for "hospital files")

· Generate content and topics for writing

· Write in response to the teacher's prompt

· Write willingly, without resistance, developing a disposition to work

· Use whatever means are at hand to communicate to make meaning: drawings, letter strings, scribbles, letter approximations and other graphic representations, as well as gestures, intonations and role-played voices

· Make an effort to re-read their own writing and listen to that of others

Writing Standard 2: Writing Purposes and Resulting Genres

Kindergarten – Kindergarten children are beginning to write for a variety of purposes

Sharing Events, Telling Stories: Narrative Writing

By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to produce narratives or stories that:

· Contain a "story" that may be only a single event or several events loosely linked, which the author may react to, comment on, evaluate, sum up or tie together

· Begin to show evidence of a logical sequence which incorporates a beginning, middle, and end in their writing

· Tell events in chronological order

· Include drawings that support meaning

· May incorporate storybook language ("Once upon a time" "The End")

Informational Writing

This section integrates well with the science curriculum, such as recording observations about animals (e.g. chicks hatching, fish in an aquarium, or experiments with magnets and other science materials)

By the end of kindergarten children should be able to:

· Write one sentence giving information or describing an observation

· Distinguish between report or informational writing, and story writing

· Gather information on a topic

· Share information about a topic orally, in writing, and in pictures

· Maintain a focus

· Stay on topic

Functional Writing

By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to:

· Use writing to tell someone what to do (give directions, send messages)

· Use writing to name or label objects and places (signs, labels on creations)

· Use writing for other functional purposes (lists, charts, simulated "real world" situations such as grocery lists, waitress pads, menus, cards, letters-- in the classroom grocery stores, restaurant, Post Office)

Producing and Responding to Literature

In kindergarten, children’s engagement with literature is mostly oral.

By the end of kindergarten, through independent or shared writing experiences, students will be expected to produce literature and responses to literature in which they:

· Produce orally and in writing simple evaluative expressions about a story ("I like the part where ...," "I like the story because ...")

· Re-enact and retell stories, poems, songs, plays

· Create their own stories, poems, plays, and songs

· Use literary forms and language that approximates some of the phrasing and rhythms of literature

Writing Standard 3: Language Use and Conventions E4a (rules of English language)

In kindergarten, students write freely, showing limited awareness of spelling, punctuation or capitalization. Most of their writing is readable only by the author.

Style and Syntax

By the end of kindergarten, students will be expected to use their own language and take on the language of authors to:

· Create writing that makes sense to the writer

· Share their writing with others

· Approximate the phrasing and rhythms of literary language

Vocabulary and Word Choice

By the end of kindergarten, students will be expected to:

· Use words in their writing that they use in their conversations; include words that they like or recall from the books read to them

· Make word choices that appropriately and accurately reflect the child's meaning

Spelling

Kindergarten children usually begin their writing experiences using initial sounds to represent words. Kindergarteners should know how to write words in ways that show they are representing the individual sounds of the words systematically. (Primary Literacy Standards, p. 89)

By the end of the kindergarten year, children should show evidence of the ability to:

· Independently create text with words that an adult (who is knowledgeable about spelling development and about the content of that child's piece of writing) can decipher

· Re-read their own writing to match what they say with what they write

· Draw on a range of resources

§ word wall

§ word theme lists

§ charts

§ sounding out

§ classroom and environmental print

§ Control for directionality on the paper, left to right, top to bottom

Punctuation, Capitalization and Other Conventions

At this stage we do not expect the child to show any regularity in - or even awareness of - punctuation and conventions. (Primary Literary Standards, p. 89)

By the end of kindergarten, students will be expected to:

· Write on unlined paper from left to right, top to bottom

· Begin to have an awareness of spacing between words

· Write most letters from memory