A Writing Routine for the Second Half of Kindergarten
After winter break is over, we enter into what I called the ‘sweet spot’ of kindergarten. This is when things start to click. Behavior and social relationships start to level out. Reading scores begin to rise. Math concepts start to make sense. And writing skills seem to develop more quickly. It’s like the lightbulb came on, and you can physically see it!
In writing, this means that you have more of an opportunity to engage your students in longer, sustained writing tasks. At the beginning of kindergarten, we are so focused on writing one word at a time, or short sentences, that developing stories feels like a long way off. But before we know it, our students are ready to start putting sentences together to make little versions of their own stories!
Establishing Writing Routines
One of the ways that I like to take advantage of this learning momentum, is to establish some regular writing routines! My favorite routine is our monthly writing journals. These follow the same structure every month, so students know what to expect, but it makes it easy for you to look back at journals of the past and see how much growth has happened!
I recommend creating some sort of daily or weekly routine with these journals. Research supports the idea that giving students daily, independent writing time is one of the best ways to support their growth. This writing time can be during a center activity, morning work, early finisher work, or small group time. Whenever you work it in, it’s important that your students know this this is their time to focus on their writing and put their best foot forward!
Using Feedback to Help Students Grow
With the monthly writing journals, I like to choose one entry every couple of weeks to look at closely for each student. I use this post to create one piece of feedback. Your students have already come so far at the halfway point in kindergarten, but it’s certainly not time to ease up on their growth! This precious time when everything is clicking for them is a great time to push them forward with consistent feedback about their writing.
When you provide feedback for your students, I recommend focusing on one thing. It could be punctuation, finger spacing, or using resources to spell things correctly. (These monthly writing journals also include resource pages that you can copy and staple directly into each students journal to give them the resources they need!)
Make a note of the feedback you provided the student, and the next time you look at their writing, look for that skill specifically. The way that we help our students grow in writing is through one, tiny focus at a time. Eventually, they will master the little things that we focus on with them, and they will be able to combine all of those skills into longer, more proficient writing!
You can get started with this routine by grabbing my monthly writing journals here! They are perfect to turn into distance-learning packs, or you can use them digitally. Looking for more kindergarten writing ideas? Look HERE to see some other blogs on this topic!
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