Essential Instructional Practices

 
Oral Language Development

In Raising Writers: Understanding and Nurturing Young Children’s Writing Development, Ruth Shagoury (2009) explores the connections between oral language development and development in writing.  She offers these three tenets for the promotion of oral language development:

• “Respect young children’s communication attempts”
• “Provide an environment rich in language”
• “Prepare to be awed by . . . young children’s capabilities” (p.13)

Interactive Read Alouds

The interactive read aloud is not only a time for reading comprehension instruction and building fluency, but it can also be used to extend and enrich children’s vocabulary and oral language abilities.  Through modeling in a think aloud, the teacher can expose children to more complex sentence structures and  introduce them to more sophisticated vocabulary (McGee and Richgels, 2012). This video shows a shared reading of a big book with an intentional focus on basic concepts of print.

Classroom Talk

Young children need many opportunities for purposeful talk during and about learning activities (Nichols, 2006).  These interactions between teachers and students and students and their peers are powerful opportunities of oral language development. See Conversation Module.

Word Play

As children begin to master phonemic awareness, word play continues to be important Teachers can engage children in activities involving rhyming, alliteration, tongue twisters and plays on word meanings.  These activities can also build on children’s growing awareness of the structure of language. Use of traditional nursery rhymes and songs can aid in the development of oral language (Honig, 2007).

Oral to Written Language: Children of the Code

Kindergarten Writing: “Did you know bubble”

Tweeting in Kindergarten

Visual Representation Development

“Students who move, dance, compose, paint, film, draw, tape, graph, or map their interpretations or understandings…are demonstrating representation, “ (Lapp, Flood and Roser, 2000).

Storytelling and Dramatic Play

Story telling with props and costumes is one powerful way for children to represent understanding.  Teachers can gather props related to stories children have read and provide opportunities for acting out these stories or creating new stories with characters. Dramatic play provides a powerful method for children to represent their thinking and understanding.  Although, teachers frequently dramatize stories with children, this can also be done with nonfiction text.  For instance, after a study of chick hatching, students used movement to dramatize their understanding of the process (McGee and Richgels, 2012).

Writing Development

Explicit Instruction: Modeled Writing
According to McGee and Richgels (2012), modeled writing is an opportunity for teachers to show children the processes writers use to get their ideas on paper.  The teacher thinks aloud about what she might write, thinks aloud as she composes on large chart paper about the process of choosing the words to write, and then again thinks aloud through the rereading and revising process. The following video features a first-grade writing workshop that includes explicit instruction for modeled writing. This modeling includes active engagement, a link, composing meaning, and reflection. To view, click here.

Shared Writing: The Morning Message
One of the most common opportunities for modeling shared writing in early childhood classrooms is the Morning Message.  The Morning Message is an opportunity to engage intentionally young children in thinking about reading and writing skills such as phonics, basic concepts of print, grammar, and composition, through an authentic language experience.  This usually occurs after a discussion of the day’s activities during a whole group meeting (Bromley, 2000; Kempton, 2007; Labbo, 2005; Morrow, Tracey and Del Nero, 2011).  Labbo (2005) describes the basic steps of the traditional Morning Message as well as what this looks like in technology-rich classrooms with the Digital Morning Message.

Basic Steps of the Morning Message:

1. The teacher thinks aloud and models writing a short message (2 or 3 sentences) on a large chart tablet that all children can see.
2. The teacher may want to consider using a pattern like “Today is (day of the week) the (date, month, year).”
3. The teacher may ask a child or the leader of the day to contribute orally some news or a comment to include in the message.  The teacher may also share the pen with the child, who will write known letters or words.
4. As the teacher or leader of the day points to the words on the chart, the students orally read the message.
5. A designated student circles letters or words he/she recognizes.
6. Additional activities may include the following:  counting the words, sentences or letters; talking with students about what they notice; or making observations (e.g., “I notice that the word Today begins with the same letter as Terica’s name…” (p. 784).

Basic Steps of the Digital Morning Message:

1. The teacher thinks aloud, models writing a short message (2 or 3 sentences), keyboards the message and displays it on a large monitor that all children can see.
2. The teacher may want to consider using a pattern like “Today is (day of the week) the (date, month, year).”
3. The teacher may ask a child or the leader of the day to contribute orally some news or a comment to include in the message.  The teacher may also share the keyboard with the child, who will type known letters or words.
4. Students can listen to the computer voice synthesizer read aloud the message.  After listening, they chorally read the morning message while the teacher or designated student points to each word.
5. A designated student highlights letters or words he/she recognizes.
6. The teacher provides independent follow-up activities with printouts in class and at home.

Materials for Morning Message: easel, chart paper, markers, alphabet chart, word wall, pointer

Responsive Classroom: Morning Meeting: Morning Message

Guided Practice: Language Experience Approach
The language experience approach is founded in social interaction around shared experiences (Bromley, 2011). Children talk about their shared experiences and the teacher transcribes their language. The story can then be reread.  This process immerses students, through demonstration, in talking, writing and reading (Bromley, 2011).

Language Experience Approach by Jessica Huron, 2009

Language Experience Approach by Andrew Johnson

Interactive Writing
Interactive Writing is a bridge between modeled/shared writing and independent writing. As students gain greater understanding and control of phonics knowledge and grammar, they are able to take a greater role in writing texts, and the teacher can act more as a facilitator.  Interactive writing can take many forms, but is often used as a small group activity.  Interactive Writing offers many skill and strategy instructional opportunities such as phonics, grammar, conventions/mechanics, basic concepts of print, vocabulary, applying and building schema, etc. (Bromley, 2000; Kempton, 2007; McCrarrier, Pinnell and Fountas, 2000; Morrow, Tracey & Del Nero, 2011; Patterson, Schaller and Clemens, 2008; Williams & Lundstrom, 2007).

The Basic Steps for Interactive Writing (McCrarrier, Pinnell and Fountas, 2000):

• Provide a base of active learning experiences. (This might be response to literature, language experience, topic of study, etc.)
• Talk to establish purpose.
• Compose the text. (Sometimes referred to as negotiating the text.  The group decides what will be written.)
• Construct the text. (Students take as much responsibility for writing the text as appropriate for ability.  Teacher models and scaffolds writing and shares the pen with students.)
• Reread, revise, and proofread the text. (It is important that the text be grammatically and structurally correct as it serves as a model for students.)
• Revisit the text to support word solving. (Focus on checking text for correctness and reading skills.)
• Summarize the learning. (Use this time to link what was learned to application in independent writing.)
• Extend the learning. (Help children examine the purpose for writing this text and how the purpose influenced the writing of the text.)

Materials for Interactive Writing: easel, chart paper, markers, correction tape, magnetic letters, white boards, pointers, word wall, alphabet chart, word charts (for topics).

The following video is an example of an interactive writing lesson with first graders. To view, click here.
 

Collaboration: Buddy Writing
Buddy Writing is a collaborative process where older, more experienced students are paired with younger beginning writers and encouraged to write to, for and with each other. 

Basic guidelines are:

• Have fun and smile.
• Be positive and sincere.
• Greet your Buddy warmly at each meeting.
• Pay your Buddy a compliment.
• When asking a question, give your Buddy lots of time to answer.
• Sit near your Buddy so that both of you can see the writing.
• Look your Buddy in the eye.
• Give your Buddy suggestions. Two wishes and a star:
  • “I wish you would…”
  • “This is star writing…”
  • “I like the way you…”

Format of a session:

• Encourage your Buddy by pausing, praising, and prompting:
  • Pause-give your Buddy time to correct errors.
  • Prompt-give your Buddy hints without telling them what to do.
  • Praise-use encouraging words when your Buddy writes.
  • When helping with spelling encourage your Buddy to stretch the word, look around the room, ask a friend.

Tips for dealing with mistakes:

When your Buddy writer makes a mistake (Always encourage your writer to read his/her writing out loud):

• If the mistake makes sense, don’t worry in the beginning.
• If it doesn’t make sense, wait to see if the writer will fix it.
• Say: “Try that again.”
• Say: “Did that make sense?”
• Say: “When you read your writing, did it look right and sound right?”
• Tell the correct response.

What to do when your buddy writer gets stuck:

• Wait and see if he can work it out.
• Say: “Try that again.”
• Say: “Look at the word, sentence etc.”
• Say: “Think about what would make sense.”
• Say: “Read the sentence again and start the tricky word.”
• Tell him the word or how to correct his error.
   

Independent Practice: Daily Independent Writing - The Writers’ Workshop
Katie Wood Ray and Lester Laminack tell us, “To gain the experience [children] need in writing across the school year, it’s best if students can work on their writing for a sustained block of time…every day in the writing workshop.  Writing is something you do, and doing it well can be fairly challenging.  What all writers need is experience.  It takes lots and lots of time over the course of years for writers to get the experience they need to become good writers,” (Ray and Laminack, 2001, p.9).  They go on to say, “For the writing workshop to be successful, it must be highly structured and must work the same way basically every day so that it could almost run itself independent of directed activity,” (p.14-15).  This means there must be opportunities daily for independent writing. In the following video, a kindergarten teacher supports students’ writing through conversation and partner talk. To view, click here.

The Writing Center
It is important that children have daily opportunities to apply their developing skills in independent writing (Bromley, 2000; Kempton, 2007; Morrow, Tracey and Del Nero, 2011; Ray and Cleaveland, 2004).  While there is opportunity for this during the composing meaning segment of the writer’s workshop, a writing center and opportunities for its use can provide further opportunities for practice in writing for authentic purposes in the literacy-rich early childhood classroom (Morrow, Tracey & Del Nero, 2011).

Materials for the Writing Center: small table and chairs for students and teacher, computer, many types of paper, stapler, crayons, markers, pencils, pens, dictionaries, word wall, alphabet charts, clip boards, tape, books, etc.
 

Additional Resources

Annenberg Media

Teaching Reading K-2 Workshop

• Session 1: Creating a Literate Community
• Session 5: Teaching Writing as a Process

Nellie Edge—Excellence in Kindergarten and Early Literacy

Kid Writing Workshop

• Video 1: Demonstrating the different ways people write with a focus on the stages of writing development
• Video 2: Formulating a plan for writing and extending thinking
• Video 3: Highlighting the strengths in children’s writing based on learning goals and objectives

Early Childhood Research and Practice

Introducing the Project Approach and Use of Visual Representation to Early Childhood Education in Bhutan includes a photographic representation of the Project Approach