Picture Writing

Background

Like many public school teachers, I work in an area with a high level of socio-economically disadvantaged students. We service a large amount of second language learners as well. I teach at Robert Sanders Elementary School, which is one of five schools in the Mount Pleasant Elementary School District. Robert Sanders is nestled against the east foothills of San Jose, California and includes Kindergarten through eighth grade. We have between 450-475 students at any given time; 68.7% of those students are considered socio-economically disadvantaged, and 83% are eligible for reduced or free meals, 67.1% of the students are English Language Learners, and 13.2% have been diagnosed with a disability. The majority of our students are Hispanic or Latino, 80.7%, with approximately 5% Asian and 2% Caucasian students. We are approaching our third year in Program Improvement, a title put on schools that receive title 1 funding and have failed to meet their annual AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress according to state testing scores) goal for two years in a row. We are also continuing with our Structured English Instruction program in grades K and first. This program was developed to help students with very minimal knowledge of or use of the English language. These students are placed in a classroom with other English Language Learners (ELL's) where they can support each other in their acquisition of English. Each class is led by a teacher who uses only English and is supported daily by an English Language Development teacher, who guides the students through daily lessons and activities to help them better utilize their exposure to English at school.

My district has adopted the ELA curriculum called "Treasures," which is published by McMillian/McGraw Hill. The kindergarten curriculum consists of ten units, each unit being three weeks long. Within the curriculum the students work on phonics, phonemic awareness, decoding, segmenting, reading, comprehension, oral language, science, and social studies. It offers lessons and practices for almost every aspect of a typical ELA curriculum; however, I have not been overly excited about the writing portion and how it fits the needs of the students in my kindergarten classes.

While there are parts of the "Treasures" curriculum that I find to be highly valuable to the students and myself, I feel that it is lacking in its writing element. The curriculum starts off with a brief introduction to the ABC's, and it allows for a few drawing and reading activities. Then, the first unit sets the pattern for the year: students will focus on two to three letters per three week unit as well as a few sight words. In the suggested "centers" activities, the students are to practice these skills by using the letters to write. This is what I see as the key problem in the curriculum: it quickly links the skill of writing to the skill of printing, making the assumption that the two must go hand in hand. The program instructs students to identify and print letters assuming they are ready to make the huge leap between writing letters and understanding that those letters make words that convey thoughts and ideas. As stated in an article titled "Writing in Preliterate Children" by Jean Emile Gombert and Michel Fayol, "it is not until age 5 or 6 that the directionality of writing is mastered and the functions of the various writing media are thoroughly understood." ² Printing is a mechanical ability that should be taught separate from writing. It requires a different set of skills to perform successfully. Printing letters involves fine and gross motor skills, as well as the ability to understand and physically copy the shapes and lines needed to make the letters. Writing, however, requires a great deal of conceptualization and organizational skill. This process must take place in the mind of the writer, before he or she even takes pen, or oversized pencil, to hand.

So often, printing and writing are linked together early on, in hopes that a kindergartener (typically age 4 or an early 5 in the beginning of kindergarten) is ready to combine the two skills and produce evidence of their thoughts or opinions. Most students at this age are beginning writers or "nonwriting" as defined in an article written by Marjorie L. Hipple titled "Journal Writing in Kindergarten," and they are at the developmental stage of drawing and scribbling forms that represent what their thoughts are. ³ The "Treasures" program asks the students, with the help of the teacher, to make lists and word webs in the first few weeks of school. After teaching Kindergarten for the past ten years, I know expecting that the students can copy a list or word web puts a great deal of stress on the students and the teachers. By beginning my unit early on in the school year, I will be able to disconnect the link between printing and writing, until the students are ready to make that connection on their own, naturally. I want my students' first experience with writing in school to be one that is not only developmentally appropriate, but exciting.

In the first few years as a teacher, because I had the typical excitement and enthusiasm that most new teachers have, I was ready to conquer the world. I started each year ready to greet a new group and take them to the heights of academia! While my schooling and training in a credential program provided me with multiple methods of reaching my students, I also had two boxes of curricular materials (at least ten TE's, a hundred or so pre-decodable books, phonics and phonemic awareness workbooks, and usually some fuzzy, loveable little puppet used to communicate the daily goals with the students), not to mention the hoards of advice from more seasoned teachers. My enthusiasm quickly diminished as I tried to plan lessons that included every part of the ELA curriculum into my four hour time-block with my students, not to mention math, science, social studies, recess, library, art projects, social activities, etc., etc., etc.!

As I began to accumulate a little more experience, I came to see that despite the curriculum's bulk, it was lacking in providing my students with the type of experiences they need to build the foundational skills that great readers and writers possess. Once I recognized this, I sought out advice from those more seasoned teachers. This time, they shared with me journaling strategies and their procedures for centers; and time and time again they mentioned something called "Writer's Workshop."