Introduction
Entering Kindergarten is a huge milestone for many children. Their parents prepare them all summer long for the significant step they are about the take. They are told that going to Kindergarten makes them a "big girl" or "big boy," and that they will be doing a lot of learning when they get to school; and this is true! Today's Kindergarten students work on a wide range of academic and life skills throughout the course of the school year. They come into the classroom with confidence that they are now of school age and have reached a new stage of maturity. However, they quickly realize that they are the smallest of the big-ones, and they slowly lose that confidence.
Writing lessons that occur early in the year are full of the following statements from my students, "Ms. Adams, I don't know how to write that letter" and "I can't make a story, I don't know how to write yet." When children hear me announce writing in our daily schedule, they think of the printing and penmanship of letters (those strange symbols that big people can read and understand). To them, writing is only letters and words and has nothing to do with creativity, stories, or art. They do not realize that they possess ideas and thoughts that already make them writers. They have stories to tell…everyday…every single one of them. They need only the appropriate avenue to express those thoughts and ideas, as well as the organizational skills to make them clear to the reader. I want my students to know that they can write cohesive, organized stories by drawing pictures to show their words, rather than printing words to tell about their stories.
However, learning to write is so much more complicated than guiding students through a process of copying letters and learning simple sight words. When I receive my list of students in August, I get a group of 25-30 students who range in their age, maturity level, language acquisition, and learning abilities. As writing is so essential to their academic foundational skills, it is important that I provide my students with activities and lessons that help them achieve the goal of writing complete sentences by June. This goal, as stated in the "Kidified Standards ELA-K" includes 1.1 "I can use letter sounds to write about things I know," 1.2 "I can write simple words (CVC)," and 1.3 "I can write by moving from left to right and top to bottom." But these standards are lacking in guiding students to become writers of their rich thoughts and ideas rather than become printers of letters and words. 1
Most of my students enter the class with the idea that they cannot read or write because they do not understand the mechanics of printing or they do not possess the ability to apply phonemic awareness to letters. I want them to understand that they are capable of being great writers by communicating their thoughts and ideas in drawing images and pictures, as people have been doing for thousands of years. My unit is designed not only to help students see themselves as writers, but also to feel comfortable and confident in their ability to communicate their thoughts in the developmentally appropriate practice of drawing pictures and images.
Comments: