1st Grade writing?

[Renee in FL]

Can you tell me what your 1st grader is writing in ps? While I agree with SWB and her method for teaching writing, it looks like my 1st grader may go to ps next year. I want her to be prepared for the amount and types of writing that they do in school.

Thanks!

[MBM]

Can you tell me what your 1st grader is writing in ps? While I agree with SWB and her method for teaching writing, it looks like my 1st grader may go to ps next year. I want her to be prepared for the amount and types of writing that they do in school.

Thanks!

It's been awhile, but from what I can remember, most writing projects were short responses to questions about books.

My youngest was also required to keep a Junie B. Jones journal. The teacher loved that series; I think they read all of the books. Unfortunately, my son didn't like them as much, so the journal writing was not something he enjoyed.

Good luck and HTH, Renee! :)

[Renee in FL]

Would having her write in a journal daily be reasonable?

(And I HATE journals!)

[MBM]

Would having her write in a journal daily be reasonable?

(And I HATE journals!)

I think at that age, it seems a bit much and could have the opposite effect of creating a confident, budding writer. If she likes writing, then maybe she could keep a spiral notebook of her observations, poems, little stories, drawings, etc. That's what I had my son do. (It makes a nice keepsake for you, too.)

In the long run, following suggestions from TWTM would probably be your best bet. IME, our schools' writing programs in the elementary grades were not that good.

[Renee in FL]

I think at that age, it seems a bit much and could have the opposite effect of creating a confident, budding writer. If she likes writing, then maybe she could keep a spiral notebook of her observations, poems, little stories, drawings, etc. That's what I had my son do. (It makes a nice keepsake for you, too.)

In the long run, following suggestions from TWTM would probably be your best bet. IME, our schools' writing programs in the elementary grades were not that good.

I agree that the programs aren't very good, but I do know they have students doing a lot of original writing in 1st grade (I am pretty sure anyway.)

I like the idea of a notebook, though. She does like to write, but she is definitely a copier. I need to get her to write more original sentences.

[MBM]

Have you been able to get the scoop from any other parents whose children are already at the school, or does the school post a detailed plan describing what they do?

I'm afraid I'm not much help otherwise. I come here for writing suggestions! :D

ETA: My hive-ometer just hit 700 posts!

[piraterose]

Would having her write in a journal daily be reasonable?

If there is a possibility that your child might be attending PS (especially here in Florida), I would very much recommend her journaling daily. At least at my daughter's FL school writing is HUGE, and they were journaling at least a couple times a week in Kindergarten - at least a couple sentences per entry.

In Kindy, writing was the one thing my daughter got wrote home about. The kindy teacher felt that she didn't write quick enough or independant enough. :glare:This is a direct note from her KINDERGARTEN teach last year in JANUARY:

"Thanks for your concern and willingness to work with E on her writing. E is having difficulty constructing a sentence on her own. She writes a word or two and then becomes stumped , not able to finish her sentence or story.Sometimes she just sits on it for 15 minutes or longer. I am not sure if she loses focus once she's started or if she is too worried about perfection to try it on her own. But she really labors over the task. I have been trying to encourage her to use what she knows, her letter sound knowledge to aproximate text ( stretch out the word and write the sounds she hears). I am not looking for perfect spelling , but merely an attempt to write the words she doesn't know. She is expected though to write the high frequency words that she does know or use the word wall and student dictionary that I made for them. "

1st grade only started two weeks ago. My daughter says they do a lot of writing in science so far. This week is the first week of spelling lists and she has to write ten "good" sentences, using the 10 spelling words (cat, hat, mat, up, down, at, man, can ran). What the heck they mean by "good" I'm not sure.

I expect the writing to ramp up in the next month, if last year was any indictation. Is all this writing at this age the right method. Probably not, but the reality is that public school (at least here where we live) expect it and push it hard.

HTH!

[Renee in FL]

Thanks, Erin. She wouldn't go to FL ps, but what you wrote is what I was thinking.

High-frequency words is one I hadn't though of. I will definitely add that to the mix.

[Melinda in VT]

It's been four years since I've had first graders, but I was surprised at how much writing they do at our school.

In first grade, they wrote descriptions (of their home, for example), short stories, poems, and short reports (for example, one paragraph about a planet).

I should say that we have a great public school, with a strong writing program, and all our classrooms are multi-age, so I don't know how indicative my kids' experience is of what you are likely to encounter.