The most amazing transformation in Kindergarten is in writing. I love to see the children begin to be able to write stories, letters and poems. I begin teaching them to write by writing together. We will decide on a class story (usually only one or two sentences long) and then we write it together on the white board. It is a loud process- we sound out the words and the child who shouts out the next letter first gets to come and write in on the board. This single short lesson introduces so many things, it is amazing. We will review how to start and end a sentence and how many words in our stories. The children who are already reading and writing will pick up on concepts like using a period or a blend of sounds like "ing". The children who are just beginning will get exposure to letter sounds and see the concept of what a word is.

Here the children are writing a story about Santa Claus coming soon.

During writing time each child will write at their own level. The following are examples of what the children wrote. The stories were all written during a two week period just at the beginning of December.

In the beginning the child's story will often be mostlybe a picturewith some letters. When they come to tell me the story I get to learn alot about their oral literacy. Oral development ismy schools goal and during writing time I can really begin to get them to go further not only with their writing but through questioning expand their oral proficiency. This is half day Kindergarten, so all the children are English speaking but I find that many children have a limited vocabulary.

Steven has drawn a picture of his family at science world and has experiment with lots of letters for his story.

Abigail likes to write what she is comfortable with. But Abigail has an amazing story to go with her writing.

Brian is experimenting with different letters.

In the next stage of writing the children begin to match some of the sounds. They usually match the beginning sounds. The vowel sounds are usually the last to come. I love this stage because the children will begin to write their stories and if you know what to look for you can read the whole story. The children are not restricted to writing only the words that they know. This is hard for adults to understand but if a child is only limited to the words they know they couldn't write in Kindergarten. The sounding out allows for them to really break down a word and will help with reading later on.

Benjamin has started the word snowman.

Dylan has written " i pmcmtram". The translation is I putmy Christmas tree up. He has matched letters in put, my , christmas and tree.

Juliann also wrote about putting up her Christmas tree with her Dad.

Finally, the children will begin to match even more sounds and then spell some words correctly.

This may not happen in Kindergarten but Ihopethat they will all begin to match sounds.

IAll of these children are working at grade level or above. Writing time is a time for each child to work at their own level and allows me to challenge each child in different ways. In Kindergarten I find that they are not judgmental abouteach others work and usually accept that everyone is doing something different. I try to remind the children that not everyone learns todo things at the same time.