Writing Wednesday Tip

Hey everyone! Welcome back to another installment of my series call Writing Wednesday Tip. 

I am here to talk about sight words and the importance of daily practice. 

When I started teaching writing, I was scared to death. My love is and always has been teaching Reading. I love diving into a book and picking it apart. What took me a little while to understand, was that teaching writing was doing the same way. I am just using a different set of "glasses" as you would call it. I would read blog post on writing. I was just trying to find someway to help myself feel more confident in teaching writing all day.

Then it hit me!!!! DUH, MELINDA!!!! Do what you did with reading but look at it from the writers mind (craft if you want to call it). That was when I took note of what my students were doing. I teach in a Title 1 school and sometimes the lack of home support cause some students to be completely overwhelmed when it comes to the classroom. They are literally on their on with their learning and the practice of that learning. 

I would take notes on what I was seeing my students were doing with writing. It all came back to 2 things. Sight Words & Daily Practice of conventions

My students would tell me rules that they should apply in writing but then do the opposite. I started making slides so that they could practice all kinds of skills with conventions being apart of it. Here is an example of one of the slides. 

             

My students have a notebook and they do one slide everyday. I usually start this around mid-September after I have had time to really teach rules and procedures to my classes. 

Now as the school year has progressed the my sassy pants are starting to understand the concepts that is needed in writing. Although I have read where some feel this is the waste of instructional time, I see the opposite. I get the chance to teach nonstop through it. 

Now my first grade class needs to work on stretching sentences. A while back I created a Stretch your Sentence product. If you would like that click HERE. It is free. 

This leads me to sight words. I spend a lot of time trying to build sight words with my kids so that when they are in Reading class, 1. It will be a little easier with fluency. 2. It will make writing a little easier. 

I have been working hard at having the kids playing loopy loop. This sight word game is my sassy pants favorite thing to play on Friday. They beg for it. If you would like a copy, just click here and it will take you to my TPT store and you can get the latest copy. 

I hope that today you see that the many connections we make between Reading and Writing, the better it will help in the development of story later.