Ideas Communicated in Writing: Scaffolding Learning From Level 1
Indicators of Progress
- Students write strings of words to recount experiences, and simple texts to describe familiar topics or to convey ideas or messages.
- Students form and express simple ideas, reasons, or opinions. In their writing they use high-frequency words that are relevant to the topic, for example, they use appropriate words for a scary film they have seen or a visit to a farm.
- Students access words using resources such as books they have read, personal dictionaries, environmental print and word lists
- Students write a simple instruction using an informative form/structure that specifies an action.
- Students write a simple list of two or three items.
- Students write a description of two or three simple sentences, for example, about their family or their pets.
- Students write a caption for a picture they have drawn.
- Students write some key information about themselves, where they live, their phone number
Teaching Strategies
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Pets.
Organising phase
Refining planning for increased interest level
Students are asked: Could we make the writing more interesting? Do you think your families would like a little puzzle? We can have some pages where the picture shows Ann or Sam, and your mum and dad have to remember what their pets were. Teachers demonstrate what it could look like?
Plan for writing topic using word strings
A picture of each student attached to a blank pages to create a planning book. We could ask people to remember what their pet was. Under Ann’s picture we could ask Does Ann have a dog? Assemble this with word cards. What could we put under Angelo’s picture? Lead the students to suggest questions for each of the students and to find the appropriate word on a word card.
Students discuss whether it would be useful or interesting to follow each question mentioned above with the correct answer. They assemble the following pages. After students have discussed how they will say the answer to each question, they assemble it again using stick-on word cards for key words to make a word string . For example:
No No No
Ann Sam Angelo
dog rabbit bird
cat fish kitten
Student Self-reflection: am I ready to write?
Students reflect on whether they feel ready to continue with the writing or whether they would prefer additional planning and collation activities. Students ask questions for example:
- Am I ready to write about my pet?
- What more do I need to know before I begin to write?
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Pets.
Composing phase
Conveying ideas/messages: Writing strings of words
Students select words from the general word reading list to convert the word string on each page of their planning book to a sentence. They read each word and then select the words they need to complete each sentence. They, for example, arrange the word cards into sentences as shown below and read each sentence.
Ann has a white cat called Cuddles Glug
Sam has a gold fish called Tweety
Jack has a yellow bird called
Writing simple sentences on one topic
Students are shown a picture of one of the students with her / his pet and write several sentences about it by varying the sentence form. The focus is on writing complete simple sentences in which the words are sequenced appropriately. The students can begin by making sentences using the sentence cards, then finish off the sentences and finally write multiple sentences for a picture. For example:
Cuddles is Ann's white cat
The white cat is called Cuddles
Ann's cat is white
Ann likes her white cat
The cat Ann is holding is called Cuddles
Using writing conventions: simple sentences
Finishing off sentences: For example:
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Khalid
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has
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a
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brown
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Boxer
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is
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Khalid's
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The
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brown
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dog
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is
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called
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Khalid's
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dog
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is
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Using writing conventions: simple and compound sentences
Students experiment with combining or expanding sentences, particularly after their initial sentence drafts and achieve written sentence fluency by using sentence-linking words.
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Pets.
Learning consolidation phase
Identifying what has been learnt
Students review what they have learnt about how to write a description about pets. They identify what goes into a description. They review their writing and describe how the text develops. From this they can put together a plan for writing other descriptions in the future, for example:
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Plan for writing a description
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| Title of the text | The text is called Pets |
| What the text is about | The text is about the pets our friends have |
| Who has each pet | Ann's pet, Sam's pet, Angelo's pet... |
| Questions about the pets | Does Ann have...? Does...? |
| Answers | Ann has... Sam has... |
| The end | We love our pets |