Develop Kindergarten Writing Skills
Kindergartners learn to write by advancing through different writing levels. Most children enter kindergarten with basic writing skills that include scribbling and drawing. As writing skills develop, kindergartners move through the different levels at various speeds. Common early writing skills include writing letters to describe ideas, using letters to create words that may or may not be spelled correctly to describe a picture or idea, short written sentences in response to a question and daily journal writing with or without writing prompts.
Steps
- Make sure that all students have strong letter recognition skills. You cannot teach kindergarten writing to children who struggle with letter recognition. It's okay if they write some letters backwards, as long as they know what all letters look like.
- Teach children that writing goes from left to right by demonstrating on a chalk or white board.
- Assess each child's writing level by providing a short sentence for the kids to copy. As children advance, begin writing short paragraphs or stories for the kids to copy daily.
- Create a word wall with common sight words that children commonly need to use in writing. This will appeal to students with a natural writing ability, since they know they are spelling and using the words correctly in their writing.
- Integrate kindergarten writing activities with drawing or painting. Kids enjoy being creative, and being able to write about something that they created will help them relate personally to the writing.
- Have them draw anything they want and write a sentence or words describing the picture. For young kindergartners, don't focus on capitalization or punctuation until later in the year.
- Provide a question or fun idea for the kids to draw about, then have them write a sentence or words that describe the picture.
- Mesh your writing instruction with phonics instruction. As kids begin to remember all the letter sounds, they can start trying to spell words on their own. This helps them write independently and advance from using only a few letters in their writing to creating words, although many will be misspelled.
- Use a handwriting copybook or worksheets throughout the year. The repetition will insure that kids know proper pencil direction when writing letters and understand how to write upper- and lower-case letters on lined paper.
- Have students keep a writing journal. Encourage kindergartners to write in their journals daily, using a prompt you provide or their own idea. There are writing journals available that have a large blank space on top for an illustration and lined paper beneath for a sentence or story.
- Take a mid-year assessment to determine how to develop kindergarten writing skills for the rest of the year. This will let you know if students are ready to move onto the minor mechanics of writing, such as adding periods and capitalization, or if they still need help organizing and writing down ideas.
