Foundation Class 

Fun and Engaging Writing in Prep

When students engage in writing tasks, not only are they learning to be capable young writers, they are also practicing many of the important skills needed to become successful readers, giving attention to letter detail, letter order, sound sequences, letter sequences and the links between messages in oral language and messages in print. 

A primary focus for Prep students is to keep the excitement and confidence alive, while at the same time introducing them to the way written language works. Finding a balance is the key.

In the Prep classroom we have been making writing authentic, fun and engaging by including shared writing activities.

Dinosaurs are a very popular interest in our class and after the Dinosaur incursion a few weeks ago, there was a great opportunity to keep the interest going by completing some shared writing. 

The picture above was our writing prompt. We started our shared writing experience by building the field.

Building the field is about tuning children in. This gives all students in the class the opportunity to interact with the picture in depth before they begin to write.

I model the sorts of language students should strive to use, and examples at sentence level using words that the students have brainstormed to describe the setting, characters and what is happening in the picture.

Then the joint construction of the shared writing begins. This is a game changer in our class because the level of excitement to write with a partner is high. The students work in small groups jointly coming up with two or more connected sentences. This gives every student the chance to voice their ideas. 

All students must share the pen, meaning they all need to contribute writing in the way that matches their current level of transcription. The students are then asked to share their writing pieces with the class.

The level of confidence and willingness to write has increased due to our shared writing activities and in turn the Preps independent writing has shown huge improvements. I am really proud of all their efforts.