For students with emerging writing skills, taking that step from writing single sentences to writing a complete paragraph can be a big jump. A great way to help your students over the hurdle is to utilize a modeling intervention called Scribe & Copy. This will help get your kids in the routine of writing more than one sentence on one topic, using correct sentence structure, and expand their abilities related to more complex writing. If not, you may get stuck in that single sentence zone for eternity. Ugh.
- When I give my students a writing prompt, I first have them talk about it. This is a great opportunity to practice loads of wh- questions and really get them to expand their vocabulary and some real detail.
- As they are chatting away, write down what they say. Model the correct was to structure their sentences. Many of my kids will use incorrect noun verb agreement or sentence structure. When they say, “winter is sledding,” model the correct phrasing of “In the winter, I go sledding.”
- Once you get the whole paragraph down, then they copy the paragraph down. Prompt for nice writing, using the entire line, and making sure not to skip words.
- Practice, practice, practice! The key to increasing this skill is practice. You want your kids to get in the habit of writing longer paragraphs and hearing and writing the correct sentences. Hearing your model the correct sentence structure will eventually lead to independently displaying this skill! This builds student confidence and is hugely effective for those kiddos who hate writing!
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