Shared Writing

Shared Writing
Modeling the writing process is similar to modeling the reading process. The children learn about the writing process by watching the teacher being involved in doing it. The teacher begins the writing by gathering the students around an easel and starts a discussion about a shared experience--it can be related to the focus theme. The teacher introduces the topic of discussion. The children share their ideas while the teacher records them on chart paper. As the teacher writes he/she verbalizes the skills he/she wants the children to learn about writing. She/he might verbalize the following:

1. How writing moves from left to right and top to bottom.
2. Review the formation of certain letters.
3. Stretch out sounds of words to model how they can do the same when they are attempting to spell words.
2. Make use of the words that are posted in their environment when trying to figure out how to spell them.
3. The use of capital letters and stop marks (periods, question and exclamation marks).

It is important that the children be actively involved in helping present ideas and attempting to spell new words.

Writing Center
This model can be posted in the writing center for the children to use in their own writing. This would need to be modified according to the group you are working with.