This week it just so happened that Levi my four year old wanted to give me a "letter". This consisted of a bunch of "letters" written in no particular order on a blank page. He was so proud of himself and I was quick to acknowledge this milestone of an accomplishment for him and reassure him that he is becoming an actual writer. See the picture below.
My son Theo (first grade) participated in a fabulous activity in which he had to opportunity to practice at school the writing process. Students brainstormed ideas about what they wanted to learn this year. They then drafted these on a small piece of paper. This pre-write was actually a sketch. Students then had the opportunity to head off to the computer lab where they wrote down their ideas. They then had the opportunity to read what they had typed and consider making changes. These included adding other ideas or expanding on the ones they had already written. Changing the sentence structure (adding periods to actually form separate sentences, considering splitting up thoughts into more than one sentence). They also had a teacher, aide, and the lower school instructional technologist walk around and provide feedback. They then had the opportunity to make corrections in the lab based off this feedback. They then published their work on their newly created blogs. The links were then shared that night with parents. I just so happen to be picking him up early for a Dr's appointment that day and witnessed this entire amazing lesson plan unfold for about 15 minutes. It was incredible to see the writing process in action at such a young age. Below is a screen shot of his first online publication....at 6! Translation by the way is: I hope I get to learn about the moon, flowers, Topit and other games.
