Writing with year 1 students

After attending some helpful and inspiring PL with Jill Eggleton about the reading programme I have been reflecting on my writing programme too. I have two groups who are generally off task and one group who can work beautifully independently. I have had to think about how and when I see groups to provide the least disruption to the whole class. I am also trying to increase the opportunities for my learners to write. I used to have an independent group that I would conference with afterwards, a teacher group that I would write with and a group illustrating. I would model to the whole class so the independent group all had motivation of what they could write about.

I then worked out that my learners were writing 2 to 3 times a week and I wanted them to write 4 times a week to support their progress. This meant that I could better support them when they illustrated and they would illustrate group by group on a Friday.
I added some fine motor activities to my independent learners to keep them on task and engaged as they weren't ready for alphabet and word activities.
I have been supporting my beginning writers by showing them where to write their plan and working step by step with them everyday which is time consuming and difficult as they do not have my undivided attention. I try to let them write independently, do a piece of mirrored writing and work with me to record their ideas all over the course of a week.

In my search for ideas to support my writing lessons and to discover more about mirrored writing I googled Jill Eggleton and found this useful video. It reminded me that my modelling should be just to my teaching group and to allow for partner talk before independent writing. When I focus on a modelled group my lesson will support that group of learners better. Something to start tomorrow!

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