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In early elementary school, most children have gained an initial understanding of phonics, which is the correspondence between letter patterns (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). As students write, some of the words may have the correct initial letter and a few other correct letters. The WriteReader learning tool is a perfect playground for emergent writers to…

By LeNaye Pearson, English Language Learners, Cheatham County School District, Ashland City, Tennessee, USA   Templates are a great way to have the students write, even when there is limited computer access. Some of my students have limited technology and cannot easily interact with WriteReader online. I use the templates that are available on WriteReader,…

As they begin kindergarten, most children are transitioning from the audio storytelling phase of preschool and are beginning to apply some early emergent writing skills. These students are eager to “write” and tell what they know, but often need support as well as help identifying topics to write about. One important way to increase young…

The best way to start the journey towards acquisition of the written language is by introducing young children to writing through creative and meaningful literacy activities.  One important way to increase young children’s understanding and motivation for producing written language is by making them proud authors based on their current developmental stage, then step by…

You may think that templates and creativity are opposites, but for many students, support, scaffolding, and frameworks are an important step to kickstarting the creative process. That said, it’s always important to give students the space needed to unleash their creativity without losing focus on the matter. Sound complicated? It doesn’t have to be.  …