Kindergarteners

come to school for the first time with a wide variety of writing experiences.
While some may only be able to scribble, others come with a knowledge of letter-sound
relationships and can write using invented spelling. Teachers take these students with all their
strengths and challenges as far as developmentally possible exposing them to various writing
genres and a multitude of formal and informal writing experiences (Keaton, Palmer, Nicholas &
Lake, 2007).


Writers Workshop is a major component of formal writing instruction in the classroom. It
consists of Read Alouds, mini lessons, status of the class, independent writing and sharing. The
teacher chooses meaningful, high-interest stories for the read aloud that demonstrate a writing
technique or genre that students have the opportunity to mimic during independent writing.
Students choose a topic and share their own ideas (Haeny, 2013). At the end of the writing
block, student share what they have written with partners, small groups or whole class (Jones,
2015; Tompkins, 2012).

Teachers can incorporate writing in the classroom throughout the school day. Allowing
students to practice writing throughout the day increases the amount of time they are actually
writing and as a result helps them become better writers (Keaton, Palmer, Nicholas & Lake,
2007)

Students can draw their favorite part of a story read aloud and include a sentence about what is
happening in the drawing. Students are better able to transfer this learning to when they are
writing their own stories independently. A key goal is to have the writing match the picture.

Teachers can incorporate writing during play by making various writing materials available to
students in areas other than the writing center (Gerde, Bingham & Wasik, 2012).
The dramatic play area can become a:
Restauranthave children create menus for their own restaurants, write down orders, can
differentiate by including prices and have students total the cost.

Homehave students write grocery lists, to do lists, notes to teacher, recipes.

Post officestudents can write letters to classmates, address envelopes and apply stickers
for stamps.

By having many opportunities to write and coaching from teachers, students develop
proficiency with the writing process and the six traits of writing (Lamme, Danling, Johnson, &
Savage, 2002). Other research findings show that kindergarten writing is an indicator of later
literacy skills including decoding, comprehension and spelling (Gerde, Bingham & Wasik, 2012).