Introduction
I teach very curious, kind, energetic, shy, stubborn, and surprising kindergartners. They are all eager to learn, and really enjoy Math and English! We have great conversations and the students love to listen to stories and work with manipulatives. But, when we do anything that involves, writing my students moan and suddenly become tired.
My students have little to no experience with writing. Many of my students experienced holding a pencil and writing their name in my class for the first time. While monitoring my students as they write, I have noticed that many students will not write anything independently without my help. Even writing their names, many students will not copy or free write and will request that I write with highlighter so they can trace. I have also observed that when I try and motivate my students to write their names and words independently by either copying or sounding out the letters, they show low self-esteem. I hear a lot of “I can’t” or the students simply do not try at all. I am very worried about my class and their future writing skills, so I decided to do a classroom survey to see what the students' feel about writing. I explained to them that they didn't need to write their name on this paper and that it was used to help me teach the class better. I had pictures of happy faces and they circled whichever one they felt when I asked the question:
Do you like to write?
Happy face: I love it
Straight face: Sometimes
Sad face: I don't like it
Below is a graph of both of my classes survey answers.
I teach very curious, kind, energetic, shy, stubborn, and surprising kindergartners. They are all eager to learn, and really enjoy Math and English! We have great conversations and the students love to listen to stories and work with manipulatives. But, when we do anything that involves, writing my students moan and suddenly become tired.
My students have little to no experience with writing. Many of my students experienced holding a pencil and writing their name in my class for the first time. While monitoring my students as they write, I have noticed that many students will not write anything independently without my help. Even writing their names, many students will not copy or free write and will request that I write with highlighter so they can trace. I have also observed that when I try and motivate my students to write their names and words independently by either copying or sounding out the letters, they show low self-esteem. I hear a lot of “I can’t” or the students simply do not try at all. I am very worried about my class and their future writing skills, so I decided to do a classroom survey to see what the students' feel about writing. I explained to them that they didn't need to write their name on this paper and that it was used to help me teach the class better. I had pictures of happy faces and they circled whichever one they felt when I asked the question:
Do you like to write?
Happy face: I love it
Straight face: Sometimes
Sad face: I don't like it
Below is a graph of both of my classes survey answers.
It was very interesting to see that both classes had almost identical outcomes, however a personal opinion assessment such as this can fluctuate depending on the time of day and day in general, particularly with kindergartners. Even so, given these results, it is safe to say that most of the children in both classes don't have a love for writing. Knowing that my students do not like to write, I know that there is the lack of motivation to learn to write and write on their own. I also know from the classroom environment that even though I will go around and write the words for them to copy down, that they have no motivation to learn to do it independently, because they know I will do it for them. Therefore, my students lack of interest and motivation to learn to write could be because of my response to do it for them. It also could be low self-esteem about their writing, since they have never been introduced to it before.
At the beginning of the year I graded half of my students' CELDT tests. The majority of my students took this test and after seeing the results from the survey I went back to my copies and looked at their writing scores. In the writing section, all of my students scored “Beginner” except for a few who scored “Early Intermediate.” I then decided to assess the whole class on their writing and had them write single letters and then copy three letter words on a lined piece of paper. After looking at the results, I could see that I had many students who were unable to copy letters and words correctly. Many of the students’ who were able to copy the letters, had no alphabetic or phonetic awareness of the letters.
I am aware that the majority of this Kindergarten class have not attended preschool and have no help at home in learning. So, instead of taking these results and feeling anxious I used them to learn about my students and now I will use these assessments to change my curriculum in writing to increase their self-esteem, in order to create independent writers. Writing independently without my assistance with tracing will give me more freedom to help individual students grow in their writing. It will also give them the self-esteem and independence they will need to continue to grow as writers as the curriculum becomes more rigorous.
Writing is an important area for students to learn and to help foster early growth in school In the book, "Why Writing Matters" by the National Writing Project and Carl Nagin. It clearly states that:
I hope to discover:
How can I nurture writing independence among my kindergarten students?
At the beginning of the year I graded half of my students' CELDT tests. The majority of my students took this test and after seeing the results from the survey I went back to my copies and looked at their writing scores. In the writing section, all of my students scored “Beginner” except for a few who scored “Early Intermediate.” I then decided to assess the whole class on their writing and had them write single letters and then copy three letter words on a lined piece of paper. After looking at the results, I could see that I had many students who were unable to copy letters and words correctly. Many of the students’ who were able to copy the letters, had no alphabetic or phonetic awareness of the letters.
I am aware that the majority of this Kindergarten class have not attended preschool and have no help at home in learning. So, instead of taking these results and feeling anxious I used them to learn about my students and now I will use these assessments to change my curriculum in writing to increase their self-esteem, in order to create independent writers. Writing independently without my assistance with tracing will give me more freedom to help individual students grow in their writing. It will also give them the self-esteem and independence they will need to continue to grow as writers as the curriculum becomes more rigorous.
Writing is an important area for students to learn and to help foster early growth in school In the book, "Why Writing Matters" by the National Writing Project and Carl Nagin. It clearly states that:
- Writing needs to be addressed in all subject matter and not just in English.
- Writing instruction should begin at the earliest of grades.
- That writing needs to be taught and differentiated for students, because students don't learn how to write in the same way.
- That writing needs to be learned and used the same way real writers write, and that is for an audience.
- That students’ don't need a lot of writing assignments to become better writers, but they need on going support on how to organize thoughts, develop ideas and revise for clarity.
- Learning to write helps promote more professional and educational opportunities.
I hope to discover:
How can I nurture writing independence among my kindergarten students?
- What happens to students self-esteem when they learn to write independently?
- How will learning to write for an audience aide in my kindergartners writing development?
- How are writing enjoyment and proficiency connected?