In what ways will implementing interactive writing strategies impact students with low literacy skills in a first grade classroom?

Seminar Title

In what ways will implementing interactive writing strategies impact students with low literacy skills in a first grade classroom?

Phonemic Awareness

1st Grade

Kindergarten

Language Arts

Writing

“Sound it out!” Does being asked how to spell words haunt your dreams? I was eager to embark in an action research journey that would address word writing with the lower achieving readers in my classroom. I believe interactive writing fits well into a balanced literacy framework as part of guided reading groups. Emergent literacy and child development were the grounding concepts which fueled my research. Interactive writing provides students with an opportunity to master letter sounds, work with words, and apply their phonics skills to writing. The activities and reading materials used in the lessons are developmentally appropriate and capture the attention of young readers. I noticed a greater excitement for writing in students who normally struggle. While this process was implemented in a first grade classroom, the structure of the lessons could be adapted for low readers at any grade level. Join me for a conversation about how to take advantage of the relationship between reading and writing to meet the needs of students!

My research began with an acknowledgement of the strong connection between reading and writing. After diving into the research behind both reading and writing instruction, several themes emerged. The concepts which guided my research included language, child development, emergent literacy, and interventions. I developed an implementation plan in which I prepared interactive writing lessons made up of letter review, word work, book reading, and interactive writing. Within the interactive writing lesson, the students and teacher share the writing tool in order to compose a sentence with accurate spelling to look back upon as a reading resource. Elkolin (word box) assessments, word writing inventories, and teacher observations were the data collection tools used to gauge the impact of my action research. By incorporating this process into my literacy workshop block, I have been reminded of the importance of the integration of reading and writing skills and strategies. Meeting students where they are developmentally was crucial in meeting the needs of the lowest group of readers in my class. I planned engaging, hands-on activities that would capture and maintain the attention of students while they reviewed the foundations of word writing. Students made gains in the words they correctly segmented into sound boxes. They also increased the number of words they could write independently on the word writing inventory. These combined factors positively impacted the confidence of the readers in my small group. Participating in action research strengthened my interest in reading instruction in conjunction with improving word writing mastery with my first grade students. I will continue to reassure students as they read by encouraging them to tap into their knowledge of how to write words based on their letter makeup. Another important consideration as I set goals in the area of writing is to find ways of using similar processes to enrich the learning of higher readers.