Reading and Writing Workshop at Teacher's College

Dear Families:
Thank you to all of you who met with me last night. I enjoyed our one on one conversations very much. It was a very long night and I apologize for not keeping to the ten minute rule and for keeping some of you waiting so long. I hope it was worth the wait.

I would like to tell you that on Monday, November 24th, I will be attending a workshop at Teacher's College/Columbia University all day. We have a wonderful substitute teacher scheduled to work with our class - so please do not be concerned. I have left plans for her to work throughout the day. The prep that day is Art and it is scheduled for 2:15 until 3:00 in the Art Room. If any parent would like to help out in the art room on Monday and help the substitute teacher get the children ready for dismissal, it would be greatly appreciated.

I know that I have told you that one of my favorite subjects to teach children is writing. I just love to see the progression of the children from September to June - where they become independent author's of their own detailed pieces. I also love to learn as many good things about the writing process as I could so that I can become a better teacher for your children. The conference that I will be attending on Monday is called - "Conferring and Small Group Work to Support Small Moment Writing and Writing for Readers." Our instructer will be Natalie Louis who is that author of Writing for Readers - a book that I use as my bible for writing workshop. I am very excited to attend this conference.

When working in Kindergarten classrooms, it is easy to buy into the idea that little children cannot really articulate what they are trying to do as writers, and that they cannot really make plans and have intentions as writers. But that simply is not true! Five and six year old children absolutely want the chance to think about they they have already done, to imagine what they want to do, and to make deliberate choices and plans for how they will proceed. A good teaching of writing is teaching children to think about their writing..and this means, teaching kids how they can answer questions such as, "What are you working on as a writer?" and "What have you tried so far?" "How did it go?' "What were you thinking of doing next?" I love the small moment writing unit, so I hope to come away with some new ideas that will help your children enjoy it as much as I do and become better writers. I think it is important to show children how to go from KNOWING ABOUT to USING letters to communicate their stories. From their writing pieces so far, I know that they are ready to do this. After all, the only reason to learn about letters in the first place is because you have something to say. You know as well as I do how much they have to say!!!

I know that you can help them with this unit by noticing when your children does something that is a very tiny - SMALL - moment that you bring this small moment to their attention and say something like "wow, that is a small moment...that is something to write about when you write your small moments..." We want children to "zoom in on Small Moments" and then turn their small moments into stories that cross several pages. If you keep refering to the "small" moments that occur in their lives through the day, it will make them comfortable in knowing what to write about when the time comes for them to write. They will have many "small" moments in their repertoire.

Next week is our long Thanksgiving weekend. Our last day of school is Wednesday. Have a wonderful holiday.
Fondly,
Mrs. Graham