Annie began reading, the first few words showing strong attempted spelling, "I went to the forest and followed a path...." As she continued, her stamina for attempted spelling waned. Her enthusiasm and eagerness to share did not change! She kept reading her story with fluency and excitement. When Annie finished, she turned to the class, and the writers greeted her with silent applause and Annie beamed.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Last week I promised to share student work and my reflections after a week of Getting Kids Excited About Writing. As I listened to teachers talk about their plans to support the earliest demands of their writers,  "What do I write about?"  I began to wonder, "What if we… Continue reading A Weeks Reflections and Student Work

So how do we help these young storytellers bring their stories to paper? How do we show them these are the stories writers write? I think we begin by getting our kids excited, really excited, like "I can do this, let me write NOW! Excited.