7. Supporting Striving Writers

Kindergarten Cafe Podcast

Today we are talking about how to support our beginning writers in kindergarten. Writing is the hardest time of day for many of our students, and that completely makes sense. Think about all the executive function skills that you need in writing. You need to be able to stop your impulses and sit still and plan out what you're going to write. Figure out how you're going to write it, and then remember what you are going to write as you're sounding out the words. I mean, it is a lot for little writers. This is where I see my kids struggle the most is writing, but again, it makes sense given all the demands we're putting on them. So today, I'm going to talk with you about how I support my beginning writers, the ones that come in not knowing how to write yet in kindergarten.

In this episode I share:

• Writing starts with a good foundation of fine motor skills
• Drawing being a key piece to beginning writers
• Oral language development is another important piece to writing - we can’t expect kids to write a story if they can’t tell a story
• The order in which students need to learn how to hear, read, and write

Resources Mentioned:

• Halloween Activities BUNDLE!
• Using Kindergarten Writing Prompts and Easy Warm-Ups to Improve Writing!
• How to Organize Your Kindergarten Morning Meeting
• 5 Simple Fine Motor Skills Activities
• Teaching Kids to Draw in Three Steps
• 4 Tips for Teaching Sentences to Beginning Writers
• Phonological awareness versus phonemic awareness: what and how to teach
• 3 Kindergarten Writing Activities to do Before Launching Writer’s Workshop
• Activities for kindergarten writing sentences in small groups
• 5 Ways to Blend Phonemes in Kindergarten
• Teaching Writing in Small Groups Bundle
• Vocabulary Activities for Kindergarten
• Writing Warm Up Slides
• Kindergarten Phonics Activities Bundle!

Connect with Zeba:

• Instagram - @kindergartencafe
• Facebook - @kindergartencafe
• Website - www.kindergartencafe.org
• Tik Tok - @kindergartencafe

Mentioned in this episode:

Felipe the Feeling Frog Book

Get your copy of Felipe the Feeling Frog to help your children learn different strategies for regulating emotions and identifying their feelings. You can find the book on Amazon or anywhere you get books!