Second, it expresses the idea that all people can work together to support those in need and improve the well-being of one’s community, which is empowering for young children. First, it aims to communicate the importance of valuing the positive and beautiful things in one’s community, which promotes an assets-orientation. At the end of the story, we learn that their destination is a soup kitchen where they volunteer to feed the people in their community. As the story progresses, Nana teaches CJ to appreciate the experience of riding the bus, the people they encounter, and the beauty that is all around their neighborhood. At the beginning of the story, CJ is upset that he has to ride the bus while his friends get to ride in a car. The story is about a young boy named CJ and his grandmother (Nana), who take a trip on the city bus through their urban neighborhood. We love this endearing story, and we especially love observing young children as they connect with and discuss the ideas in it. In the writing sample shared above and in the photos shown below, the children engaged with the book Last Stop on Market Street, written by Matt de la Peña and illustrated by Christian Robinson. After each read aloud, the children write/compose/draw in their journals about one of the questions or big ideas they discussed during the read aloud. All of this “building the field” cultivates children’s comprehension of the layered meanings in the story and their awareness of the powerful language used in it. By the third day, the children discuss the themes or life messages in the story. The process starts with several days of interactive read alouds (stage 1: building the field), during which teachers use interactive reading techniques, promote peer-to-peer discussions about the literal and deeper meanings in the story, and draw children’s attention to the illustrations and language used in the story, including vocabulary, dialogue, and figurative language. Using the five stages of the TLC with stories takes about five days. A graphic representation of the TLC is provided below. To begin with, we share a supportive framework - the Teaching and Learning Cycle (TLC) - that we use to scaffold young children’s extended discussions about complex stories, their comprehension of the literal and deeper meanings in the stories, and their ability to write their own engaging and language-rich stories.
These are all great questions, and this short blog post offers some ideas to address them, along with some resources that preschool through first grade (PK-1) teachers can add to their instructional repertoires. “Their stories don’t seem to have any of the vocabulary I taught them.“How do I get my kids to write more interesting stories? Are they too young to learn this?”.“Is it okay to work with complex stories? Will the kids understand them? Isn’t it a good idea to focus on lower level texts first and build them up?”.
#CHILDRENS STORY WRITING HOW TO#
“I’m not sure how to get my students to talk more about the complex storybooks we read together.”.Written by Pamela Spycher, Senior Research Associate and Project Director for WestEd’s Leading with Learning.Įarly grades teachers often ask us the following questions about supporting young children to engage with, understand, and write stories:
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