For the first couple of weeks, please work on making simple and legible sentences with your child. This would be a great time to incorporate some of those Dolch Words that they have to be able to spell by the end of the year! Then work on writing sentences to make small stories with a beginning, middle, and end.

--Please see the note below to know what is expected of your child on their first writing assessment!

Dear Parent(s),

We are working on writing stories with a beginning, middle, and end.  Our first writing assessment will be October 20th, 2009.  PLEASE take about 15-20 minutes a couple of days a week to work on writing a story.  This writing assessment will be a personal narrative. The topic will be similar to these:  Tell me about a time you were happy, scared, excited, or sad.  Please work on capitalization, punctuation, and complete sentences.  The story must have a beginning, middle and end to be scored! Your child needs to have decipherable spelling (not perfect).  He/she needs to focus on writing all the sounds that they hear in the word.  Thank you for helping us to help your child be more successful!

Mrs. Crouse

Mrs. Sexton

How do we score your child's writing?

Scoring rubric for writing assessments:

2- Exhibits proficiency

1-Minimal proficiency

0-Lacks proficiency

End of year expectations:

Focus-Writes sentences focused on one small moment

Organization-Emphasizes a sense of story with beginning, middle, and end

Support and Elaboration- Adds detail to tell more (ex. seeing, hearing, and feeling). Includes characters and setting in writing

Style-Begins sentences in various ways.  Uses words to make the writing clear (nouns, verbs, and adjectives).  Begins to use transition words to move story (first, next, then, last, etc)

Conventions-Spells high frequency words and 1^st grade word list correctly.  Uses initial, medial, and final sounds in all other words.  Capitalizes the beginning of a sentence, proper nouns and the pronoun “I.” Uses a period, question mark, or exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.  Writes complete sentences neatly and legibly.

Examples of good writing!

First, I went to Walmart. (B)
Next, Mom picked out a new book for me. (M)
Then, we paid for it and I said "Thank You Mom!"  (E)

First, I climbed onto the trampoline. (B)
Next, I jumped with my friends in the air. (M)
Then, we high-fived each other. We had fun! (E)