What Writing Skills Should You Review at the Beginning of the Year?
I like to think of the first few weeks of school as “Boot Camp”. I want to front load my school year to help sidestep some challenges later in the year. Of course this includes making sure routines, procedures, and expectations are firmly put in place, but what about writing skills?
Throughout the year there will be writing skills that your curriculum ASSUMES your students are already know…figurative language, basic grammar, punctuation, synonyms, alphabetical order…the list goes on and on. But that summer slide is a BEAST, and many times those writing skills go right along with it.
Here are the writing skills that I like to review at the beginning of the school year!
Writing Stamina: Yes, it’s a skills, and YES it needs to be practiced! One of my favorite ways to practice writing stamina is with picture writing!
Here’s how it works…
Project a picture on the board. It can be any picture you want! *see below for pictures i’ve used in the past!*
Set a timer for 15 minutes.
Have your students find a cozy place in the room to write
Set the timer, and have your students spend the ENTIRE 15 minutes writing about the picture. It can be a story, a memory that it brings up, whatever they want it to be! The only rules are, they must be quiet and they must keep writing!
At the end of the 15 minutes, those who would like to share may do so. They can put their work into their writing binder, and come back to it later in the year if they would like!
The next time you do picture writing, set the timer for 20 minutes, and increase by fives until they can increase their stamina for a whole 30 minutes!
Figurative Language: prevent those blank stares when using words like similes, metaphors, and idioms by helping your students to brush up on their figurative language skills. Need a way to do that? I’ve got you!
Synonyms + Antonyms: “What’s a synonym again?”. If you DON’T want to hear that this year, review those synonyms and antonyms within those first few weeks.
Grammar: Grammar and and punctuation are already BEASTS to tackle during that writing block. Front load their understanding of proper grammar and punctuation by reviewing it during that back to school time.
Dictionary Skills: If I had a dime for every time my students (yes, even upper elementary) asked me how to spell a word and I told them to look it up, I’d be rich. Many students aren’t able to efficiently look up a word in the dictionary, so practicing that skill at the beginning of the year is key!
Parts of Speech: nouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions? I can already see the blank stares. Go over those, just do it!
Pro Tip: As you go through the year, keep a little list of those skills (writing or otherwise) that your curriculum assumes your students already know. That little list can help guide what you need to review at the beginning of each school year!
May your coffee be strong and your students be calm fellow teachers!
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