Paired Writing Write Away What must you be

Paired Writing

Write Away What must you be able to do to write a sentence?

What other people said… O Form letters correctly and easily, O Spell, O Think of what to say, O Know which order to write the words in, O Know where to put punctuation marks.

Too much at once O For some people remembering all of these things can be too much at once. O Once they have had more practice of each of those areas of writing they can find it easier to write.

Build a tower O Build a tower using toothpicks and mini marshmallows as tall as a 30 cm ruler in 5 minutes.

How was that? There was nothing that you couldn’t do, but you may have needed to: O Plan before you started, O Change your ideas because you encountered a problem, O Needed help (because you didn’t have enough hands), O Overcome a feeling that you couldn’t do it, even before you started, O Stop comparing your work with others and learn to focus.

Putting it all together O For many people, they can write letters, they can work out how to spell words, they know what they want to write but holding all of these things in their heads (working memory) is too much. O The more they are given help to practice it all together, the easier it becomes.

What are you good at? O Take a couple of minutes to discuss what you are good at and why you are good at it.

Einstein said …

Rights and Responsibilities O Just because you are good at writing, doesn’t mean that you are better than anyone else. O We all have the right to learn. O We all have the responsibility to help others learn what we know.

What do we do as paired writing partners?

Think I don’t know what to write. Don’t dictate a sentence but use prompts such as questions, pictures, and experiences, I like football.

Think, speak. O Ask the young person to say their first sentence. O You may feel that the sentence could be better so you may ask questions to help them think of ways to develop it. Who? What? Where? When? Why? I like playing football as long as I’m in goals!

Think, speak, write O Once the sentence has been agreed on, repeat the sentence several times. O Next the Young Person decides what level of help they want.

Sound, write O If the Y. P. asks you to write a word, sound it out first and show to write each sound. ch – i – ck – e – n sh – a - pe Underline any digraphs and split digraphs. chicken shape

Read, Write O The young person then checks the writing. O They read it to make sure that it makes sense. O They look to see if there any words that think may be spelled wrongly. O They look to make sure that the punctuation is correct. O Then you check for meaning, spelling and punctuation. O Then a fair copy is written.

… and repeat! O If a longer piece of writing is required, complete the process with the next sentence.

Let’s practice O Get into pairs. O Decide who is going to be the helper and who is the Y. P. O Go through the process 5 times, each time choosing a different option (level of support). O Remember to encourage and point out effort and progress.