Sequences in Writing, Grades K-13

Book Report #1

Sequences in Writing is a handy little paperback book that is easy for the reader to understand and put into practice. This handy little writing book is broken into four areas of content. The following areas are:

ƒ Sequences of Instruction, K-3-Gail Siegel

ƒ Sequences of Instruction, Intermediate Grades-Lynda Chittenden

ƒ Sequences of Instruction, 9-12-Jean Jensen

ƒ Teaching the Basic Student-Jan Wall

I found the section of instruction on K-3 to be very informative for myself because I teach 3^rd grade reading/writing and also 5^th grade writing. This section describes the four stages from speech to writing.

#1 The Transcribing Stage- this is when the pre-writer needs to have their spoken language changed into written language by an adult. This stage is used primarily in the K-1 grades. I have also noticed that some third graders are still in need of this stage. Students in this stage are able to share in a fluent and excited way what they want to say, but when asked to write this down, they suddenly are stuck and end up with very little on the paper.

#2 The Re-copying Stage- this is when the young person is able to re-copy what the teacher writes on the board. I see this used quite often in first grade. Children in this stage are encouraged to illustrate along with their recopying of the teacher's writing. In this way the student is able to express herself through the illustrations and obtain the awareness of the written word.

#3 The Sentences/Whole Phrases Stage- The student is starting to feel at ease with words and makes attempts to write down their thoughts in an independent manner.

#4 Independent Stage-During this stage children gain more confidence and become independent writers who occasionally ask the teacher for spelling, etc. Their writing is gaining more cohesiveness.

In The Intermediate Section the student is developing from Fluency to Coherence to Correctness. The author shares some of her previous students' examples of writing in all of these areas. This section is very helpful to the teacher because it provides you with the tools to assess where your student is at in his/her writing skills.

The Sequences of Instruction, 9-12 provides the reader with different ideas for the writing experience. It provides ideas for assignments, clustering, editing groups, and revision.

Teaching the Basic Student provides an easy to understand 18-week writing course. In all, this book provides some nice foundational information for the stages of writing. This book would be especially helpful to the first year teacher.