Book Review: Interactive Writing
Sadie Elliott

Andrea McCarrier, Gay Su Pinnell & Irene C. Fountas have done it again. Their book Interactive Writing is yet another well written guide to language and literacy development in the early primary grades. Organized into five useful sections it explains in how to engage young writers at an early age while using effective teaching strategies for young learners.

The interactive writing strategy is specifically focused and useful in the primary years grades K-2. In the first section it provides detailed information on enhancing your writing curriculum in the classroom using the interactive writing approach. These chapters offer practical advice on organizing space and materials and provides the ìnuts and boltsî of getting started. Communication tips about how to explain the program to colleagues, parents and administrators in this section are particularly helpful.

The second third and fourth sections of the book present an in-depth overview of engaging young writers and sharing the pen with them. There is a great discussion of essential elements in using interactive writing as a teaching tool as well as how to compose readable text word by word. Several chapters focus on examples of classroom work in small and whole group settings. These chapters provide a great synopsis of the strategy as well as assessment and observation protocol to track student progress.

The final section of the book introduces the research base and the ìwhyî of using interactive writing in the primary classroom. Moreover, the appendices of this book give teachers numerous resources: book lists, directions for making an easel, and self-assessment rubrics to track professional growth.

I have used the interactive writing approach in my own classroom and highly recommend this book as a starting point for any primary teacher. Using this approach with my own students, I saw incredible growth in their understandings of print, written and oral language. It is a kid-friendly teaching tool that engages young students and scaffolds instruction so that students of all levels can be successful. This book is highly recommended as a useful guide and tool for teachers who want to spice up their writing instruction.