Showing Writing Growth
Do you dread the words “progress monitoring, data, and assessments”? You’re not the only one! “I love assessing my students and continuously monitoring their growth instead of doing fun activities.” –said no teacher ever! Unfortunately, we all live in the day and age when we must keep track of the data so we can measure our students’ growth throughout the year. It’s not all bad, though. How amazing is it to compare that first writing sample at the start of the year to the final writing piece in June! My Monthly Writing Portfolio will make your life so much easier when it comes to data collection and it will thrill your parents!
Baby Steps
Writing is one of the most difficult subjects to teach to young children. Not only are you struggling to get children to understand the proper mechanics such as capitalization and punctuation, but you are also tasked with turning them into the next Nicholas Sparks or Stephen King. It’s not just frustrating to you as the teacher, though. The kids also get overwhelmed when you tell them to write a paragraph – not to mention the upper elementary kids who have to write a full-blown essay!
This Monthly Writing portfolio is just what teachers and students need to break this monumental task into bite size pieces. Start the year off with one of my colorful (or black and white) writing prompts. Tell you kiddos that each masterpiece will be saved each month and at the end of the year they will get to present their “book” to their parents.
Having a goal in mind will help the students take more pride in their work. They’ll also be so excited to compare their progress each month.
Brownie Points
a’la Mode
Did I mention how great you’ll look when you arrive at your RTI meetings, child study meetings, and other time-consuming meetings with this tasty morsel? Picture it: your fellow teachers are scrambling to come up with samples of their students’ work while you seamlessly whip out a portfolio of written work from each month. You’ll be the shining star of all the meetings – but watch out – the other teachers may be tossing pencils at you!
One Year of Memories = Priceless to the Parent
Thanksgiving turkeys, Snowmen globes, Valentine hearts, and Leprechauns may end up in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a drawer. However, imagine the tears of joy your students’ parents will cry when they are presented with a yearlong packet of writing passages from their darling dears! This is not some cutout gingerbread man that will be forgotten, my friends. This is the proof that every parent needs: their child is destined for greatness! Whether it’s the future songwriting Beyonce or the brooding Ernest Hemingway of your class- your parents will be forever grateful for memories that last a lifetime.
The best part is that my writing bundle comes in an English and Spanish version, colored and black and white, and it has handwriting lines differentiated to meet the needs of different stages. You’ll be able to pick and choose from 3 prompts per month and see the progression in fine motor skills as well as writing content growth.
The Write Way
With all that you have on your plate this year, I hope that this Monthly Writing Assessment can make your life a little easier. Hopefully those little ones who dreaded picking up a pencil in September are the same ones who won’t put it down in May!
