Guided Writing in the Early Grades

I have always taught in guided reading schools. Guided reading instruction was expected each and every day.  And to be honest, it was my favorite time of the day.  I would pull small groups of students back to a shared table.  The students were reading at approximately the same Fountas and Pinnell guided reading level. We would read, read, read, and read some more. I was proud that most of my students left my classes each year with the same joy in reading that I had.

Once a week though I liked to switch up my guided reading time and make it "guided writing" time.  The group membership would not be the same as the reading groups.  Students at approximately the same writing level would come back to my table on this day.  In first grade, there were students still working on forming their letters and sentence structure.  There were also students working on sentences and correct grammar and spelling.  The final group was the independent writers - those students that loved writing, were good at it, and could fill up a page with their own ideas very easily.

Each week, we would have had some sort of  whole class experience like a Norman Bridwell author study, or Pete the Cat read aloud, or an upcoming holiday.  Writing lessons would springboard off those shared experiences.  These are a sampling of the kinds of lessons I would do with my students.

** Click on each picture to go to the activity in TPT **

Focus:  Color Words

One week, for instance, we may have read Clifford books and watched the TV show or movie with the lovable big, red dog.  My guided writing lesson would focus on describing and color words. In this lesson, students choose a color other than red and describe their dog.

Here are the writing pages I would use for the three different levels:

Very often, the students' writing would go up in the hallway outside our room.  This particular resource has a giant dog poster that students can color and you can hang along with the writing samples.

Also along the lines of color words, the following writing project is perfect for the fall of the year.  I would read many, many fall themed books with the kiddos.  Among them "The Leaf Thief" by Alice Hemming, "Pete the Cat Falling for Autumn", "Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf" by Lois Ehlert.  I am sure you have just as many autumn books as I do!

After reading these books, we would write our own stories about the colors of fall leaves and what kiddos like to do with them.  In our area in Nebraska, kiddos have lots of experience playing in leaves.  In other parts of the US, students may not have those experiences.  That's why reading those books is helpful.

Focus:  Weather Related

It seems like the weather has gotten more extreme.  The droughts more dry, the rains more drenching, the cold more frigid, the heat more intolerable.  This writing activity deals with the hot temps and the ways we find to stay cool.  

It includes three levels of writing paper, flashcards to introduce the words "cool" and "hot" which will be used in the writing.  And picture/word cards that students can sort under whether these activities are "outside" or "inside".

Also included are five large summer clipart pages for students to color.  You can display the writing and the clipart pages for a wonderful hallway display.

** Click on each picture to go to the activity in TPT **

Focus:  Thank you letters

My mama always taught me to write a thank you letter - for a gift from grandma or a special camping trip with a friend's family.  So, I guess I just naturally transferred that to my students.  We would write thank yous to our principal for the special treat, the lunch ladies for the extra cookies, a tour guide on our state capitol field trip. 

We used the following template over and over and over again for each of these instances.  Three templates are included along with teaching cards that describe each of the parts of a friendly letter.  Students would write the message and draw an illustration appropriate for the particular event.

Focus:  Descriptive Writing

The goal of descriptive writing is to use words and sentences that will paint a picture in the readers mind.  With my young writers, I would start with everyone doing this activity that describes the colors and shapes of the American Flag.  It includes three levels of writing pages along with teaching aids showing the colors and shapes.  There is also a coloring page of the flag to accompany the writing.  I would this activity as a hallway display either for Veterans Day, Flag Day, or any other patriotic celebration.

From this activity, we would transition to more individualized descriptive writing projects.  I would encourage students to draw a picture with all the details they could.  Then, I encouraged them to orally tell our small group the colors, shapes, what was going on in the picture.  Our next step would be to try and get those words down on paper.  This type of descriptive project could be used over and over throughout the year.  It's amazing to see their growth.

** Click on each picture to go to the activity in TPT **

Focus:  'How to' Writing using Transition Words

This 'How to' writing activity using directed drawing soon became my students' most requested writing activity.  They loved drawing the picture step by step and then writing each step on their paper.  There are so many YouTube videos and Pinterest pages that show super easy drawing activities that can be completed in four or five steps.  Just find your favorite and go!

My TPT activity has two such directed drawing stories.  The 4-step one is drawing a frog face.  The 5-step story is drawing a mouse head.  I generally started with the frog.  I would guide the students drawing the first stage.  After we drew it, we brainstormed what the sentence should be to describe what we did. (First, draw an oval.  First, draw a head.  First, draw an oval head.)  Whatever is most appropriate for their writing abilities.  The activity would carry on drawing and writing about each step.  Three different levels of writing pages are included as well as transition word flashcards for your independent writer and shape cards to spell the shapes used in the drawings.

Focus:  Shared Reading

After reading Pete the Cat's "I Love My White Shoes",  it was fun to do this writing activity in guided writing.  Students would draw their favorite shoes or shoes they wished they had.  Flashcards with the correct spelling of many kinds of footwear are included:

Focus:  Holiday

It's always fun to have a writing activity about an upcoming holiday.  The kiddos get excited about holidays and that encourages writing.  Again, I would hang their hard work in the hallway for a fast and up-to-date display.  This particular leveled writing activity is appropriate for Easter or anytime you are talking about eggs.  It includes the three leveled writing sheets, eggs to decorate for a lift-the-flap surprise, a large egg poster to assemble, and synonym sheets for the adjectives "big" and "small".  My focus in this guided writing session is choosing a synonym other than "big" or "small" that makes the writing more interesting:

** Click on each picture to go to the activity in TPT **

This is another fun one.....My Favorite Cereal. To introduce this writing project, I bring in those small sizes of cereal and let students sample them.   If they don't have a favorite cereal already, they can use one of these that they just tried. 

Then we meet in our guided writing groups and complete the following pages.  Students draw a picture of the cover of the cereal box and some of the cereal in a bowl.  Then they write how their cereal looks and tastes and whether or not they eat it with milk.  Just click the picture to go to the pages.

Focus:  Poetry

Periodically throughout the year, especially during poetry month, our guided writing would be a poem.   One of the least intimidating types of poetry for young writers is the acrostic poem.  Writers come up with words or phrases for a particular word such as the student's name, a season, an animal.  The word is written vertically and students picks words or phrases for each letter. Punctuation is not required.

This template is for an acrostic poem that spells out F-R-I-E-N-D.  Students come up with words or phrases that start with those letters.  As always, I have flashcards for you to present to the students in your small writing groups should they need some inspiration.

Another poetry writing template is for the cinquain poem.  A whole group lesson for demonstrating the writing of a cinquain is included.  Then, transitioning to the small group table, flashcards help students remember what each line should include.  There is a rough draft template for them to use when writing their sloppy copy and a final draft copy so they can rewrite it and illustrate it.  I loved using cinquain writing because it helped me tick off reviewing nouns, verbs, adjectives, phrases, and synonyms.

** Click on each picture to go to the activity in TPT **

Focus:  Free!

If you would like to check out one of these leveled sets with your guided reading groups, here is a free sample based on favorite ice cream.  It has been downloaded over 940 times!    All I ask is that if you and your kiddos enjoy this activity, you will leave me 5 star feedback and follow me to be the first to know when a new theme is uploaded.  Enjoy!!!

I have done many, many, many leveled writing lessons during my 10 years in first grade and I am working to get them all in sharable format.  So please, keep checking my Teachers Pay Teachers store Online with Teacher Judi and become a follower to be the first to know as new lessons are uploaded.

Thank you!

And happy writing!!