Writers Workshop is a teaching method in which the goal is to explicitly teach students strategies to become more skillful at composing text. This method involves students in authentic writing experiences that focus on the strengths and needs of each individual student through differentiated instruction.
During a typical day, we start the workshop with a mini lesson focusing on a skill or concept that the children are either being introduced to or practicing. We then give the students time to practice that skill or concept first practicing with teacher guidance in a whole group then moving to small groups and finally practicing individually. This type of work takes time and may take a few days or even a week before moving to individual practice.
During Writers Workshop, the children move through different writing types. Throughout the year, kindergartners work on narrative/small moment writing, procedure/informational, poetry, journals, lists and friendly letters.
In kindergarten, we call sight words "Muscle Words" because knowing how to read and write these special words will make us strong readers and writers. I will post the new muscle words in our blog each week. Once a muscle word is introduced and practiced for the week, the kindergartners are expected to be able to read and write those muscle words as well as any previous muscle words.
