Scaffolded Writing for Beginning Writers

What is Scaffolded Writing?
It is a writing structure, modeled and taught to young children at the very early stages of writing. The purpose of scaffolded instruction is to provide specialized support to students when they are beginning to learn a new subject. In this case it was journal writing. Scaffolding gives the beginning writer a context and foundation to use when writing. As the beginning writer becomes more secure and at ease using this method, scaffolds are gradually faded and the writer moves on to demonstrate independence when writing.This method was presented to our Kindergarten team by our Reading Specialists, who were also Reading Recovery Teachers, as part of a reading and writing workshop. I went on to use the Scaffolded Writing method in my Kindergarten class and found it to be successful in facilitating independent writers by the end of the school year. I used this method with my 4 year old grandson (who is 5 now ) and he adapted well to the structure of this method.

Scaffolding links reading to writing. It gives children the opportunity to work with many strategies while writing their stories.

• Motivation to write about picture/topic
• Directionality (left to right) (top to bottom)
• Use of a graphic organizer as a working framework - a line is made for each word
• Sounding out sounds in words to write words - phonemic awareness
• Calling upon personal background information to write about a topic
• Use of verbal and pictorial clues sequencing the writing steps
• Writing common words correctly in text

When I began writing with my students I modeled scaffolding. Together we wrote stories, simple stories for many weeks. As I made a simple drawing on large paper, I asked them for input. What do we want to say? Keep it simple and with a few words. As you repeat the sentence you all agree upon, count the words and put that many lines on the paper. Example: my picture is of a sunny day with a tree, the sun, and a bird. We decided to say , "I like sunny days". Count the words, put a line for each word, touch each line as you say the sentence again and then begin writing the sentence. Ask the children to help write by allowing them to come up and write on the paper. In the end, the sentence may look like this, " I lk sne daz". Check with them to make sure the picture matches the sentence. After several weeks of modeling this method, the class engaged in writing time/writer's workshop. I moved around the room and provided writing support to them. I would

• check what picture and topic choice was for each child
• plan the story with the child
• count the words and draw lines with the child
• repeat the sentence touching each line as we said the sentence together
• child rereads using the one to one line match to make sure he has the story in"his head" before writing
• child begins writing the words using sounds he hears for the words
• child rereads the words written so far to make sure what word goes on the next line

As the months went on the children became more secure in using the scaffolding framework. They were able to work independently during writing time/writer's workshop. Some children faded out using the lines as their writing ability matured. Writing became a favorite time for everyone. We had many read aloud stories to share with each other. The children loved sitting in the very special "Reader's Chair" reading their story to the entire class!
For more information about scaffolding writing please refer to this article
http://www.mcrel.org/our_work/scaffolding.pdf

SUSAN