Sharing Good Practice
Develop shared writing
skills in young learners
By Jenny Murray
A
s
a
literacy
enthusiast,
supporting young learners
to become young writers is
an immensely important and
rewarding part of my role. Here are a
few tried and tested tips to develop
shared writing skills in young learners.
When they’re ready, they’re
ready!
Exposing children to a print-rich
environment where writing is a valued,
integrated and celebrated part of
day-to-day life is key to developing
early writing skills. Fine motor skills,
phonic knowledge and motivation all
play their part and patience should be
afforded to those students who take a
little more time than others to get the
‘writing bug’. If opportunities to write
for a purpose surround the students
and writing is presented as a fun and
valuable skill, young children will write
when they’re ready. In shared writing,
a teacher’s explanation of each stage
is essential in developing writing
behaviour among students.
Process matters
Drafting, editing and improving may
seem like difficult concepts in a class
full of 4 year olds, but modelling
writing as a process of many steps is
a key way to engage young writers.
All stages in the writing process (from
idea sharing to publishing) should be
celebrated. Engaging young learners
in the shared process of designing
characters, deciding on settings for a
story and improving and up levelling
a shared piece of writing can develop
self-esteem, which all writers need.
Simply attaching a child’s name to their
contribution to a group brainstorm or
class story can promote ownership and
instil a sense of value to their ideas.
Give responsibilities
There are some challenges when
trying to ensure that all children are
engaged and challenged in a writing
session. A great idea is to differentiate
each session by providing children
with roles. You can use colours to
code the various positions. Those
on the red mat can be ‘punctuation
police’ looking out for full stops and
capital letters, children on the blue
mat can be ‘finger space finders’
who will enjoy having permission to
waggle their fingers at the teacher
until he/she makes sure a finger space
is included between each word. More
able students can be grouped and
identified as ‘magic makers’ who
are tasked with improving on simple
sentences by adding adjectives. Of
course, these roles aren’t static, but
this is a great way of ensuring each
child feels valued and important in the
process of shared writing.
Opportunities are key
A writing table full of ‘special pens’ and
materials is a simple way to allow young
writers to explore their developing
skills after a shared session. Using
the context of a role-play area can be
a fantastic opportunity to promote
shared writing. Creating menus, taking
orders in a café, writing shopping lists
for a supermarket or taking notes on an
eco-walk around the school building
are activities that come in handy. In
independent writing, no matter the
age or stage, all marks should be
treated as writing and young learners
can be encouraged to share their
thoughts verbally (to allow an adult to
scribe/document) through questions
like ‘Wow, I love your writing, can you
tell me about it?’
It’s all about them
Kindergarten students are wonderfully
egocentric. Allow young writers to
explore their interests in writing, as
this is a simple way of facilitating the
development of shared writing skills.
If they make a model that they are
incredibly proud of, could the class
write instructions for another group
on how to make something similar? If
they feel strongly about getting more
time in the outside play area, could the
children work with an adult to write a
letter to the principal arguing their
case? The more a writing task reflects
the young learners’ interest, the more
likely it is to be successful.
Show it and share it!
While ‘shared writing’ traditionally
refers to the process of coconstructing writing itself, it is
essential that writing produced in a
kindergarten is widely shared and
celebrated. Displaying and presenting
work in the school setting or publishing
shared work to a wider audi