Kindergarten Writing Big Ideas Text Types and Purposes- Kindergarten students are engaged in writing for multiple purposes throughout the year. -Children will use a combination of drawing and writing to narrate a single event or several linked events, telling about the events in the order in which they occurred and providing a reaction to what happened. -Children will use a combination of drawing and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic and state an opinion or preference about the topic. -Children will use a combination of drawing and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and provide some information about the topic.

Conventions of Standard English- In their writing, Kindergarteners will learn to:    

Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I Recognize and name end punctuation and properly use it in their writing Spell simple words phonetically, relying on knowledge of letter-sound relationships Consistently spell many high-frequency words correctly in their writing

Please see the Writing Continuum Stages (and examples for each stage) on the reverse side. Kindergarten students are engaged in writing activities on a daily basis and make such amazing growth in this area throughout the year. This continuum provides you with an idea of how your child’s writing will develop throughout Kindergarten.

Writing Continuum Stages

Stage One- Pictorial -Imitates writing

Stage Two – Precommunicative

-Draws somewhat recognizable picture

-Writes letter strings to convey a message, may be randomly placed on page

-Tells about drawing

-Attempts to ‘read’ message -Writes own name or occasional known word

Stage ThreeSemi-Phonetic -Writes one or more letters to represent every word, correctly matching some letters to sounds -Writes from left to right and top to bottom -Writes at least one sentence

Stage Four- Phonetic -Uses both upper and lower case letters -Separates words with spaces -Uses logic phonetic spelling, most sounds in words are represented, including vowels -Spells some high-frequency words correctly -Writes 2 or 3 sentences on a related topic

Stage Five- Transitional -Correctly spells many high-frequency words -Uses logical phonetic spelling including vowels in most syllables -Capitalizes beginning word in sentences, lowercase used appropriately -Correctly uses periods and question marks -Uses appropriate subject/verb agreement -Uses regular verb ending -Writes 3 or 4 sentences on a related topic