Work-over-time 3, 2008

Cheryl Dillard showcases Daniel's work across the kindergarten year. She includes a "task" and the writing standards on her standards-based bulletin board. The board also includes three pieces of Daniel's work - one piece at the beginning of the year, one in the middle of the year and one at the end of the year - along with commentary.Each standard-based bulletin board includes a "task." In Cheryl's task she describes the Literacy Block in her classroom. Her students have benefited from a daily Readers' and Writers' Workshop. In writing they have generated their own topics, worked through five genres (narrative, procedure, reports, response-to-literature, poetry) of writing and have polished a piece in each genre to go in their final portfolio.
Daniel attended Pre-Kindergarten and was well prepared for Kindergarten at Chets Creek. When Daniel entered he knew most of his letters and sounds. He could retell a story that had been read to him several times using his own language. However, he did not enjoy Writers' Workshop and was easily upset when it came to writing. He even tried to convince his mom to let him stay home so he wouldn't have to write! In the beginning Daniel did draw pictures and could write his name, although most of the letters were uppercase.
By January Daniel knew all his letters and was reading at the B level (the end of kindergarten benchmark). As he became most confident in writing, he began to write small amounts about his pictures. His pictures included more detail and so did his oral stories about his picture. He was beginning to use spaces, had left-to-right and top-to-bottom directionality, and spelled most words phonetically. His writing was readable. I went to the airport to pick up my Grandma and Grandpa.
On Spring Break I went to the Magic Kingdom The hotel was the Pop Century. On the second day I went to the kingdom. I went with my grandpa, grandma, dad, mom and two sisters. I liked Splash Mountain and Buzz and pirates. I got frightened (a vocabulary word from our Star Vocabulary Unit!) on Big Thunder! On the third day we went on the Monorail and a boat and a bus. This was my second favorite vacation.

By the Spring Daniel has really increased his stamina and fluency as seen above in his 3-page story that was written in a single Writers' Workshop. It is evident that he now enjoys Writers' Workshop and can write the stories of his life. He writes many words phonetically and uses many sight words with spaces between words. All of this makes his work easy to read.

These three pieces of Daniel's work provide a snapshot of his literacy development in kindergarten. He has learned a great deal as a writer. His remarkable growth as a writer is due in no small part to the quality instruction he has received in Mrs. Dillard's class!