Work Over Time, 2010

This is the time of year that Kindergarten teachers post work that shows individual students work over the year. Kailey's work below is typical of what we expect in kindergarten. Children begin the year with simple pictures to illustrate their stories and can often write their name and copy a date. By the mid-term they are beginning to sound out words and to use the few sight words that they know with their more detailed pictures. They often start a new page of work each day but by the end of the year their fluency has exploded and they are working on the same piece for several days. Pieces are anywhere from a few pages to many pages and often include detailed pictures. Words are sounded out and many sight words and vocabulary words are used. It's an amazing process to watch unfold!


At the beginning of the kindergarten year, Kailey wrote the piece above. It's the story of a birthday party. While she drew a simple picture and had no letters except her name, she could orally tell the story.

By January Kailey was blooming as a writer. She was drawing more detailed pictures that foreshadowed the writing ahead. In the piece above she wrote a personal narrative in her one page about seeing a classmate at the water park, and how they played on the slide. Kailey showed control over the sight words to, we, play at, the. She also used appropriate spacing between her words making the work readable.

Her final piece in March shows Kailey's understanding of the writing process. In this response to literature that she completed during our author study of Eric Carle, Kailey retells the story The Grouchy Ladybug. This is the first page of a six page retelling that includes a one page chart of the animals and the times they each spoke with the ladybug. Her writing fluency is remarkable at this time of year. Kailey sounded out each word and gave a detailed account of the animals as they were visited by the ladybug. Kailey's work is typical standard work at the end of the kindergarten year.

Kailey, we can't wait to see what next year holds!