Most of you probably saw this post in January and the follow-up in February about using individual writing goals to move your students along the continuum of learning to write. If not, you may want to take a quick peek at them. My approach—from mid-year on—is all about looking closely at each student’s writing, choosing one skill to focus on (per student) and calling it a goal, and explicitly teaching each student about the skill and how to work on it so they can meet their goal of mastering it.
In January, I created the chart shown below, started recording which subskills of writing each student regularly demonstrated, and chose appropriate goals for each student. The students knew their goal and learned how to focus on it during writing time. When I talked to them about their writing, I, too, tried to stay focused on just that one skill (forcing me to block out the myriad needs we see when we look at kindergarten writing) and allowing me to quickly move on to the next student.
The chart served its purpose well. It reiterated to students what a goal was (they became familiar with the concept in October when we set a class goal of learning 100 total word lists by Winter Break) and how to focus on it and work toward meeting it. The chart also helped students understand that often they are working on the same goal as some of their classmates. But, alas, this chart became cumbersome. It was hard for the students (and me) to read. I didn’t have a place to display it and didn’t always feel like pulling it out when the students wanted to “check their goal.” And I wasn’t keeping up on what the students had mastered so it was losing its effect in improving their writing. I must say though that it had a huge effect initially; I saw lots of growth in the two- to two-and-a-half months that I used it.
So I came up with this—a journal cover that I attach to each student’s journal. Not only is this a handy dandy way of tracking what students regularly demonstrate in their writing, but it’s also a fine list of writing subskills to explicitly teach. And, they are pretty much in the order in which you should teach them. If you’re new to teaching or new to kindergarten and aren’t sure how to teach kindergartners to write—other than helping them listen to sounds—you should find this extremely helpful!
My student journals have about 10-14 pages in them, meaning that students get a new journal every two or three weeks. When they fill up a journal, I carefully look through it and check off what they demonstrate in their writing on a day-to-day basis. If a skill seems to somewhat be in place but not completely mastered, I’ll make a note next to it, such as “sometimes” or “was doing this but is not anymore.” The notation will cue me to talk to the student about it. I put a large dot on what I choose to be the next most important skill (or skills) to work on. Each day when I hand out journals, I tell students to check their journal cover and make sure they know what their goal is. As I circulate around the room and work with students, it is much easier to flip to their journal cover and talk to them about their goal(s) than it was for both of us to walk over and check the large writing goals chart.
It’s important to look through a few writing samples to see which skills students demonstrate on a regulate basis or if they are still demonstrating them. Students might stop using lowercase letters or stop spacing between words or stop capitalizing each new sentence once they start focusing on a new goal. They’re not being careless, necessarily; there is just so much to think about when it comes to writing.
So far, so good, but you know me. I’m always tweaking things. To get a copy and make it your own so you can edit it, follow the steps below.
Click on the link to the document: Goal Checklist Journal Cover
Once opened, go to File and then click on Make a Copy.
Change the name to make it your own. Now you have an editable document.
As always, I hope you find this helpful. Let me know!
It was on my “to do” list to make a chart tonight (like the one you said wasn’t working). Thank you so much for sharing your journal cover. I think that will work great for me! Do you remove the cover and put it on their new journal or do you fill out a new cover for each journal? How do you know what their goal was when they get a new journal? Thank you for your help!