Thinking Backwards: How to Teach Writing in Kindergarten

When I first started my teaching career in 1988 the language arts curriculum was one page long. That one page covered reading, writing, listening, and speaking for all grades K-5. So, how did I figure out what to actually teach and how to go about doing it?

Much of what I did for writing instruction was based on my early training in special education and “task analysis” and I’ve used it ever since. Basically, with task analysis, you look at the end task—such as writing a readable sentence—and you break it into all the smaller and preceding skills that are needed to accomplish the end skill. You shouldn’t teach sentence writing unless you’ve taught students how to write words. You shouldn’t teach word writing unless you’ve taught (or are concurrently teaching) letters and sounds.

Task analysis is the process of “thinking backwards.” You can keep backing up and backing up. With the sentence writing example, proper letter formation must be developed before or alongside learning how to write words. And you wouldn’t focus on letter formation if students don’t first know how to hold and control a pencil.

“Well, duh!” you say. “Most people think this way and most teachers think this way all day long.”

Yet, I have seen time and again how educational leaders, writing gurus, curriculum giants, and teachers—because they are listening to and trying to comply with the leaders, gurus and giants—completely disregard task analysis and do not focus enough on teaching the required prerequisite skills.

In other words, they practically set everyone up for failure—students and teachers and entire school systems alike. If you’ve been confused by the writing standards or wondered how you’re supposed to deduce from them how to go about teaching writing, pat yourself on the back. This is the first step to becoming a better teacher—recognizing the problems with what you’ve been given to work with.

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What are the Kindergarten Writing Standards?

Depending on where you live and which document(s) you read, you’ll usually find that kindergartners are expected to 1) use drawing, dictation, and writing to compose narrative, information, and opinion pieces and 2) write one or two readable sentences. The first expectation often includes the words “with prompts and support,” which makes it even more nebulous than it already is. The second is not really a standard unless you define a readable sentence. To me, a sentence written by a kindergartner is considered readable if it is (nearly) grammatically correct, has most of the high frequency words spelled correctly, uses most of the prominent sounds in all of the other words, and is written legibly.

The Common Core Standards first came out in 2010. In response, there were soon several professional books available on how to teach to the standards. The three that I either purchased for myself or received from my school district for a required training were similar in that they were for K-2 (I’m sorry, but teaching kindergartners to write should not be lumped together with teaching older students who already have a foundation in writing) and they all recommended teaching narrative writing during the first third of the year, information writing mid-year, and opinion writing the last third of the year. We all know that kindergartners aren’t going to be writing and mastering narrative writing within the first few months of school and that it should most definitely not be the focus. How can they—the leaders, gurus, and giants—not know this?

The writing curriculum that was in place when I retired was much the same. Nothing about learning to hold your pencil or form letters, no learning letters and sounds before writing sentences, no focus on segmenting sounds and writing the matching letters to make a word, and no time to properly learn any high frequency words. There weren’t even any drawing lessons even though students are expected to use drawing as one means of conveying their thoughts. It just jumped right into narrative writing and considered it taught by the 12th day of school. It had me wondering if the author had even worked with kindergartners before. This is a widely used program in the United States; it’s no wonder teachers and students alike are flailing.

Can we realistically expect kindergartners to meet the standards? Yes! And beyond! But only if we start with analyzing the standards to determine the prerequisite skills needed to meet the standards and then take the time to teach those skills first or in tandem.

Task Analysis for Teaching the Writing Standards

Creating a list of prerequisite skills begins with analyzing the requisite skill (writing readable sentences) and then breaking that requisite skill down into smaller pieces. I have created and used two lists* that do exactly that, lists you won’t find associated with the standards, in books about teaching writing (at least that I know of), or in kindergarten writing curriculums. And yet, these are the exact things you need to explicitly teach!

*Note: Not included on these lists are phonemic and phonological awareness, naming letters, and knowing the sounds associated with letters. These are typically considered early reading skills and are not listed because it’s assumed that they’re being taught alongside these early writing skills. Another prerequisite skill is being able to speak a complete sentence. A child cannot formulate a sentence to write if he is not yet able to say that sentence. Again, working on speaking and learning to read is most likely being taught concurrently. (Reading short sentences out loud helps students learn to speak their own sentences out loud).

Ways to Use These Lists of Skills

1. These lists will help you learn to “think backwards” and understand all the preceding skills that must be in place before a student can write a readable sentence or short piece of writing.

2. These lists serve as a scope and sequence foundation—what skills need to be taught and in what sequence they should be introduced and worked on. Mastering these skills leads to meeting the standards.

3. Both lists can be used as checklists. Teachers can track which skills have been mastered by individual students. At the kindergarten level, if a student demonstrates a skill about 85% of the time, I consider it to be mastered.

4. When used as checklists, the lists serve as assessment tools and reporting tools. Sending this home to parents is probably much more informative than what is on the kindergarten report card.

5. Tracking student proficiencies allows me to plan next steps in instruction. I help students understand what they can already do and what they should work on next. We set writing goals, work on them, and check them off once they are mastered. The lists are an excellent motivation tool and build confidence in young writers.

How to Get Started Incorporating These Skill Lists into Your Writing Instruction

If you’ve been following Busy Bee Kindergarten since the beginning of the school year, you are probably well aware of how I’ve been incorporating the skills on these lists into my whole group, small group, and one-on-one teaching. I consider everything I do in reading instruction to be a part of writing instruction (and vice versa). And, in the months ahead, you’ll see that these lists are an integral part of my writing instruction and moving students along the continuum of being able to write readable sentences.

Whether it’s August, October, January, or March, you can start thinking backwards. Take a look at your students’ writing* and notice the weak areas. Choose one or two weak areas and practice thinking backwards. What skills is the student missing? What do you need to add to your instruction and daily activities to solidify these prerequisite skills? Or, if you’re just starting writing instruction, think backwards and start at the very beginning—how to hold the pencil, how to move and control the pencil, how to write neatly, how to listen to sounds and write the correct letters, how to put spaces between words, etc. Do not assume that students will pick up these skills without you explicitly teaching them.

*Note: When it comes to teaching writing, it is best to look at students’ needs on an individual basis and then to teach to those needs on an individual basis. These two checklists can help you do that.

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I’m not going into a lot of detail on this blog post about how to specifically teach writing. In addition to this three-year blog, I have written a whole book on the topic and still had way more to say. However, by clicking on some of the accompanying links and by continuing to follow my blog and watch the videos I share, you should get a good idea of how well it works to apply task analysis to writing, “think backwards,” and make the time to focus on the needed prerequisite skills.

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Thanks to these subscribers whose comments inspired this post.

From PJ - I love the way you teach writing. I love how simple and explicit your instruction is with the students.

Just out of curiosity, does your district teach the common core standards and if so how do you fit in the standards of having the children write opinions, informative, and narrative texts? I am just trying to wrap my head around me teaching using your style of journal writing and still covering these standards we are required to cover.

Thank you so much for your inspirational videos.

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My response - Hi! Thanks for your comment and questions. They are good ones. Yes, we teach the Common Core Standards as well as the Colorado State Standards. When the CCSS first came out, we learned that we should teach narrative writing for the first third of the year, information writing the middle third of the year, and then opinion writing. Well, as you know, that doesn't work so well since kids really can't write the first third of the year and most can't write three sentences in the middle of the year. After hearing this over and over again, I knew I was going to have to do it my own way. I feel that my main job as a kindergarten teacher is to teach students how to fluently write two or more sentences. 90% of my lessons will be about the mechanics of writing--thinking of an idea, breaking that idea into words, breaking words into sounds, learning to spell high frequency words, spacing, staying on task, letter formation, capitals and lowercase, and using periods. I will devote only about ten percent of my time to content. We are informally writing narratives and information now as we write about books we've read, whether they be fiction or nonfiction. You'll hear me be a bit more explicit about it later in the spring, when many of the mechanics have been learned and most students are ready to think about content. I know the first and second grade teachers appreciate me focusing on HOW to write rather than WHAT to write. This allows them to focus more on content without all the students getting hung up on just getting words on the paper. So, to answer your question, I would first of all teach everything that the standards don't cover--how to hold a pencil, how to write your name, letter formation, finger spaces, etc.--and then cover the standards the last quarter of school when kindergartners know enough about writing to maybe start thinking about what type of writing they're doing and what they should be saying.

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From Dani - Thank you for asking this question - I have always struggled with this issue as well since (unfortunately) our kindergarten report card specifies each of these writing genres (ugh).

Honestly, after reading (and heartily agreeing with) Randee's response to your question, I feel strongly that the writing section of our report card needs to address the skills she mentions; pencil grip, letter formation, spaces between words, thinking of an idea & being able to write that idea in a complete sentence, etc.

When I have tried in the past to teach those specific genres of writing, I felt like I was just pulling students along through the writing process and very few of my students were truly learning what we were doing. This is such a disservice to the bulk of kiddos who still need opportunity to simply practice the HOW of writing.

Regarding the comment about narrative/information/opinion writing -- I so appreciate your insight and expertise in responding to this. I see many writers workshop units out there on TPT and other social media platforms, but no matter how they put these together, when I look at them they seem far beyond what the majority of my kids could do. I feel like concentrating our writing instruction efforts the way you described is a much better use of our time so that all kids have the majority of the school year to grow and develop their "HOW TO WRITE" writing skills right where they are. These complicated units focus so much on content, and while some kids are ready for it, most are not.

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Another from Dani - I found this comment thread at just the time I needed it. While I was faithfully using journal writing since late October with my class, by winter break I felt like we just weren't making the progress I was seeing in your students.

Presently, of my 19 students, I would say that at least 7 are able to think of ideas, listen to sounds in words & form sentences that for the most part they can read back to me. They use lined paper, and have continued to do well and gain more confidence. YAY!

Most of the other kids are able to think of an idea, but the struggles with this group include a variety of issues; very messy handwriting, inability to read back what they wrote, or writing what looks like random strings of letters yet they seem to have had a solid idea they wanted to write about (what to do with them??). I have 2 or 3 who spend most of writing time writing very little because they are so dependent on me to help them with every word. They become behavior problems because they are talking/bothering/distracting everyone else at their table. Another issue that I see a lot is when I ask what they want to write, the sentence they say is more like a story! If I were them I would feel overwhelmed at how to write all of that too! I've tried in those moments to reword their idea into a simple sentence and that has helped.

I have another kiddo with a *severe* speech/language disorder; both his receptive and expressive language are extremely delayed. When he does talk, I understand maybe 10% of what he says - help me zip my coat, help me turn off my iPad, etc. If he needs help with an academic task he gestures for me to write for him - he cannot have any sort of conversational exchange at all. He did great with drawing pictures and copying my "writing" in the early weeks of writing, but when it comes to independent writing of any kind, he can do nothing. I honestly don't think he understands what I am saying when I give the writing topic for the day. I have resorted to writing a sentence or 2 on his paper with a highlighter, reading it to him, and having him trace over it and draw a picture to match. Because I am trying to get around to everyone at least twice during our short 25 minutes, I am at a loss for how I can do a better job with him. He has pullout time 2x/day for ELA and math -- maybe I should ask the resource teacher to help him?

I have a new student who arrived after winter break from a Montessori school. She definitely did not do much writing, and is still learning her letter names and sounds. She too is very dependent on me and struggles to write independently.

Keep the videos coming! I will continue forging ahead :)

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My Responses - I hear you on all the various situations with kids. I have (or have had) all of these too. You can see these kids in my videos--the ones who can't think of an idea, the ones who won't write anything on their own, the ones causing trouble. They require a perfect mixture of high expectations to TRY and the required support to slowly move them along in their confidence and skills. When appropriate, I keep them at recess to try harder. I do not help them at that time. I tell them that I already did my work and am taking a break. Since they want to go out and play, they will put something on the paper or at least try to work on their goal. This is the perfect bump for them to be able to do more the next day. One day, they take this giant leap into "doing it" and then they are on their way. All that being said, YOU must decide what's best for your students. My way of teaching does not work for all teachers. You might need to do more of a guided writing approach where you all are writing together. Trust yourself; you know best for your teaching and your class. I have been doing this long enough to trust the process. I know my students will come along with this approach.

SO, SO, SO TRUE! I would love to see the developers of those units do a lesson with 28 kindergartners writing a narrative piece in October. There is absolutely NO WAY, unless they are just copying what the teacher does or copying words off the paper. And what would their handwriting look like at that point in the year? It makes no sense (to me) for students to write full sentences if they’re going to use incorrect letter formation. They’d just be practicing wrong and we know what that leads to. You know I expect a lot of my students, but all in due time, all in due time.

It's not that the standards are way off. Writing two sentences to tell a short story, tell your opinion, or tell some information is certainly doable by most kindergartners. But we need to spend seven months on learning how to write and then maybe the last two teaching to the standards specifically.

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Again, this post is not meant to cover everything about writing instruction. Rather, the intent is to take the focus off the end goal (the writing standard) and do the backwards thinking that is necessary to focus on the prerequisite skills needed to get to the end goal.

Please let me know if you have any specific questions.

With lots of love from the one who loves to teach writing in kindergarten,

Randee