Welcome to the fourth episode of the Writing Tip Wednesday Series! This week's tip is all about starting your writing lessons with a pre-assessment.
I am a firm believer in pre-assessing my students before a unit. This extends to my writing units as well. When we pre-assess, we are arming ourselves with the knowledge of what our students need to learn in the upcoming lessons.
When we don't pre-assess, we are wasting valuable time teaching lessons our students might not even need! Let's say last year's class was very low and we began our writing lessons with how to write a sentence. In an effort to save time we plan to rinse and repeat with last year's lessons.
Soon our writing lessons go off the rails as students become unfocused and distracted. Why? Most of our students are well-versed in how to write a sentence and are ready for something more. Not only did we waste several days on these sentence writing lessons but our students became unhinged! Now they hate writing time and it's up to us to find a quick way to turn it around and have a great rest of the year.
If we had started with a pre-assessment we would have assessed our students strengths and weaknesses from the beginning. When we take inventory of their writing skills, it gives us a better understanding of where the majority of the class needs instruction.
Learn more by listening to today's Shared Teaching Podcast episode 126.
Related Podcast Episodes:
- Episode 52: 3 Steps to Planning Your Writing Mini Lessons
- Episode 40: Writing Mini Lessons You Must Not Skip
- Episode 91: Using a Writing Pre-Assessment
Get my FREE K-3 Writing Skills Progression - perfect for getting started with a writing pre-assessment here or by clicking above, https://sharedteaching.com/writing-skills-progression/