As a public school teacher, I spent many happy years in the company of children ranging in age from three to seventeen. There seemed to be a vague presumptive pressure on me to always ‘know what to do.’
Naive but optimistic, I was up for the challenge.
Part of my job description was to lead young children into progressive mastery of basic language skills.
Learning to Read and Write is different from the way they were already learning, directly, with the body, with all the physical senses. Large motor skills (like eating, crawling, climbing, walking, running, jumping, dancing) connected them with a world of joy to explore. Discovering self-confidence was always a potential payoff.
Large Motor Activities
Small Motor Activities
The main goal with writing is to recognize and print each letter of the alphabet, then combine letters into words and sentences. With these skills we can receive, interpret, and express perceptions, ideas, and meaning. Now we are building and refining awareness. This is not tangible. This is understanding that is silent, tacit.
At about seven or eight years old, kids are normally ready to learn related skills that awaken new discoveries.
Cursive Writing requires more complicated small motor development and control. The strength and dexterity that leads to a signature flow of the letters and the spaces between words…also leads to readiness for screwing, nailing, and bolting things together, or drawing sketches of objects, or expressing ideas for designs from the imagination.
As I work with children on developing writing fluency, we repeat shapes like curves, loops, and circles, or parallel lines to get consistency in height and width.
Then come simple routines that let us stack multiple lessons in one activity. First thing in the morning I reveal the Poem of the Day, written on the chalk board in Cursive.
It usually has eight lines, a title, and the poet’s name at the bottom right. This leaves space at the bottom half of the students’ paper for them to illustrate the poem.
I read it out loud, then we read it together.
Volunteers identify, (and we all applaud) any grammar conventions they recognize: capital letters, quotation marks, commas, periods, title, and author.
I ask a few open ended questions like,
“What time was it in this poem?”
“Who do you think told the wild geese it was time to go?”
“Where do you think the geese are going?”
“Do you notice any clues?”
“What colors were mentioned?”
Depending on the prior experience and maturity of the students, the possible responses will vary from concrete to more abstract.
In this poem, there is a beautiful range of possibilities, and I note their conclusions. If the idea of innate intuition doesn’t come forth at the moment, I keep quiet about it. I wait until some other reference (from life, a science book, another story, a nature video) comes up. Then I can remind them of this poem. Then I see nods and signs of neurons connecting like a bright thought.
They keep their daily poems in a “Poetry Illustrated” folder, which I assess regularly to see their writing progress and to enjoy their visualizations. There is an ongoing display wall where I add and rotate fresh examples.
When I meet with parents, the Poetry folder is a keepsake portfolio to take home. It is evidence of the learning and blooming that parents may not have noticed yet about their child.
I still have the yellow plastic box with index cards where I collected favorite poems over the years. After a while, I would either search out a particular poem that connected to something I wanted them to hear, or I’d pick a card at random and trust that we could connect with it somehow today.
Combining Motor Skills and Mental Ideas
I am aware that there are connections within and between energies and like to set things up to see if and what the kids notice, and they often pick up on amazing things that surprise me.
I never liked to miss a day of teaching.
I love reading your essays about teaching. They remind me of the joy of watching children learn, connect, create.
Sherry - I still have and cherish my portfolio of poems and illustrations from your fourth grade class. I have incorporated them into my own poetry unit that I have taught to my students over the years. 😍