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What is
the purpose of using journals in Pre-K?
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I once saw a
poster in a classroom that said "The top ten ways to become a better
reader: read, read, read, read, read, read... " etc. The very
same is true for writing, the best way for your students to understand
that print carries a message and to begin developing their writing
abilities is to provide them with the consistent and comfortable means
to do so. Children move through various stages as they
begin to write and the more experiences a child has with writing the
more quickly he or she may move through the stages.
The stages of
writing:
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The first
basic stage is scribble writing. |
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The second
stage involves "letter like" markings, some may resemble letters
and others may look more like shapes.
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The third
stage is when the child makes continuous strings of letters. |
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In the fourth
stage the child actually begins to make some letter/sound matches
in his writing; for example he may write the letter "F" next to
his picture of a fish. |
Journals can
serve a variety of purposes. Most importantly, journals give the
child a sense of ownership over his or her work. It is very
empowering for a four year old to have something that is their very
own where they can write or draw anything they choose.
Giving the child ownership of the journal makes the journal writing
process more meaningful. Children learn best when what they are
learning is meaningful to them.
Journals can
also serve as a continuum that the teacher can use to show
progress. I like to use journals in parent conferences. I
show a child's journal from the beginning of the year in comparison to
his or her current journal. This is a quick way to show real
growth to parents and requires little explanation as the journals
speak for themselves.
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Journals
are NOT a place to practice penmanship. |
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Journals
are NOT worksheets or coloring pages bound together to make a
booklet. |
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Journals
are NOT to be used as a punishment or a reward. |
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How
often do you have students work in their journals? |
We
have a Journal Time EVERY day in Pre-K. You will see the best
results with journals when you do them on a daily basis. Children crave consistency so sticking to a routine is really not a
problem. I find that doing journals first thing in the morning
makes for a smooth transition into the classroom from
home. One thing I have found that really helped reinforce
our routine was the magnetic picture schedule (see picture on circle
time page). I found it much easier for both myself and the
students to do journals consistently when it was pictured on the
board.
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We
don't have the time in our schedule to do journals daily, will I
still see the same results if we do them only occasionally?
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No. You will only achieve the best
results when you have your students do journals on a consistent, daily
basis. Doing journals on an inconsistent
basis defeats the whole purpose of having journals in the first place.
Just as good athletes develop their athletic abilities through
consistent exercise, good writers develop their writing abilities
through consistent writing practice. When you provide children
with an opportunity to "exercise" their writing abilities on a
consistent basis they will move through the stages of writing more
quickly. Many students in my class have started the year in the
scribble stage of writing and ended the year writing sentences
phonetically complete with punctuation. I directly attribute
this success to the consistent use of both the morning message and
journal writing.
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Do you
require your students to write or draw about a certain topic? |
No.
Requiring students to draw or write about a topic of my choosing would
not be empowering or meaningful to the students. We want the
children to be excited about what they are doing in their journals and
to view it as a fun and creative experience. For example, if I
required them to all draw or write about pumpkins in October then it
would become a tedious task. Instead, I might say something
like, "If you need an idea for your journal, take a minute to
think about what we are learning about now." I would also
encourage them to visit the theme word wall, class word wall, morning
message, or book boxes for ideas or spelling help. We see the
best results with journals when the students are allowed to choose
their own topics. Of course, there is one simple rule we use at
journal time: no guns or violence of any kind may be portrayed in
journals.
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When should you begin journals in
Pre-K? |
We are
encouraged to begin journals on the first day of school in Pre-K. However, without a full-time assistant it is
often not possible to begin a full journal routine until the second, or sometimes even the third week
depending on your class and their level of independence.
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What do
your journals look like? |
Our journals are made
with plain white construction paper folded in half and stapled in the
middle. A laminated sentence strip with the
child's name is attached to the top of the journal with a clothespin.
The clothespin helps attach the name card and also ensures that the
child does not write on every single page in one sitting. After
I have scribed in a child's journal, I turn the page and attach the name card and clothespin
to the top of the next
page. The
journals are stored in a milk crate.
 
I have also color coded the journals to match my table colors; red, blue,
yellow, and green.
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Why don't you use
lined paper? |
According to the
Best Practices, lines are not appropriate at the Pre-K level. One
reason is that visual acuity is not developed
enough for most four year olds to see the lines. Another reason
for using blank paper is that the journal is the child's very first
experience with writing in a school setting and lines may detract from
the experience. Some children may focus on the lines in the
journals and not the product, thus causing frustration and defeating
the whole purpose of journals.
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How do you
introduce journals to your students? |
I model the
journal writing process daily for the first two weeks of school.
I show the students the journal and repeat its name several times each
day. We discuss the journal's purpose and importance in large
group. I walk them through each step of the process in a whole
group while individual students model. We model how
to select the correct journal, get out crayons and a
pencil, sit in their seat, where to write their name, raise their hand when
they're done, clean up after themselves, etc. My instructions to
the children are to write
their name at the top of the page with a pencil; all drawing is done
with crayons. The reason for this is that in the beginning of the year we
are not able to discriminate what marks on their paper are attempts at
drawing or at writing .
On the first day of
journals many children will hold the crayon in their
fist and just scribble, or even cry. It is very important to
praise each and every attempt the student makes in their journal, no
matter how slight. After they are finished they raise
their hand and I come around to scribe for them. I simply label
their pictures or record whatever they have to say about their
picture.
At first managing journal time can be challenging; having another
adult in the classroom with you would be the ideal situation. However,
journals can be done alone if you have the patience. It
takes several weeks for things to settle down and for the students to
get into the routine, but just take comfort in knowing that journals
will be very rewarding later in the year.
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TIP:
Play Dr. Jean's "Name on Your Paper" song from her CD All Day
Long as the children begin to write in their journals- they LOVE
it and it reminds them where to put their names
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What do the
children do when they are finished? |
When a child
finishes his or her journal entry they are to go to the carpet area and read
books quietly. This is another way to get in more B.E.A.R. time
(Be Excited About Reading).
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TIP: A visitor to my
website suggested a fantastic idea to use when the students are
finished. Have them show their journal to the other
children at their table! I started using this idea and it really does work.
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Once the
routine is down, how do you start them writing? |
As the year progresses, I start
encouraging more writing at journal time. When I scribe in a journal, I will have the
child help me sound out the words as I am writing them. Then
slowly, I will transition into asking the student to make the writing attempts
independently. Of course, we are doing things in the classroom at the
same time to support independent writing attempts such as learning
to use the word wall and morning message as resources and
learning letter sounds. For example; if a student wrote a
letter shape next to a picture in his or her journal on Monday, on Tuesday I
would then encourage them to go even further. I
praise any and all attempts I see at writing.
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What
do you do when the students are always asking you how to spell
words? |
I have found
some very effective tools to help my students stop asking the dreaded
question "How do you spell...?". The first and most effective
tool is the mini-office (see resource links below), these are an
absolutely fantastic idea and will make worlds of difference in your
student's journal writing time. I have used mini-offices
in Kindergarten and Pre-K and they are quite effective. I don't
use mini-offices in Pre-K until after Christmas, you have to determine
if your students are ready for them or not, some groups may not be
ready for them. The students felt even more empowered and
successful when they used mini-offices because they had all the
information they needed at their fingertips to solve their own
problems. The second tool I use is "Journal Rules". I
start using "Journal Rules" usually after Christmas or in the spring,
whenever the students start asking the dreaded question too often :)
I type up a list of "rules" for journal time and place a laminated
copy at each table, each time somebody asks me the dreaded question I
simply say "look at your rules". The journal rules
have pictures so the children can independently "read" them.
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