After enjoying the WriteShop Storybuilders I was really looking forward to trying out the WriteShop
Primary A curriculum, a program intended for kindergarten and first grade which teaches writing skills in a very simple way.
My 7 year old daughter has enjoyed the program immensely. It begins so simply that I do feel a kindergartner would also enjoy it. Instructions are given for implementing the curriculum on a 1 week, 2 week, or 3 week schedule. Children can progress through at the speed that is most suitable for them.
So what does this curriculum cover? Here’s the run down:
WriteShop Primary A introduces children to the process of writing in an extremely gentle, non-intimidating way. First lessons begin with guided writing practice. Parents help children think through ideas and form sentences. This is a very simple and enjoyable process. The child can write or dictate the story. I preferred to have my daughter dictate to me. This made our lessons go smoothly and kept things fun. We were able to focus on the task at hand instead of getting bogged down in handwriting.
Topics covered in this curriculum include:
Personal writing
Selecting a title
Choosing a topic
Story Structure - Beginning, middle, end.
Punctuation
Rhyming
Organizing ideas
Personal narrative
Sequence of events
Children also learn how to brainstorm ideas for a story, plan a story, edit, and gather information. Another fun addition to each lesson is a creative idea for publishing and sharing their work with friends and family.
One of my favorite aspects of this curriculum is the fact that lessons are kept short, 5 to 10 minutes is all that is required for most lessons. This keeps children from becoming overwhelmed and helps develop a love of learning.
Each WriteShop lesson has a corresponding worksheet which gives children the opportunity to apply the skills they are learning. A worksheet set is available for purchase (for $4.50) and contains 20 reproducible activity pages and 2 evaluation charts to aid in tracking your child’s progress. The first few worksheets are fairly simple and increase in difficulty with each lesson. These worksheets are a fun addition to the writing program. They are not used every day, so I feel they are not overly tedious as some are.
The verdict:
I have not yet used a formal curriculum for teaching writing skills, so I have little to compare this to. However, I can tell you that this program has been fun, straight-forward, and easy to use. Both my daughter and I have enjoyed it. I think it is a great start to learning the skills need for writing.
The e-book version (which I received) is 186 pages long. I prefer to print out one lesson at a time (about 10 - 15 pages). This makes it much easier than trying to print out the entire book at once.
The e-book version is available for $24.25. This gives a $2-per-book savings on the print edition which actually turns into a $7 savings when considering that there is no shipping cost. The book is available for download immediately.
As previously mentioned, the worksheet set is available for $4.50 and is also available for immediate download.
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