Connecting reading and writing is natural in the early grades. Right now, in our first grade reading curriculum, we are working on identifying the main idea and supporting details in a text. We have used a graphic organizer to help us keep track of our thinking. This same graphic organizer led itself right into our Writer’s Workshop time!
We have been spending a lot of time talking about ourselves, our friends, and our families over the past few weeks. We used our families as subjects for a recent book the kids made during Writer’s Workshop. We discussed the main idea of our books, being that our families are really important to us. Then we talked about things we did together, as a family, that made our families special as well as important.
I love the example below. This little guy walks his dog with his family and they have camp fires together. Keep in mind, that these are first graders. They are writing about the things that matter most in life at this very moment. I just about cried when one little friend told me about the way his family all likes to hold hands when they go for walks. He looked at me with a very serious smile and said, “That’s a really important thing to me.”
Connecting reading and writing was very natural in our work as authors, but the SUPER cool part was seeing how the kids connect to the most important part of their lives… their families.
Happy writing!