The Opportunity
In an effort to continually provide the absolute best academic support for our Gill students, the Gill Staff and PTA are partnering to create programs which will specifically target writing skills. The district curriculum is robust, but research and test scores tell us that writing is an area of opportunity for improvement for our students. We believe this is another clear instance where a true teacher/parent partnership will give students the competitive advantage to bridge this skill gap. If you think about it, parents do so much to support and nurture our children’s reading and math skills, but when is that last time you sat down and practiced writing with your child? When you did, was it a battle?
The Program
As presented at the January 12th PTA meeting, we will embark on a process to create a new writing enrichment program at Gill which will coordinate with and compliment our other outstanding academic literary enrichment programs like Junior Great Books and WordMasters. We must, however, begin this process at home. Your child’s best teacher was their very first teacher… you! However, unlike reading and math, the writing process is a subjective and complex subject that we are much less familiar with and many times much less confident in with regards to teaching our own children. As an example, the district utilizes the “6 + 1 Writing Traits” curriculum to teach our students the writing process. Take a moment and see how many of the traits you can name. How well can you define the ones you could name and can you identify when they are properly utilized? Most parents can’t! Let us help you get up to speed. In order to be mutually supportive of our children’s writing achievement this common understanding is crucial.
The Parent Workshops
Parent writing workshops will be the first step in the new writing enrichment program. These workshops will provide you with hard data on the crucial need to address these skill gaps right now. They will also teach you the 6+1 writing traits, help you to recognize and encourage examples of good writing, provide you with hands-on exercises you can take home and practice with your children and give you tools to assess the success of your child’s writing progress.
Visit the Gill School Blog and check out the video of helpful tips for parents when working with their child and their writing.
The workshops will be taught in two sessions, the first session being an overview and understanding of the traits and the second a more in depth study of techniques and exercises that can be used at home with your family. Attendance at both workshops is important for a full understanding of the program. More information on the specific agendas of these sessions is forthcoming; however, we are asking you to RSVP to these sessions and put them on your calendar now:
Parent Writing Workshop I : January 26th, 6:30 – 8:00pm in the Gill Media Center
Parent Writing Workshop II: March 24th, 6:30 – 8:00pm in the Gill Media Center
These presentations will be specific to each grade level. Teachers from each grade will present grade-specific information and will also hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. Note: If you have children in different grades at Gill, we recommend going to the presentation for your eldest Gill student.
Grade
|
Presenters |
Room |
| Kindergarden |
Ms. Dillon & Mrs. Hebert
Ms. Dillon and Mrs. Hebert will be presenting information specific to your kindergartener. They will cover topics including what kinds of literature to look for to inspire good writing, how to choose a “small moment” to write about, specific Kindergarten examples of good writing including sentence fluency, word choice and organization and will hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. |
2 S |
| 1st Grade |
Mrs. Barch
Mrs. Barch will be presenting information specific to your first grader. She will cover topics including what kinds of literature to look for to inspire good writing, how to choose a “small moment” to write about, specific 1st grade examples of good writing including sentence fluency, word choice and organization and will hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. |
1 N |
| 2nd Grade |
Mrs. Strunk & Mrs. Nottenkamper
Mrs. Strunk and Mrs. Nottenkamper will be presenting information specific to your second grader. She will cover topics including what kinds of literature to look for to inspire good writing, how to choose a “small moment” to write about with a focus on adding rich supporting details, specific 2nd grade examples of good writing including sentence fluency, word choice and organization and will hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. |
4 N |
| 3rd Grade |
Mrs. Roble & Mrs. Zamm
Mrs. Roble (Gill Reading Specialist) and Mrs. Zamm will be presenting information specific to your 3rd grader . They will cover topics including a focus on sentence fluency using vocabulary rich picture books, “juicy” word choice and organization tools. They will also hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. |
6 W |
|
4th Grade
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
|
Mrs. Harris
Mrs. Harris will be presenting information specific to your 4th grader . She will cover topics including sentence fluency using vocabulary rich books, “juicy” word choice, organization tools, robust supporting details and more. She will also hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. |
2 E |
| 5th Grade |
Mr. Vercellino & Mr. Wells (Power)
Mr. Vercellino and Mr. Josh Wells (6th Grade, Power Middle School English Language Arts) will be presenting information specific to your 5th grader’s transition to writing and language arts in the middle school . They will also hand out materials and exercises to take home and practice with your children. |
8 W |
District Forum: April 27th
Videos
Here are the links to the videos we showed at the PTA meeting. The book referenced in the meeting is called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
Fostering the growth mindset:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS-oZLHRK1Y
How to praise children:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqo4c-FlFGE
The Rewards
Your attendance at this second workshop will also help you earn fun, instant rewards for your student. Every parent attending the workshop will be given an A+ expectations ticket for your student. The classroom earning the most tickets will be given a SMENCIL (100% recycled newspaper pencil that smells like one of ten fabulous flavors) for every student in the class. Trust us, this pencil alone will inspire your child to write! |
