Using Play Centers to Advance Writing Skills

Students in Junior Kindergarten at Underwood Elementary are learning to write and develop sound/letter associations through the use of authentic play situations. A $1,213 Education Foundation of Wauwatosa (EFW) grant allowed Linda Forbord and Betsy Heun to purchase kid safe clip boards, write and wipe markers, post office box, career costume set, pet veterinarian center, alphabet and number blocks, doctor’s office kit, builder’s tool kit, writing center and lapboard supply kit to enhance how they teach their students to write.

Students are not only writing during writer’s workshop but throughout their school day. Students are writing letters in the post office, using block letters to write words in the block center and writing shopping lists in the house center. Student’s see themselves as writers. They have increased their knowledge of letters and their sounds as evidenced in the Junior Kindergarten Treasures alphabet assessment. As of January, twenty-two out of thirty-six students are already able to identify 18 or more uppercase letters. The goal is to identify all twenty-six uppercase letters by the end of the school year.

Joel Marinan, Senior Kindergarten teacher, commented, “Even children at a very young age appear to understand and apply the purpose of written text to communicate with one another. With your new centers the children are authentically engaged as they write and deliver notes in your post office.”

For more information on this and our other 15 grants, please visit www.tosaefw.org