Strategies for Improving Student Written Responses

#1
What reading strategies and skills do
students need to comprehend text?
What reading strategies and skills do
students need to compose written text?
Evaluate your daily reading
instruction…
o Is this part of your Balanced
Literacy?
o Is this explicitly taught?
o Is this modeled frequently?

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK…
Understanding the Formal Language

Understanding the Linguistic Pool

Explicit Instruction of Academic Language/Vocab

School-Wide Weekly Academic Language

Dissecting Standards

Knowing the language in the TRC assessments

Do you have explicit instruction of
the academic language and
vocabulary?
Can students automatically
transfer in and out of
registers?
Can students independently
read and comprehend the
complex language?

Explicit Instruction of the components needed in
written response

Implementation with Students

Provide
Feedback
Set
Goals
Self
Assess
Rubrics or Checklists are a balanced approach! They
allow opportunities for students to:
Have a
guide
Build
Independence

Do you generate rubrics with
student input?
Do your students know exactly
what they need to include in a
written response to be
successful?
Have you visually show them by
modeling? Do they have a visual
checklist? Do you conference
with them referring to a rubric?

Do you allow students to choose
books which they know they will
respond to after reading?
Do you allow students to choose
questions to respond to?
Things to think about:
o Giving reluctant readers
the power of choice.
o Giving all students the
power of choice for
their work.

Shared Writing, Interactive Writing & Modeled Writing…
Shared Writing:
Interactive Writing:
Modeled Writing:

Shared Writing, Interactive Writing & Modeled Writing…
Shared
Writing:
Interactive
Writing:
Modeled
Writing:
Teacher & student compose a text together. The
teach is the scribe. Often the teacher works on a
chart display or easel. Children contribute each word
& re-read it several times.
Is similar to & acts in a similar way as shared writing.
The main exception, the teacher will invite students
up to the easel & contribute a letter, word or part
of a word. Occasionally the teacher will make
teaching points to help children attend to various
features of letters & words.
The teacher demonstrates the process of writing in
a particular genre, using a think-aloud process. The
teacher might have prepared the piece of writing
prior & talks students through the process.

Shared Writing in Written Response

Interactive Writing in Written Response

Allowing students to be the “teacher”
benefits everyone! It serves as a
model, think aloud, conference, builds
independence and the desire to
achieve.
Think about yourself,
do you always want to
“sit and get”?
Do you learn better
through active
participation?

Look familiar?!?!

Do you use progress monitoring
opportunities as a practice session
for Written Response?
With minimal time to prep a
question in the “assessment”
format leads to many benefits.
o Practice testing strategies.
o Written response
conference.
o Building comfort for the
student.

Do you make Written Response
Conferences a priority? Where can
this fit in with reading and/or writing
conferences?
o Shared or
Interactive
Writing
o Progress
Monitoring
o Small Group
o Independent
Work periods

Do you only look at colors? Do you
actually sit down to review the
running record, oral comprehension
and written comprehension?
If you are not looking close at
the reasons why a child is not
moving forward, how do you
know your instruction is helping
them?
Time is limited, so we need to
have targeted instruction.

Everyone needs a “crutch” to get started.
Written Response is tricky for young
learners and new to most of them. It’s
not a secret, give students the support
and gradually remove as they gain
independence.
Sentence frames build
better writers. The visual
helps to cognitively
develop better text talkers
and text composers.

Are you a visual leaner? Do visual
examples help your comprehension?
All types of learners, can benefit
from color coding the question and
written response!
Color coding helps
learners match the
components of a
question to the artifacts
needed in a response.

The academic formal language is hard
for young learners. It requires
critical thinking skills at a high level.
We need to provide a strategy to
help comprehend the question.
o Training students to dissect
a question is beneficial for
future assessments.
o It allows students to answer
using the knowledge they
gained from the text.

11 “Rocks”to help improve Written Response!
Reading Instruction Immersion of the Formal
Language
Using Rubrics Providing Choices
Shared / Interactive
Writing
Written Response with
Progress Monitoring
Conferencing Looking closer at Data
Using Sentence Frames Color Coding
Deconstruct /
Reconstruct
Scaffolded Implementation
using Gradual Release!

Bloglovin: http://bit.ly/1hBrrxx
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1NNG8aL
Instagram: http://bit.ly/1WMXUAO
Pinterest: http://bit.ly/1Pto8Tx
Store: http://bit.ly/1KEECof

Strategies for Improving Student Written Responses

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Strategies for Improving Student Written Responses

Similar to Strategies for Improving Student Written Responses (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Strategies for Improving Student Written Responses