Regie Routman Part 2

Today was a great day of learning! 

Please go easy on me here as my purpose for blogging is to share what I've been learning but also to help me reflect on everything I saw and heard and to process my learning.

Before we began our observations, Regie spoke to all of the teachers and principals who would be watching her lesson. As she addressed the group, a number of points resonated with me. 

I want teachers to have an “I can do it” spirit.

Editing doesn’t matter if you don’t have a piece of writing that worth reading.

Kindergarten students who write become better readers. 

If you value writing, it will be the one thing you never leave out.

After our brief meeting we moved into the classroom to watch Regie work side by side with the fabulous kindergarten teacher, Melissa Kirkland. 

Regie began by introducing herself to the students. She showed them photos of her family and some of her favourite places to go. I loved hearing her speak to the students with such passion. The students were completely engaged!

The goal for the session was for students to begin writing their own books about why they are special. In the hour long session, Regie spent more than 45 minutes preparing the students to begin their writing. She makes it clear that you cannot just assign students a topic and send them off to write independently. 

The process she uses is called the Optimal Learning Model (I do it, We do it, You do it)

For the "I Do It" portion, Regie wrote a couple of sentences about something that makes her special (making jam). She asked the students for suggestions about how she could write it so that people would be interested in reading her story.*

For the "We Do It" part, Regie asked for a volunteer to come and write their story with her. A brave little fellow stood up to write his story about being really great a Wii baseball. Regie helped him to choose a title, begin his writing and stretch out words to record the sounds he knew. 

Along the way Regie worked with a sense of urgency and moved at a fast pace. She noted the words that the students should know how to spell correctly and could use for word work later in the week.

I wondered...

While Regie was working with the students she recorded their words exactly as the students spelled them. For example We ar spl for We are special. I wondered if she would leave he spelling like this or if she would correct it at some point.

I was pleasantly surprised when she went back after the writing was complete and congratulated the students how close their spelling was. She used a different colored marker to write the correct spelling under each word. This way, the students felt proud of themselves but were not displaying writing with spelling errors.

*Prior to this part of the lesson the students had read many stories about being special and unique, wrote a story about how their class is special and even wrote a class book with one sentence about how each of them are special. Regie calls this "Front-loading"