Handwriting, Spelling, and Student Voice: A Writing Deep Dive

Writing is anything but simple. In this episode, the hosts break down the foundational elements of writing instruction—from the mechanics of handwriting and spelling to the role of oral language and student motivation. They share insights, personal stories, and practical strategies for supporting students at every stage, with a special focus on transcription, composition, and the power of student voice. It's a thoughtful, down-to-earth conversation about what it really takes to help students grow as writers.

Do you teach Structured Literacy in a K–3 setting?
Sign up for a free license of Reading Horizons Discovery® LIVE and start teaching right away—no setup, no hassle. Sign-up Now.

Coming Soon: Reading Horizons Ascend™
From Pre-K readiness to advanced fluency, Ascend™ offers a consistent, needs-based reading experience across every grade, tier, and model—so every student can build mastery, one skill at a time. Learn More.

Episode Transcript

Narrator (00:03):
Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast for literacy
leaders and championseverywhere, brought to you by
Reading Horizons. Literacy talksis the place to discover new
ideas, trends, insights andpractical strategies for helping
all learners reach readingproficiency. Our hosts are Stacy
Hurst, a professor at SouthernUtah University and Chief

(00:27):
Academic Advisor for ReadingHorizons. Donell Pons, a
recognized expert and advocatein literacy, dyslexia and
special education, and LindsayKemeny, an elementary classroom
teacher, author and speaker. Nowlet's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst (00:47):
Welcome to this episode of literacy Talks. My
name is Stacy Hurst. I'm joinedby Donell Pons and Lindsay
Kemeny, and today we are talkingabout something that is
important to everyone, writing.
And we are going to let ourresident expert on writing, aka
Donell, lead the discussion forus. So Donell turn the time over

(01:09):
to you with that intro,

Donell Pons (01:14):
oh dear. Oh dear.
With that intro, I was justthinking to myself, remember the
good old days when a podcast youcouldn't view it. Those were
good days. There's no video. Ilove those days. I do too. Okay,
so yes, writing. And we talkedabout writing quite a bit on the
podcast, and what we're going tobe doing today is this is kind
of framing us up to be talkingabout writing a few times

(01:37):
throughout the season. So that'sjust a note that this won't be
our only opportunity, and weintend to insert writing a few
times and even have someinterviews. We're hoping to be
able to line those up. Folks arereally busy this time of year,
but this episode is more ofthose building blocks of writing
and what teachers should know.
And we've discussed, as I said,writing instruction many times.

(01:57):
Sometimes it's framed within aconversation about structured
literacy. And sometimes we'vediscussed a new book that helps
provide teachers with somewriting support. And today we're
going to talk about the simpleview of writing, and then the
not so simple view of writing asa way to understand maybe the
two main components,transcription and composition,

(02:17):
and then for the not so simpleview executive function, because
we all realize how verydifficult it is to pull this
whole thing off. Really writingis is anything but simple, and
there are many articles we couldreference. So I was just looking
at one the other day that I sentoff to you guys to look at, and
then Lindsay shot one off to me.
That was fantastic, too. So wemay reference a few along the
way, but just know that thereare. There are quite a few.

(02:40):
Hopefully there will be evenmore information, because there
are still some pieces lacking asmuch as we've now come to figure
out about reading instruction,we need just as much information
about writing, and it really isa lot more challenging. And
there are even educators thatwill admit, when pressed, I'm
not even comfortable with my ownwriting. How am I supposed to
teach writing? And that's justbeing honest, right? That my own

(03:02):
writing experience wasn't great.
I'm not feeling reallycomfortable or confident with
this, and so we have to realizethat too when we're talking
about writing. And so like Isaid, we may drop in some of
these articles, but let's diveright in here, and let's start
with transcription. What aresome things we know about early
handwriting instruction. Let'sjust start the conversation

(03:22):
there. What are some things thatwe've learned and that we know
about early handwritinginstruction? Lindsay, what do
you think?

Lindsay Kemeny (03:27):
Well, it's hard.
You're talking abouttranscription, and you know
there's a lot there, because youneed to recall from memory what
that shape of a letter lookslike, right? So it's you know,
recognizing the letter in print,in reading is easier than then
retrieving it from memory. Andnot only do those students need

(03:52):
to retrieve what you know thesymbol looks like, but they need
to remember how to form it. Soright away, those two things can
make students production ofwriting slower because they are
working on that they've got torecall it. And then, oh, yeah,

(04:13):
how do I write it? Oh, and maybeI have weak fine motor skills.
So, so maybe I'm also trying tothink about, how do I hold my
pencil? You know, my paper ismoving all over. Oh, I need a
hand on my paper. And so there'sa, you know, just handwriting.
There's a lot of things thatcome into play there,

Stacy Hurst (04:35):
yeah, and that's what I was thinking about, the
motor skill aspect of it. And wereally need to develop those in
those young students. It's notsomething that may come
naturally, especially when we'retalking about writing. So
starting with the larger motormaybe really in preschool,
they're drawing larger letters,but then, like Lindsay's saying,
repetition is so vital for themto even remember the name. Which

(05:00):
helps them recall the shape,right? So that's important to
teach those and, yeah, I justreally admire teachers who do
that well, because it is timeconsuming and requires a lot of
repetition with feedback

Donell Pons (05:15):
and something else too, as instructing older
students is that we have anobligation too, that just
because a student is now inmiddle school or a student is in
high school, if you see astudent who still has issues
with transcription, there'sstill you see something, you say
something, you do something.
That's another thing I've alwaysfound surprising is looking at a
student who's hunched over thedesk and doing this very awkward

(05:37):
and trying and not sayingsomething about that? Absolutely
not. I would say something aboutthat. Hey, tell me what's going
on here. Tell me about writing,what's what's happening for you.
And then immediately you get astory, right? They're more than
willing to share. Boy, this hasalways been hard. This is the
kind of what it looks like, andit's not great. And so start
pulling that apart, and thenwhat are the pieces that I can

(05:57):
do within this setting to helpyou? Because there are lots of
things that I can do, everythingfrom, let's get a better
implement, to, can I slant thatboard for you? Because you can
do a slanted board, and that'snot that hard. They're not those
difficult things. But there'sstill an obligation. If you see
a student struggling with that,that's that's something I need
to do something about. I thinkthat's also interesting is to
think, Oh, gee, now we're MiddleSchool. Now we're high school.

(06:19):
If I see that student who'sreally struggling over a piece
of paper, over a piece of paper,and that's not the case, there's
still plenty to be done. I evenhad a conversation just last
night with my son who hasdysgraphia. We've taught in
fact, I have more than one sonwith dysgraphia. We've had this
conversation many times aboutTell me a little bit about so
what's it what's it like for younow, even after all that

(06:39):
practice, and it's still notgreat, and that's what's really
interesting, is even after allthe effort that we've put in,
although it's much better andit's far better than what it
was, and certainly they can, ina pinch, do those things, but
because so much time was leftbefore we really had the tools
to intervene, so that earlyintervention is really

(06:59):
important, and I love hearingLindsay You talk about this a
lot about the things that you doto help your students and
provide those supports. Sothat's the transcription piece
we talked we glossed overclearly. We could have a whole
episode on how you teachhandwriting, right? We could do
many, many things, and we knowthe importance now too, of
putting a sound as well withthat symbol. Let's talk a little
bit about that. Was that wasthat the instruction you guys

(07:22):
were told to provide when youwent through teaching programs
was that emphasized at all whenyou two were going through, and
I don't want to date anybodyhere, so many years ago, it was
just two right? Two years agowhen you graduated from college,
yeah. What was it like?

Lindsay Kemeny (07:39):
I don't remember. Honestly, I don't. I
don't remember any if it waseven said, Do you remember?
Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don'tremember anything. I kind of, I
don't, don't think I learnedanything about it.

Stacy Hurst (07:51):
I do remember something because it in my young
mind, I felt like it was kind ofa waste of time. We had to fill
out a Zaner bloser book. We hadto do the letter formation
ourselves. The emphasis was onus having good handwriting. And

(08:15):
never do I recall that we wereencouraged to attach the sound
to the letter. It was verystringently how our handwriting
looked. We practiced writing onthe board, practice in that
workbook, but I don't recallthat we were connecting it to

(08:36):
the sounds. That's interesting

Donell Pons (08:41):
how things have changed, right? We hope, we hope
things have changed, right?

Lindsay Kemeny (08:45):
Emphasis is different. And I, I figure
you're kind of asking us thatDonell, because it's the other
part of transcription, isspelling, right? So, and that's
like, the beginning of that, thevery beginning. It's just, you
know, like you said, attachingthose sounds to the letters,
right? Connecting that and thenyou're going to learn more and

(09:06):
more spellings for the differentsounds we have in the language,
and being able to apply those asthey write. So it's just another
and these are just like a littlesmall piece of the complexity of
writing, right? So like studentsare thinking about, you know,
all all those components ofhandwriting, and then also, oh,
and how do I spell the word thatI am trying to write? Do you

Stacy Hurst (09:29):
know I have an interesting memory? As you're
talking about that, Lindsay, I'mthinking about fluency too.
Handwriting fluency, whichabsolutely can impact the way
you're thinking when you write.
My third grade teacher, Ilearned much later. It was his
first year of teaching. I had noclue when I was a third grader,
but he did focus on that. Hewould repeatedly have us write

(09:49):
the alphabet as fast as wecould. And I think the faster I
got, the worse my handwritinggot. But when you think about
the opposite. Is the end ofthat, right? If it is so
laborious to write, I mean, thatfalls into we're talking about
accuracy, but also automaticityin this regard too.

Donell Pons (10:11):
Yeah, so thinking about that already, if you have
a student where this is achallenge for various reasons,
and you're clipping along in aclassroom because we need to
keep moving along, and a lot ofthe students are now getting
more automatic with it. So whenthat teacher says, oh, let's
quickly write them as quickly aswe can, and at least Stacy,
yours are somewhat legible,right? You realize they're

(10:32):
probably getting sloppier, butyou're able to do that rather
quickly, and it's getting fasterand faster. But what about that
poor student two seats over, andthey're not even halfway through
that alphabet, yet. What'stypical in a classroom is there
time to slow things down forthat student or do things keep
moving. What's typical

Stacy Hurst (10:50):
that, I think, especially when it comes to
these skills, we keep moving. Ithink the other thing, just
because I brought up third gradeand I'm curious, both for you
and Lindsay. Donell, you andLindsay, because you have sons
who have dyslexia. Donell, youhave some dysgraphia when they
learned cursive. How did thatimpact their writing? Was it

(11:13):
harder for them to learn, or wasit smoother? Yeah, did it? What
do you think? Because that's awhole other layer of Okay, so
for years, we've got this down,but then also now we have to
learn a new way to form theletters.

Lindsay Kemeny (11:28):
So and my son has dysgraphia as well, so it's
often recommended for studentswith dyslexia to learn cursive.
A lot of people have said, Oh,that makes it easier, because,
you know you're you're forming,you know, all the letters are
starting at the bottom, you areforming, like the B and the D
very differently. You have to, Imean, I do teach my students to

(11:50):
form those differently inmanuscript, right? But in
cursive, definitely they are.
And that's all supposed to helpfor my son, the problem we had,
like cursive was not easy. Ittook them a while already just
to learn manuscript, and I dothink that is best, like in
kindergarten to start withmanuscript, because that is what
they're seeing in print whenthey read more often. And I

(12:12):
know, like you know, people areon both sides of that issue, but
for my son, when they werelearning cursive, it was like
third grade, and he was usuallynot in the room when they were
doing cursive. So he was beingpulled out, you know, for
special education, for hisresource. So he was missing all
the cursive. And so it's notsomething that he got a lot of,

(12:34):
you know, instruction for, and Iwould provide intervention for
him, but I never focused oncursive, because we were just
working on a million otherthings in our time together, so
we didn't get to

Donell Pons (12:47):
it. Yeah, I'm so glad Lindsay, you tackled that
question at first, because Ithought I sound so negative, but
we experienced the very samething. So because your son is
being pulled out, mine was beingpulled out as well, he would
miss all of the instruction. SoI remember vividly when cursive
was being taught fourth grade.
It happened to be fourth gradeat our elementary school because

(13:08):
he was consistently held afterschool, because he couldn't
finish the cursive, because hedidn't know how to do the
cursive, and we also hadtutoring after school. So then
that butt up against tutoring,and I just remember the stress
of trying to race to each ofthose things, and cursive became
a real burden. Cursive became areal burden because, as you've

(13:30):
pointed out, too Lindsay, wewere barely getting penmanship,
just getting the letters and howto form the letters in that way
that still wasn't automatic byany means, and then we're being
introduced to what is now, whatfeels like to my son, an
entirely new language, onlyyou've missed the language
lesson. You've just come in forthe end, when everybody's
speaking the new language thatthey've learned. That's what it

(13:51):
felt like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Soit's really interesting, but we
don't think about those thingsthat's that's the thing is that
nobody's putting two and twotogether, because this is the
child that's getting slotted inin different spots throughout
the day, and so no one person islooking at that going, Wait a
minute, was he even there forthat instruction? Because it's a

(14:11):
busy day, right? Classrooms arefull and it's a busy day, and I
think that's one of those thingsthat we could spend more time
on, is looking at where thatstudent is and being more
student centric, student focusedon, what does that student need
and what has been that student'sexperience today no more
important than with writing,this very challenging skill that
we're asking them to pick up do.

(14:33):
So it was interesting becauseone of the studies I referenced
was one that's talked about namewriting at school, entry,
predicting later spelling andhandwriting, but not directly
overall writing success. So whatshould we make of that the
writing of your name can bepredictive of some things, but
not everything, and it wasn'tpredictive of later writing, but

(14:55):
it was predictive of some thingsand Lindsay. How do you view
name writing in Lindsay, StacyL. Ask you too name writing by a
student when they enter theclassroom,

Lindsay Kemeny (15:04):
interesting, because I guess I hadn't, I
mean, I don't know that. I'vethought too deeply about this.
And then you sent the articleand it was saying that, because
I think, you know, I just kindof wonder, well, the students
that come in and know their namepretty easily. I can see how
that's, you know, predicting ofhow they're going to do in some

(15:25):
ways, because those studentsprobably pick up on, you know,
letters, letter names, sounds offormation a little easier than
the ones who don't. So it'sdefinitely a red flag for the
ones that come in and have noidea how to write their name.
Now I will say it could be justthat they haven't had any

(15:45):
instruction, but you, you, yousee that really quick, because
those ones will pick it upreally fast, versus the ones who
are still struggling to rememberthe letters in their name. It's,
it's, it's just kind of cluesyou in as a teacher to this
student's going to need moresupport, you know?

Stacy Hurst (16:06):
Yeah, it's probably a type of a screening,

Donell Pons (16:08):
right? Because part of the screen, yeah,

Stacy Hurst (16:11):
well, that makes sense. And why is it that all of
the students who have troubleproducing ours have ours in
their name? And why is it allthe kids who have a hard time
writing their name have like,678, letters in their name. So
that has to be taken intoaccount too, because our working
memory comes into play here, andwe can only hold so many items

(16:34):
in that space. So I thinkthere's a lot to that.

Lindsay Kemeny (16:37):
Yeah, and names are irregular. I mean, I've seen
some really unusual spellingsfor names because they don't
have to follow any kind ofEnglish tendencies, patterns,
you know, of English. They cando whatever they want when they
spell that name. So that alsocan be hard, because it is in
many cases, sometimes it is arandom string of letters, you

(17:02):
know. And I even had a studentwho, you know, had a very
unusual spelling of her name,and I remember her, her father
coming in at parent teacherconferences, and he couldn't
spell her name. And, you know,there's a lot there, but it's,
it's not regular. It's hardersometimes because they have
these unusual spellings.

Donell Pons (17:23):
Yeah, what's interesting is it is part of or
years ago, when I did the SusanBarton training for screening
for dyslexia, was one of thequestions on there. This is for
older students. So they weresaying, by fourth grade, have a
student write their name, his orher name, and see, not only did
they spell it, can they spell itcorrectly? How much time does it
take them to do it, and whatdoes it look like when they're

(17:43):
done? That will tell you a lot,because about this point, the
students had a lot of practicewriting their name, his or her
name

Stacy Hurst (17:49):
well, even being able to spell it verbally right,
like, I don't know. I justremember one student I tutored,
he couldn't spell his last nameright away, automatically in
print or in speech. He was inmiddle what

Donell Pons (18:02):
was interesting? In addition to that, they said that
if they have a simple name, likeBen Sam, do they have a middle
name? Have them write that aswell? So again, they've seen it,
they would know it that havesome familiarity with it. And if
things are they're laying thingsdown, they should be able to
recall that, which is kind ofinteresting anyway. Yeah, so
just names. That's one thingthat was brought up as well in

(18:24):
transcription. How can teachersbetter recognize name writing as
a matter of early transcriptionskills, we talked a little bit
about maybe paying moreattention to it in a classroom,
particularly knowing ages. SoI'm thinking here, particularly
of teachers, third, fourth,fifth grade. By that point, if
you're still seeing a studentstruggling with that name, it is

(18:46):
important. I think that is animportant conversation. That
should be a piece of what you'relooking at overall for that
student is telling yousomething. If you see certainly
by third, fourth, fifth grade,that's still a challenge for
that student to write his or hername, then we ought to be
talking about it, looking at it,

Stacy Hurst (19:01):
yeah, and you know, we've already had the pet peeves
episode, but if you don't mind,throw one in here. As many of
you know, I teach collegestudents. I'm preparing them to
be teachers. I have students whodo not capitalize the first
letter in either of their firstor last names. And when we go to
schools and I and they'returning in a paper to the

(19:24):
teacher, like we'll doassessment, I literally have to
say, you need to capitalize thefirst letter of your name. This
is a job interview, but I'm alsohaving my students do more
writing in class, in large partto help them retrieve
information, but I'm noticingall kinds of things like that,

(19:45):
with their name, with writing,yeah, with

Donell Pons (19:47):
that. So that's that is really interesting. So
that kind of leads into thesecond question about alphabet
knowledge in general. Tell me alittle bit about so Lindsay, in
your classroom, alphabetknowledge. It out as a
consistent predictor acrossyears one and two for writing
outcomes for students in thatparticular study that I've been
referencing. Tell me a littlebit about alphabetic knowledge

(20:10):
in your classroom and some ofthe things that maybe you're
looking for in students to see,

Lindsay Kemeny (20:15):
yeah, well, they've got to, you know, they
have to be able to recognize thename of the letter, the sound of
the letter, then they also haveto, like I was mentioning
before, like, recall that frommemory. You know, definitely
that's where you know, forwriting that comes into play,
they have to recall it, and theyhave to remember how to form it.
So this is why in first grade,like, because even when I have

(20:40):
students coming into myclassroom in first grade and
they know their letter names andsounds, and they might be
already an advanced reader, orjust a little, you know, above
generally, no one like I don'tthink I've ever had anyone come
into my classroom and reallybeen proficient and at
handwriting and being able toform the letters correctly. You

(21:03):
know, they're all starting theirletters at the bottom. They're
not using them on the lines. Andso I know you're asking, like,
about the alphabet knowledge,and I'm bringing it back to
handwriting again, but yeah,because as like, the better they
know those critical features ofthe letters as they're writing
them, the faster and the quickerthey're able to recognize them.
And there's, like, is researchbetween that, there's a link,

(21:24):
you know, between them beingable to form the letter and then
recalling the sound or the name,like, quicker as they're
reading. So I just like, Ireally think it's so important.
And, you know, really in everygrade, but in first grade, a lot
of times, our phonics programswill just go ahead and start,
you know, you know, we don'treview, or we barely review the

(21:46):
alphabet, and I do like to atthe beginning of first grade,
you know, we spend a day on eachletter, going through that
letter formation, and we'restill, I mean, we're still
reading and writing CVC wordsand everything, but we're
focusing on the formation of oneletter a day with my verbal cues
that I use, and it just helps usthe rest of the year. I mean,

(22:09):
even like today, we started, youknow, some digraphs, and we're
not, you know, we're not doingthe alphabet anymore, but when I
see them, like, when they dotheir P backwards, I'm like,
Oops. Remember dig, roll aroundp, dig, roll around p. And just
like them hearing that languagethat reminds them of how to form
it, and then they can fix it.
And it's not backwards, becauseif they form it the way I've

(22:32):
taught them, it's not going tobe backwards. So you know,
that's just all goes intoknowing that alphabet so well.
And in what we'll do is, oncesee, now that we're all the way
through our letters, I willperiodically review those
formations and the alphabetletters as we write them, A to
Z. And you know, we'll do ittogether. At first, I'll do my

(22:52):
verbal cues. Hook around small,down, a, tall, down, roll around
B, and we go through the wholealphabet. And then, like Stacy
was saying, I will time them fora minute. So then, on their
whiteboards, in one minute, theysee how many letters they can
get. And I've set it up likeit's not stressful, it's low
stakes. I'm not writing anythingdown. They're just trying to use

(23:16):
something. Yeah, it is, becauseyou always can see those ones.
Or, Oh, they don't know thealphabet. Or we need to sing the
alphabet with this studentbecause they don't know the
order, you know. But they loveit. They really love it. So I
don't want to say, like, this ishigh stakes, and like, mean and
timing, it is fun. And whenwe're done, they all kind of
like, oh, and they can't waitjust, you know, show each other
how many they got. Or some willwrite the alphabet, you know, a

(23:38):
couple times. And so yeah, it's

Stacy Hurst (23:42):
Yeah. And I don't think that can be overstated,
because I know this is an area.
I made a massive mistake when Itaught first grade. And I didn't
know better, to be honest, but Itold my first graders, I just
care that I can read it right.
But what I started noticingwhatever they're writing, sorry

(24:03):
to clarify, but what I startednoticing is the students who had
a hard time with the alphabetspecific letters, they would not
form the same way every time,even if it was correct in the
end, maybe they started the Awith, you know, at a different
point. And so as teachers, atonce, I learned the research

(24:24):
behind that. I started payingreally close attention to the
process, and not just the endproduct there. So I don't think
that can be overstated. Itsounds like you do a great job
with that.

Donell Pons (24:34):
Lindsay, it does.
It's fantastic. So Stacy, whatI'm thinking in my mind is, do
you have to stop yourself fromtrying to do some of this
instruction with collegestudents? Because this could be
something they also need, right?

Stacy Hurst (24:48):
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Like I said, when I'm
having them do our retrievalpractice and exit tickets and
they're I give them note takingguides, and when I'm those are
also low. Stakes, to be fair,but I'm noticing so many things,
punctuation, capitalization,spelling. It's the beginning of

(25:10):
the semester. So I had we're notreally learning about phonics
yet, but we're learning it's oneof the five areas the national
reading panel found to becritical, and many of my
students are spelling that wordincorrectly, so I'm noticing
those things.

Donell Pons (25:25):
Yeah, I work with readers of all ages, and one
thing I've learned, wheninstruction aligns with the
science, learners start tobelieve in themselves. Again,
that's why this free teacherlicense to Reading Horizons
Discovery is such a big deal.
It's everything you need todeliver structured literacy, and
it's free for the whole schoolyear. So simple to use, and it
makes a real difference. Go toreading horizons.com/free, and

(25:48):
get started. Seriously, this isa win for you and your students.
Okay, there's something beforewe move on to some of the
composition pieces. What are theimplications for oral language
screening and development givenits role with writing? I don't
think we talk much about that,but boy, is that we're hearing
more about it, which is nice tohear. Give me kind of an

(26:09):
evolution of things. So Lindsayand Stacy. You know, you can
divide this up however you want,but I want to hear what you
thought years ago, versus howyou do things now with oral
language. What do you thinkLindsay,

Lindsay Kemeny (26:27):
well, I don't think oral language was on my
radar before. Honestly, that'skind of terrible, you know, and
now it really is. I mean, I'malways telling my students like,
you have to say it in order towrite it. If you can't say it,
you can't write it. And really,like, we need to think about
that, like, if your student, youknow, is is has these choppy

(26:49):
sentences, struggles to talk incomplete sentences, then they're
not going to have that languageas they go to write a sentence.
And so I just value so much morelike any conversations we're
having, turn and talks, youknow, when we're doing that
sentence level syntax, you know,kind of the instruction in the

(27:13):
classroom, I'm so much moreintentional. And it's not just
like, oh, that a noun is aperson, place or thing. Do you
know what I mean? Like, that'snot it. It's like, you know,
does their subject? Does theirsentence have a subject? You
know, it's, it's, how are theyusing language? Can they answer
in complete sentences? Can weencourage them to answer in

(27:34):
complete sentences? Can we makesure we're teaching vocabulary
and have them practice using thevocabulary words? So there's a
lot like, I'm a lot moreintentional with any of the turn
and talks or kind of, you know,conversations that I'm
instigating

Unknown (27:49):
in my classroom. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst (27:51):
and I think that's just such a critical connection.
So I did learn something calledthe language experience
approach. And I don't know ifeither of you are familiar with
that, but I learned it as partof my whole language training as
a pre service teacher. Butessentially, you have an
experience with a group ofstudents, and then you talk
about it, they talk about it,and you transcribe. You write

(28:13):
down word for word, what theysay. So it might look like
Eduardo said that was fun, andyou're doing all the conventions
you know, as you would write,which I think is a good activity
to help students understand theconnection between speech and
print. What was missing was itwasn't controlled for patterns

(28:34):
that students could read, right?
So I'm thinking all along theway that speaking makes writing
less complex, to be honest, andI wish I had done a better job
of that, because I even know Iwas somebody in honors and AP
English in high school, but Iwas questioning my ability to
put together a sentence well atthat point, but if I had had all

(28:58):
that practice in oral languagefirst and pointing it out in
speech, then it would make it alot easier in writing to
connect, make the connectionbetween the two. And I

Donell Pons (29:10):
think when we're more intentional about having
these conversations too, it doesalert us to things that could
potentially be a challenge for astudent, right? I'm hoping it's
we're catching kids earlierbecause we're being more
intentional about thoseconversations, because that
doesn't get any easier for thatstudent who might be having a
challenge. Also, we're realizingfrom research that a bit of

(29:31):
intervention goes a long way,particularly in those early
grades. We can do a lot forthat, for oral language, in
particular, when we'reintentional about what we're
doing with students. I hope allof those things help improve
what we see happening there. Solet's get into the kind of
composition piece. What's goingon in the classroom once we got
the transcription is cooking.
Say we got those kids, they havean implement in their hands.

(29:52):
They know what to do with it.
They're forming those letters.
What should primary educatorstake from research when planned?
Their early writing instruction.
You're ready to go. You'reraring to go. You've got a few
spelling patterns under yourbelt, and you want to get these
kids off and running with a bitof writing. Lindsay, what does
that look like in yourclassroom?

Lindsay Kemeny (30:11):
Yeah, well, first I'll say that I don't have
to wait until my students haveall mastered handwriting,
spelling, sentence levels beforeworking on composition, I don't
or oral language even like we'rebuilding all those skills
simultaneously, and they allcome together. And it's, it's

(30:32):
really, it's really neat. Andthere's, like, historically,
there are disagreements. Therehave been people who say, you
know, they have to mount mastersentence level before they work
on paragraphs. And that's thatone study I shared with you
guys. It's called, it is calledfor our listeners. It's called,
yes, they can developingtranscription skills and oral

(30:52):
language in tandem with srsdinstruction. It shows, and it's,
it's kind of like the firstexperimental study that the
researchers were aware of donein first and second grade of how
you can do work on all of thoseskills. This is what it's
showing. And they're saying thatpeople who think, Hey, you have

(31:13):
to master these before we workon composition, that that's not
informed in research. And theykind of explain that in their
article. It's interesting so andso that is like, what I'm doing
from the beginning of firstgrade. So, you know, you heard
me talking about handwriting,yes, from the first day of
school, we're working onhandwriting. We're working on
our spelling constantly, right?
And then we're also working oncomposition. And so that one of

(31:36):
the things I need to teach withcomposition is the writing
process. And I am teaching themhow we can pick our ideas,
organize our ideas, write andsay more, and we are connecting
that with what we're readingabout. So it's really tied to

(31:57):
what we're learning and readingabout, and then we're going to
write about it. And we can do acouple sentences a day, and over
the week, we're going to have aparagraph. But I it's, it's not
on their own. I am scaffoldingit right now, at this time of
the year, we are like we'reorally crafting those sentences

(32:18):
together. So after, you know,we've talked about it, we've
brainstormed, we've organizedour notes, and then we take our
notes, we have to turn them intosentences. So it's really great,
because I can build in a lot ofsentence level work right here,
but in the context of, like,we're going to be building a
paragraph so it's, it's so funbecause they so, they'll, will,

(32:40):
they'll turn to their partners,like I might give one way they
could turn that these two wordsinto a sentence. Then they turn,
turn and talk to theirneighbors, and I go around and
listen as they're orallycrafting these sentences. And
then we share them. And thenwe'll choose which one to write.
And then all together, we'll,we'll write the sentence. And I,
you know, I'm like modeling. Wewill sound it all out together.

(33:04):
We'll sound out the words. Like,this week we're writing about
ways we can stay healthy,because that's what we're
reading about. And so like forhealthy, I'll say, let's say the
sounds. Tell me the sounds andhealthy. L, E, you know. And
then I do like, I will spell itcorrectly, and I'll show I'll be

(33:26):
like, what's the first sound?
Yeah, we know that tall, down,row, down, H, okay, what's the
next sound? Watch this spelling.
It is that E, A, you know, andthey're gonna do it with me. So
we're reinforcing all thosethings that we were just talking
about, like, with thehandwriting and the spelling and
connecting sounds and letters,but also doing sentences. So I

(33:48):
could talk, I'll stop, I couldgo on and on and on, but like,
that's how it looks right now.
And then it's gradually going toget more they'll be more and
more independent, and then soonthey'll be doing like it all on
their own. Yeah, not, I wouldn'tsay soon, but throughout the
year.

Donell Pons (34:08):
And to be clear, Lindsay, what you're doing too,
as the educator is you've got agood eye on what you're you've
been teaching the students interms of patterns so you know
where their spelling should be.
And there could be some thingsthat, yep, we've yet to do them,
and that's fine. It's not goingto impact whether we slow down
or not. We're going to down ornot. We're going to keep
writing. But as an educator,you're keeping an eye on those
things to make sure okay is myinstruction holding for those
students as they're doing thosethings? And that's how that all

(34:30):
comes together, is becauseLindsay understands where her
students are headed and whatshe's taught. It's okay to be
filling in these things andhaving the students write more.
That's awesome, but Lindsay'salso keeping an eye on those
things to see where the skillgaps are. So yeah, some teachers
are worried about that, butthat's how that works.

Lindsay Kemeny (34:47):
Yeah, and like, I'll say a pet peeve of mine,
like Stacy did we just did ourpet peeves episode last week,
but I had a teacher one timethat not I had a teacher, but I
read on social media a teacherthat was saying. You know, she
she never would have herstudents spell any word that
they hadn't been taught thespelling. So she's like, she was

(35:07):
like, so I'm not going to havethem, we're not writing about
complex things, because I can't,they can't spell that. And I'm
like, Oh, I think that is a hugedisadvantage for your students,
because what kind of languageare they using? I want to
elevate their language. And whenthey start writing on their own,
like, like, this week, I'll havethem do the ending sentence on

(35:29):
their own. It's not going to bespelled perfect, because I'm
going to have them, I'm going tosay, write the sounds you hear,
and it's okay. It's not going tobe spelled perfect. But at this
time, like it's actually, in myopinion, very important part of
their progress, or their, yeah,their development, to be able to
match, you know, just listen tothe sounds and write them that

(35:51):
estimated spelling is animportant step. And the ones
that always just want you tospell everything for them,
they're missing that phonemicawareness step of really
applying those segmenting skillsand then writing what they hear,
right? So when we spelleverything for them, that's not
always the best either, youknow. Like when they're writing

(36:11):
independently, like, I'm justlike, hey, don't worry. Write
the sounds you know, you know.

Stacy Hurst (36:16):
So I like to refer to that as temporary spelling
too, because sometimes, like,when they get it incorrect, and
you know what? It's a goodopportunity to teach about the
writing process, becauseeverything that gets shared
should be edited, right? Andthat would come out in the
editing, like you would talkabout, oh, let's spell this
word. This is how you spell thisword, and so forth,

Lindsay Kemeny (36:39):
yeah. And they don't have to be perfect right
away. So even then I'm like,pick your battles. If, if, if
it's a high frequency word,like, what I'm going to want to
show them that, because I don'twant them writing W, U, T, so
many times that that becomes,yeah, how they spell it. But you
know, any other words, it's,like, healthy, you know, or even

(37:00):
like, Okay, if they did was onetime it's w, z, okay, and I'll
be like, I'm going to teach thewhole class. Was because we're
writing, you know, we're usingthat a lot in our writing, so I
want them to know it. So, yeah,I

Stacy Hurst (37:12):
learned that lesson early on. I had my students
literally week one of firstgrade label things in the
classroom, and they were using,let's call it estimated
spelling. So our prize box was apriz box, clear until I taught
the magic E, right? But if I hadto do it again, I'd say, Oh,

(37:32):
we're going to put this, youknow, everybody's going to see
it. It's published, so I needto, you know, I'd add the
correct spelling. But no, Ithink those are definite
opportunities. And this is whatI love about Aries phases.
Writing is the best way to tellwhere a student is with that,
and that will help you to movethem forward anyway. So if they

(37:54):
are spelling something like w,z, you know exactly where they
are, right? Yeah.

Donell Pons (38:01):
So interesting, because Lindsay, you've walked
us through the steps and I andit's so nice to hear it broken
down that way, thinking of afirst grade classroom, because
by the time a student lands,perhaps in your middle school,
high school, even collegeclassroom, and they're really
struggling with writing. It'skind of nice to go back, just
like you do with reading, andsee exactly those pieces have a
reminder of those pieces here inthis student that's now sitting

(38:24):
in that classroom, it's fullyintegrated, right? You're doing
full integration, but neverremove that oral piece. This is
the piece that I see oftentimesmissing for the older students
in their writing instruction, isthe bypassing of what can be a
really important aspect ofwriting, and that is the oral
conversation piece, having astudent discuss what they're
going to write, we skip thatstep. I can't tell you how many

(38:45):
classrooms I walked into, andit's like, well, when are we
going to talk before we write?
There's no conversation. It'scritical. It's a very critical
piece. And just heard Lindsaytalking about it in her
classroom. So don't forget it,right? And those students need
an opportunity well,

Lindsay Kemeny (39:01):
and those older students too, like, don't you
think the breakdown is alwayslike, they don't, they don't
know how to organize theirthoughts to begin with, and they
don't do an organized you know?
And I just have to give a shoutout to everything I've learned
from srsd and Dr Cain Harris.
And think srsd With Dr LeslieLaude, this is like, where I've
learned all this amazinginformation. But, you know, they

(39:21):
need to be able to. I mean, fromthe time they're in first grade,
I'm teaching them how to pullapart a prompt. And, you know,
we read the prompt, and I go, dowhat, and they're like, do what.
And I'm like, What is thisasking us to do? What's the
doing? Word, oh, describe. Okay,we're supposed to describe. What
are we supposed to describe?
Ways to stay healthy. Oh, okay,ways to stay healthy. So think

(39:41):
about like your older studentsin sixth grade, or even more. I
mean, sometimes those writingprompts are complex and they're
long, and you've got to, like,teach them how to pull that
apart first so they even knowwhat to write about in the first
place.

Donell Pons (39:57):
So my older students, here's something else.
You need to give older studentsthe opportunity I let them read
those prompts and say, How doyou feel about the prompt? That
matters, that matters, how theyfeel about the prompt,
particularly when they're older,right? We forget all about
motivation. You know, maybe whenI'm younger, I don't mind
answering the questions aboutthat, but if I'm in sixth grade
and you're still asking me aboutmy summer vacation, maybe I

(40:19):
think that's a pretty lamequestion. So you have a right to
have an opinion about theprompt. That's the first thing
we get off the table. Right offthe bat, how do you feel about
the prompt? And a lot of kidswill say, I don't like it at
all. Tell me I don't like it.
Why don't like it? Because ofthis, I had to write that last
time I get all their opinions,those are all valid. That's
fantastic. That's going to bepart of what you're writing
about. It is it can beabsolutely that's part of your

(40:40):
prompt. So then we'll startpulling it apart. How we answer
that question? How does youropinion get to be part of your
answer? Oh, I see how I canincorporate that here. Do not
divest that student away fromtheir feelings about things.
That's writing. Writings arefeelings, right? Losing that
piece about writing, it's makingkids think it's all antiseptic,
right? Who wants to do that?

Lindsay Kemeny (41:03):
And teachers can have an opinion too on the
prompts, because sometimes, likein your core program, you read a
prompt and you're like, well,that's ridiculous. So, you know,
I think you can change it.
Change it. I just had someone inour like writing Facebook group
that shared a prompt in theirprogram, and I can't remember
what grade. It wasn't really ahigher grade. It was like maybe

(41:23):
third or or something, and itwas asking them to write a
story. So like a narrativeabout, I think it was dolphins.
But then there was all thesethings saying that they had to
include all these, likeinformational facts about
dolphins in the narrative story.
So it was like a narrativenonfiction. And I was like,

(41:46):
Whoa, that is so that is socomplex, that is so hard for
them, like, you know, like anarrative alone is is hard to
write, but especially whenyou're also supposed to be
making it, like all thesenonfiction things in there,
informative things. So I, I'mlike teachers, you can, you can,
you know, change the prompt. Ifyou Well, I guess I'm not your

(42:07):
principal or your district. Youknow, if it was me, I would just
say, change the prompt. And alot of times, our comprehension
questions in our programs makereally good prompts. Those are
better a lot of times than thewriting prompt that they have,
and the comprehension questionswill relate directly back to
what they're reading.

Donell Pons (42:25):
Yeah, what do you think, Stacy, you've been
nodding your head and laughing.
This is a lot of this isresonating.

Stacy Hurst (42:29):
Yes, it is. And of course, I'm thinking about my
most recent setting, which isolder learners, but learning how
to be teachers. Obviously, Ihave mentioned before on this
podcast that at the first of thesemester in a specific class,
they have to write an essayabout five books that have
impacted their life the most.
And I learned really quickly inmy first couple of years of

(42:53):
giving that assignment that Ihad to be way more detailed
about that if you read theinstructions now, it literally
goes paragraph by paragraph.
Introduction paragraph youshould mention all of the books
you're going to address. Secondparagraph should be book 1/3.
Paragraph, book two. A paragraphis data, you know, not just a

(43:17):
sentence, more than a sentenceand and then you should have a
concluding paragraph that says,right, because you can't assume,

Donell Pons (43:25):
yeah, what's interesting, too. I remember
back some of the best and mostwell I thought they were really
fun. I guess I should ask mystudents what they thought I was
having a good time doing theprompts with my students. So I
always would reserve a few whereI would do it too, and then I
would read they'd read theirs,and I'd read mine, and we'd
laugh over our differences orsome of the similarities, and

(43:48):
they thought that was a lot offun too. So it's also I'm never
above the assignment I'm givingmy students ever. I mean, that's
the other thing too,particularly with those older
learners, because that getsreally tiresome to them, to
think it's just like somebodywatching you go around the track
and yelling, good job, give meanother lap. That's not fun to
have that person yelling at youabout running another lap. How
about you come down here and runa few laps?

Stacy Hurst (44:10):
Donell, are you suggesting that I write that
essay? I cannot choose fivebooks. Yes. Stacy, would I do
that? How would I do that? Iwould not feel I'm a hypocrite.
See, see, well, I can give themother exemplars, good
suggestion, though, honestly andit does bring to mind for me

(44:33):
that that aspect of modeling it,which Lindsay you just
described, that perfectly you dothat it's built in, but on every
level, right?

Donell Pons (44:44):
Yeah, and having fun with it too. So I mean, we
talked about very practical andthis is exactly what we wanted
to talk about, and we'reprobably gonna have to wrap up
here, because, trust me, wecould do this for the next few
hours. We have plenty to sayabout this topic, so we're all
gonna have to cut it off at somepoint. But it's also, though.
Those things that you can do tomake writing fun too. And we
didn't get a chance to talkabout those, and I didn't really

(45:04):
ask you to. So it's not like wehad an opportunity, but as a
reminder, too, for olderstudents, no matter what the
setting, trying to make it funfor the students. And so I
remember sometimes I'd have mystudents pretend they were
reporters because and I wouldtell them a little bit about be
what it was like to be areporter. That was something
that I did as a job. And wouldeven make little reporter
notebooks, and they would haveto use that in their hand. So I

(45:25):
would show them what a reporternotebook looked like. And it is
a certain size for a reason. Itfits into the palm of your hand,
so you can flip the pages andwrite with the other hand. Oh,
they thought that was endlesslyinteresting. So then it's, oh,
what notes could you take? And Iwould be the subject. They would
write the story, but just waysto then make it fun as well. We
do have to do these practicalthings. We are teaching them
very specific skills. We arebeing explicit in what we're

(45:45):
doing and giving themopportunities. But then we're
also infusing this with some joyand some fun, right?

Lindsay Kemeny (45:51):
Absolutely, and like I love I think you know, if
you are really setting yourselfyour students up for success,
they're going to enjoy it.
They're gonna have fun. And Ilove it, like my students love
writing time, and even, like,we're only, you know, a month
into school and they're alreadylike, Oh, I like this. When I'm
like, get out your writingfolders, they're like, Oh, I

(46:12):
like this, you know. And we do,we'll sing chants, we sing
little songs. It's fun becausethey're turning and talking and
then coming back and sharingthey like when I model things, I
will well, and I will say forthe spelling is kind of fun,
like it's just, I can be sillyand fun with them, like with the

(46:32):
spellings that they haven'tlearned. Like we were writing
about our body organs last week.
So we're writing the wordstomach, and I'm like, it looks
like stone match. And they justthought that was so funny. And
every time, you know, we went towrite stomach, they're like,
stone match. And they justthought it was hilarious. And
it's just like this, you know,silly little thing. But then,

(46:54):
you know, and then I will modelfor them, and I will model like
some positive self talk. And soI'll pretend like I'm, like,
this persona. I'm like, oh, nowI'm a student, and, you know, I
have like, a pretend name, and Iact like I'm a student. And I'll
show some of the like, I will belike, Oh, I wonder when lunch
is. Oh, I'm hungry. Oh, my handhurts. Oh, oh, I need to use my

(47:17):
self talk focus one step at atime. Don't worry. Think of fun,
new ideas. You know, I can, andthey just, they're kind of
entertained by it, but they'realso, you know, getting some
examples of how when they startgetting distracted or have a
hard time, they have to pullthemselves back. Happens to
everyone. So I just think, Idon't know, writing is one of my

(47:41):
I mean, I say this almost aboutevery part of my day. I'm like,
it's one of my favorite parts ofthe day. But really, writing is
so it is so fun. They reallylike it. They enjoy it. So I
love that you brought that up,Donell,

Stacy Hurst (47:53):
and there's nothing like seeing them generalize it.
So I loved this about teachingfirst grade that parents would
say, Oh, they're writing all thetime. They wrote me a note.
They, you know, all these thingsare so cute and fun, and I do
like the idea of making sureit's fun. Donell, you would be
impressed. One thing we didevery time somebody had a
birthday in my class is theywould be interviewed, and we

(48:15):
made serious business of it.
They'd sit up front in a highchair, and then we had a
microphone that we asked, youknow, the report, the rest of
the class were the reporters,and then they would each write a
page about this person afterwe've interviewed them, and that
person would get a birthdaybook. And it was always fun when
you were looking over thesebirthday books by the end of the
year, because they went in theclassroom library till the end

(48:36):
of the year, you could tell thestudents that had birthdays
towards the beginning of theyear compared to the end of the
year, there is always much morerefined writing in the end. But
they loved that, and they couldsee that there's application to
writing beyond you know whatwe're doing in school, and just
how beneficial that can be.

Donell Pons (48:59):
Yeah, this has been great. Thank you so much. Again.
We promise we will have morethan one conversation about
writing, so there will be more.
But this was just really a nicekind of introduction, kind of
come back around, maybe somethings we've talked about or
thought about and getting ourgrounding in it again, things
you maybe want to talk about alittle bit more, maybe with your
other teachers in your school orsomething. Or maybe it was just
fun to have a little time hereto kick back and just listen

(49:20):
about writing again, but thishas been fun. Thank you so much
for the conversation.

Stacy Hurst (49:25):
Yeah, thank you.
It's very timely for me too,because I am writing a new
course that will include writingfor pre service teachers, and
honestly, it's a littleoverwhelming. How do you fit it
into a semester? Right? So I'mtaking notes. I'm learning from
both of you and I look forwardto our other conversations about
writing. If anybody in our landof listeners has any

(49:47):
suggestions, I'm open to thosetoo, but thank you so much for
listening. I hope you got asmuch out of this conversation as
I did. So thank you Donell andLindsay and hope. Hopefully
you'll join us for the nextepisode of literacy talks.

Narrator (50:06):
Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to
you from Reading Horizons, whereliteracy momentum begins. Visit
reading horizons.com/literacytalks to access episodes and
resources to support yourjourney in the science of
reading.