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Pictures make words

Floral City instructors are teaching primary language arts by using kids' art to inspire kids' language.

By Times Staff Writer
Published October 5, 2005

FLORAL CITY - Walking down the hallway, a visitor can see some of the progress Floral City Elementary School first-graders have been making with the new reading program for kindergarten through second grade, "Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum." The children's work hangs on the wall.

One shows a picture of a child fishing and carries the caption "One day when I was fishing. I saw an alligator." Another was about a child's unfortunate encounter with a rock. "I threw a rock. I got hit by the rock. It hurt."

These examples illustrate the way eight teachers are approaching reading and writing at the school this year. "They're writing from their own experiences," said kindergarten teacher Julie Rouse. "It's getting them to focus on one moment in time and detail it. Real things."

Second-grade teacher Julie Welshans has noticed differences with this program. "I think the neat part is they're showing more details in their pictures and it shows up in their writing," she said.

The program calls for a Word Wall or some place in the classroom where students can go to find commonly used words for their particular room, which they can use in their stories. For example, the Word Wall in Mrs. Rouse's room has all the names of the children in the class listed under the letters with which the names start. A few other words are there as well, such as "my," "like," "see," "I," and "Mrs. Rouse."

If a child is writing about something that happened to him in school, he might need to go to the Word Wall to get help writing Mrs. Rouse's name. As the students learn them, other common sight words will be added to the walls.

The program includes a motto on a poster: "When you're done, you've just begun."

"All the kids are saying it now," said first-grade teacher Joanne Diederich.

The children keep going back to find or think of details. They are making the decision to be done or not done with a story. It teaches them writing is a process, Mrs. Rouse said.

Several of the teachers and principal Janet Reed went to a workshop in Tampa in December of 2004 to learn the program.

Kindergarten teacher Shirley Campbell was one who went and was impressed with what she saw. "It made a lot of sense to me."

During the summer before the current school year, those who went to the workshop met with the other teachers to be ready for the school year. The program began on Day One.

The teachers use it for about 45 minutes to an hour four or five times a week. It begins with the teacher working with the entire class.

During a recent lesson, Mrs. Rouse illustrated her own story. The picture she drew showed her and a friend walking on a trail. There was a tree. She wrote, "When I was walking with my friend Carol, a bug flew into my eye."

She said she needed to add night sky with stars because it was evening when they walked. She also added a speech bubble pointing to her. "Ouch, that hurts!"

Her story continued with her pouring water into her eye. Mrs. Rouse had the children sound out the letters of each word as she wrote it. She concentrated on sounds for unfamiliar words rather than correct spelling. "Right now, we're working on hearing and spelling basic words they hear and see all the time," she said. Correct spelling of all words comes later.

Soon she excused the children to find their folders and concentrate on the day's goal of adding details and labels. The folders and filing are part of the program. "It teaches them how to be organized. To take care of their materials."

Joshua Shirley, 5, had a picture of his yard and a trampoline. "I was jumping on my trampoline and my brother jumped me high. That's me when I fell down on my trampoline," he pointed out. He added his brother.

Ashley Cannon, 5, was working on a story about a sleepover with her friend. They were pictured in sleeping bags. There were 11 drawings of butterflies. She explained, "There's butterflies we catched. But there's still that butterfly but we didn't catch them yet."

Amber Kline, 5, had pulled out her story about her family's ride on a boat. "This is my sister, Tyla, and this is me driving my boat." She suddenly remembered someone she needed to add. "My daddy. I got to make him," she said. "My mom, her name is Lori." The boat had a canopy. "That big top is so the floor won't get all hot."

Working in small groups, the children can watch each other create stories and that adds to the learning. "One of the keys is when the student shares," said Mrs. Welshans. "All the other students pick up on that, and it leads to better writing."

Mrs. Rouse said the children seem to be enjoying this way of learning to read and write. "When we come in from recess, they say, "Is it writers' workshop time?"'

Amber supports her teacher's observation. "I love it," she said, "because it's so fun to write. I like making stories. I like making books."

[Last modified October 5, 2005, 10:33:36]