Writing Acceleration Research & Program

Initial research from google search - accelerated writing, NZ

TKI writing acceleration for year 4

Accelerating Writing (Principals conference)

Accelerated Writing Sabbatical Research By Andrew Watson (2014)

The importance of knowing your learning, authentic writing experiences and engagement in writing!

Writing Acceleration Program Planning

Writing Acceleration Update - End of Term 3

After 5 weeks of the writing program, it became evident that the students had made excellent progress towards meeting the end of year 4 national standard in writing.  After an independent writing sample was completed and moderated (2 by a syndicate member and 2 by a junior syndicate member), 3 out of 4 students were deemed to have 'graduated' and progress to be monitored within the current writing program.

One student was retained as he had goals he still needed to master (grammar - tense, compound/complex sentences, and checking writing makes sense).  Despite this he is working within level 2 (p) with the above gaps at the beginning of level 2.  Again it is anticipated he will graduate the program by year-end meeting the year 4 national standard in writing.

With the success of the program, we could offer it to other students that were making slow progress at level 2 and needed a boost to maintain their 'at' progress.  These 4 students have been highly engaged and motivated since joining the program in week 6 and will continue with the program in term 4.

Analysing why the program was successful in collaboration with my CORE Ed mentor (Janelle Riki-Waka), we determined the following reasons for the success:

1. using technology and knowing the learner (interests & passions) to engage using a variety of writing hooks (e.g. Literacy Shed, usual images, Storybird, Kahoot, google apps, You Tube, Short Stories etc)

2. conferencing with the teacher providing very clear, explicit feedback around goals and next steps, which the children knew and could verbalise before the writing sessions.

The next step is to take what we have learnt from the writing program and implement in our classroom-wide program.  The action we have decided to take is to increase writing time and set 15 minutes at the beginning of each writing lesson as independent 'quick write' time and conference with 3-4 children daily.  This means children will be conferenced each week around their goals and next steps.  Teachers will also continue to engage through a variety of writing prompts and incorporation.

The exciting thing for term 4 is that the children's writing goals and next steps are clearly recorded in their writing books with the same goals and next steps recorded in the teacher's assessment sheet.  This will enable children to book their own writing workshops and teachers to easily plan workshops around the children's goals.  We will retain a small group (14 children) that will stay with a teacher as they have diverse needs and are not ready to self-manage their learning.  This worked well in term 3.