When your students are writing independently at your writing center, staying on task might be a huge problem. You need solid first grade writing center expectations so your students do not distract you from your small group, distract classmates nearby, or just plain distract themselves so much they aren’t writing.
First-Grade Writing Center Expectations
Here are some ways to teach your first grade writing expectations to your students so they know what is asked of them at your writing center.
Create Routines At Your Writing Center
Let’s be proactive for a moment. Grab a piece of paper and write down what problems you anticipate from your writing center. Now, match it with a rule or a routine your students will learn beforehand. Model, practice, repeat.
The best way to start is to choose THE thing that drives you bonkers and fix that first. For me, it was the mess. OH, THE MESS. So we stopped and practiced our clean up routine. This was an easy first grade writing expectation to learn. That was the one thing we worked on, so my students had to learn it, which meant spending a lot of time practicing. Which is okay!
What Happens When You Need To Reteach?
What happens if one student needs a friendly reminder? A good principle is to praise in public and correct in private. It’s just a better way to remind your students of your first grade writing center expectations without making them feel awful in front of your class.
Do ALL your students need gentle reminders? Then, pull your students to your rug and have a talk. Tell them you’re noticing a problem. And that problem means their writing center just isn’t working as well as it needs to.
Ask for their input on what they notice. See if they have suggestions! You’d be surprised at what they come up with. Then, every day before your literacy stations, say, “Do you remember our discussion about the writing center yesterday? Let’s see how well we do today.” And when you’re finished, discuss it again! “How did it go? Was it better this time? What did we do differently?” Keep that up for awhile and you’ll start to see a positive change.
Writing Station Problems To Watch For
Are you just starting out with literacy centers? Not sure which problems to look for? Here are some ideas of problems to turn into a rule or a routine.
- Students staying on task.
- Students visiting instead of writing.
- What if your students have questions about their assignment during literacy centers?
- Your students are not writing like they’re capable. They only draw or repeat the same type of sentence over and over again so they can be done.
Introducing Your Writing Center To Your Students
When you’re introducing your writing center to your students, treat it just like a regular lesson. State your writing center expectations, model like you’re winning an Academy Award, then allow your students to practice. Last and most important, have a discussion with your students about what they thought was easy and what was difficult. Then repeat. A lot. And here’s the kicker. Do not let your students visit your writing center until they show you that they are ready.
How Do You Know Your Students Are Ready?
So how do you know if your students are ready to follow your first grade writing center expectations? Sometimes, you’ll just know. They’ll be so tired of practicing they just BEG you to go and try it. (I love those years!) In other years, your students may need a visual cue to follow the routines.
Using a timer is a great way to keep track of how well your students are doing. When you send a group of kiddos to your writing center to practice, hit start on your timer. See how long they can go before you notice a rule being bent. Then, hit stop.
See if your students can beat that time tomorrow!
Reinforcing Your First-Grade Writing Expectations
Think back to your first grade writing expectations that you are going to teach, model, practice, and discuss. These are the things that you will post at your writing center as rules.
What does that look like? It depends on how big your classroom is. I have a small classroom. So my anchor charts and literacy center rules are posted in small acrylic picture frames. Grab these from Amazon, they’re perfect to display things throughout your classroom.
Here’s an unpopular opinion for you. Posting the rules at your writing center usually only helps your rule followers. But post them anyway. They are important. But in the meantime, here’s another tip for your students who need reminders of your first grade writing center expectations.
What Happens When Your Writing Center Implodes?
It happens. You return from Christmas break, and your students forget where your writing center is! And that’s okay because you probably did too. Time for a refresher course for your first grade writing center expectations.
It’s time to reteach your writing center. You might notice that your students are cleaning up fine. That rule can drop off as long as it’s not an issue. But you might find some new writing center issues to deal with. That’s why reteaching, modeling, practicing, and discussing are important to do whenever you see your first grade writing center expectations slipping.
Last Writing Center Tip
At the end of every literacy station time, I have the students at my writing center bring me the work they are the most proud of. This is a good way to check that all is well with them. It also holds them accountable. They know I will ask, so they’ll figure out that they better start writing.
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