In the book "Best Practices in Literacy Instruction" (2nd Ed) edited by Michael Pressley, there's a chapter entitled, "Building a sound Writing Program" and on page 145 of that chapter the author states, "Studies show that teaching formal grammar to students has 'a negligible or even harmful effect on improving students' writing'...The only isolated skills teaching that does seem to show a positive effect on writing is teaching students how to combine sentences." (in other words, teach grammar in CONTEXT of students' writing.)
After reading that a few years ago, I purposely incorporated some sentence combining lessons into my 2nd grade writer's workshop and the kids did very well with the activities and the lessons had some carry over. I did these lessons in the spring after introducing adjectives and adverbs, but I think I'm going to begin the year with sentence combining this year (I'm moving to 5th grade) and make sure to intersperse these lessons throughout the year for maximum effect. Anyone tried this throughout the year? Have you seen carry over and improved writing as a result? -Michelle TG, 5th IA _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
