This is an example of what the beginning stage of a journal entry for the first grade class I worked with looked like. We would read a story together and then go over a reading strategy such as connection or retell to write a sentence about in their journals. This story was about activities a group of bears did. Their reading strategy was retell. Students would tell me the different activities and I would draw pictures and label them. Then we would have a "glue word" box at the top left of the board with the words students would need to be able to write complete sentences retelling the story, They had to come up with their own sentences.
Students were very clear on directions and procedures. This was routine for them so they knew after this step they were on their own. I made sure to go around the room and have students tell me their sentences to make sure there weren't any misconceptions and students knew how to spell all the words they wanted to use. |