Bullimbal School uses a balanced literacy approach to literacy teaching in all classrooms, based on information outlined in “Research-Based Practices for Creating Access to the General Curriculum in Reading and Literacy for Students with Significant Intellectual Disabilities” Erickson, Hanser, Hatch and Sanders (2009).
For emergent students we recognize that there are three different sorts of writing which should occur during the school day.
“Writing For”
These are opportunities that occur throughout the day where the teacher writes for the students. These opportunities can be used to teach functions of print to emergent students e.g. print has meaning, print is a code for speech.
Examples of writing for students are morning message, creating lists for shopping or lessons, writing reminders, adding to a calendar, etc.
“Writing With”
These are teacher created opportunities where the class writes as a group with the teacher to create texts.
Examples of writing with students are Predictable Chart Writing and creating class texts as a group.
“Writing By Myself”
These are specific writing opportunities where each student uses the most appropriate writing tool for them to participate in individual writing. We recognize that during the emergent literacy phase that emergent writing may look like “scribble” but serves many important functions in each students’ literacy development, such as the student developing a sense of themselves as a writer, developing their understanding of how print works and feeding into and out of language development.