By Laura Lane
The Merrick School District is trying to improve students' writing, a skill they can use for the rest of their lives, by training teachers to integrate a new program, Step Up To Writing, in their classrooms.
Forty Merrick teachers have received training in the new program, 15 of whom are at Levy-Lakeside Elementary.
The Levy-Lakeside teachers have incorporated Step Up To Writing into the curriculum since September. Principal Dr. John Kohnken has already seen promising results.
"We had retirees score our New York state fifth-grade social studies test last year and this year, and they asked us what we did," said Kohnken. "This year, the children's essays were more focused and on target. The children used what they'd learned from the program to write the essays."
Step Up To Writing provides direct, step-by-step instruction, guidelines and examples that help to make writing easier, faster and more rewarding for children. The suggested techniques can be used in all subject areas, including creative and personal writing.
The Herald visited Levy-Lakeside recently to see how the program works with younger and older children. Second-graders in Michelle Fenelius's classroom were enthusiastic as they played an organization game to teach them how to write a basic paragraph.
Fenelius wrote different word groupings in 12 boxes and challenged her class to use different colored markers to find the parts of a paragraph. The second-graders looked for the topic sentence, star ideas, which are the details about the topic sentence, and explanations about the newly discovered star ideas.
Displayed in the classroom were finished paragraphs, with each sentence written on different colored construction paper. Children worked in teams to complete their new paragraph, eager to add them to the display.
"It's amazing how the children can make the transitions and sentences," said Fenelius. "And I've noticed a change from last year when I didn't use this program. It was harder to teach paragraphs and topic sentences."
Jennie Salwen's fifth-graders are using Step Up To Writing techniques for expository writing and note taking. When the Herald visited, they were working on eight sentence paragraphs, which they planned to combine to write essays.
The older children were using colored circle stickers instead of the markers and construction paper to separate the different types of sentences.
"The color coding makes it easier for the kids," said Salwen. "It's familiar to kids, like green means go, which is the topic sentence, yellow means slow down, which means give us more information, and red means stop and explain our topic."
Salwen believes the children will only improve with time. If kids use the color coding beginning in the second grade, they may not need it by the fifth grade.
"By the fifth grade, we can tailor and refine paragraph writing," said Salwen. "I started this the first day of school, and I can see that the kids now stick more to topic, explain themselves more, and there isn't as much stream-of-consciousness writing."
And Salwen said the rambling sentences have ceased, as well. "Kids aren't inherently organized," she explained. "This gives them the organization they need; it reins them in."
Comments about this story? Llane@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
