Students as Scribers

Students scribing in Kindergarten allows them to contribute and share what they have learned in class. Scribing puts emphasis on listening to what is being taught and then putting that information on paper. At this young age, not all students are able to write. Non-writing students can act as scribers with pictures and scribbles. They are still able to record what they have learned in class.

On Mondays, I ask my students to take out their journals and write about something they did over the weekend. Most of my students will draw a picture and then scribe what the picture is about. Older students wouldn’t draw a picture, they would simply journal what they did over the weekend.

On any other day I would ask my students to take out their journals and write about anything they want. Maybe something they did over the summer, a special event, etc. Students enjoy having the freedom to write about something they are interested in or know a lot about. Student journals do not go home until the end of the school year. This allows me to see students progress throughout the year and parents are also able to see their child's improvement through scribing.

As the school year continues my students become more comfortable with their writing and are ready to create books by scribing. I decided to do a science unit about bees. For the first week I read to my students several different books about bees. We asked several questions and answered many questions as a class.

Each day I had a different student scribe something that they learned about bees. The student that was scribing knew they needed to pay attention, be organized and that the details needed to be accurate. The students that were scribing took pride in their work. By the end of the week we had a book that was produced by my students from scribing. We were able to display the book in our library for everyone to review.

Since students enjoyed scribing they decided they would like to create their own book about bees. They would be able to do this from the notes that were taken from their peers.

I have some students who enjoy using the iPad to scribe. I was able to find a free application that I downloaded to our iPad called Write to the Core Lite. This is a great application for Kindergarteners to help them write with technology. This application starts off with some sentence ideas for students to begin their story. This is really helpful for students to run off with their story. The different options of questions helps students through the steps of writing a paragraph and it also helps them formulate their thoughts.

Each story begins with an opinion. Students are able to upload a picture that they have created or a photo of what they plan on writing about. What I like about this application is that it will read the question aloud for students who can not read. Students simply click on the green button. Once students upload their picture they click on NEXT.

As teachers, we can use the customized feature sentences or create our own questions. Once students decide on what they want to write about they can begin there story. Students begin with their opinion. If they don’t know how to write a word, spell check will help them through the writing process.

Students then continue their story with a REASON.

The next part, students will continue their story with an EXAMPLE.

Students are coming to the end and have to provide their CLOSING.

Once students have inputted there closing they are able to save their story.

Self-Review, students are able to record there story and listen to it back.

Students are able to share their story with their fellow classmates and they can comment on each others story.

Reflection:

The great thing about this application is that students are able to share their story with friends and family by emailing it to them or printing it out for them.

These stories get saved and throughout the year teachers can see the progress of the stories written by students.  Students are always excited to see their finished product.  It's a great accomplishment for them.

The only problem I see with this application is that not all students feel comfortable with using technology. At this age they are still learning how to use technology and navigate through applications. This will definitely be a learning process for all students.