Teaching writing can feel like an uphill battle. As a special education resource teacher, I struggled for years to find off-the-shelf writing resources that truly fit my students’ unique needs. When working with beginning writers, effective writing strategies for early readers are essential because reading and writing go hand-in-hand decoding to read and encoding to spell rely on the exact same foundational skills.
When young students learn to decode for reading, they are using the exact same phonemic awareness skills needed to encode (spell) words. Because these skills directly mirror each other, I strongly believe in teaching reading and writing simultaneously using tactile, hands-on learning.
About ten years ago, I had the opportunity to get certified in the Wilson Reading System. Even though I already held a Master’s degree in reading, becoming Wilson-certified completely transformed how I teach literacy. Even when I am not explicitly using the formal Wilson curriculum, I constantly weave its core methodology and research-backed practices into my daily lessons.
If you use a structured literacy program like the Wilson Reading System, tactile strategies align seamlessly with tapping out phonemes and building strong sound-symbol connections.
Regardless of your curriculum, many students need a permanent visual anchor to connect sounds to letters. I keep a laminated Letter-Sound Chart (printed on sturdy cardstock for durability) at my students’ desks during every writing task.
I recommend having a few variations on hand:
Want free resources?!? These Letter-Sound charts are in my Free Resource Library. Check out these as well as all my free resources!
To teach students how to break words down into individual sounds, I have frequently used blocks in two distinct colors, one for consonants and one for vowels. Using kinesthetic learning, have students touch each block with each sound. By using kinesthetic learning, you will active the students sense of touch, sight, sound, and hearing all at once. This is so important for those young learners.
While teachers might collectively be tired of Pop-Its, they are surprisingly effective instructional tools! Pushing down a bubble for each phoneme gives tactile feedback that helps kinesthetic learners segment sounds before mapping them onto paper. Plus, using a tool that kids already enjoy, gets buy-in from the students and the kids think its fun.
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Before jumping straight to pencil-and-paper writing, build words physically I feel is the next step. Once students can segment sounds using blocks or Pop-Its, have them pull magnetic letters or tiles to build and spell the word. This bridges the gap between phonemic awareness and physical handwriting.
This is a free download from the UFLI website.
Teaching early writing doesn’t have to be overwhelming when you lean into multi-sensory tools. What strategies work best in your classroom?
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