Guided Writing

Definition:
Guided Writing is a teaching component designed to teach a specific skill or
strategy to the whole group, a small group, or individuals and to give
children practice in the writing. Each child has his own writing materials
and space. The children do the writing, but are supported as needed by a
teacher.

Guided Writing
Guided writing can be focused at whole text level, sentence level or word level. It will usually

follow on from shared writing and will be tailored to the needs of each group.

A writing session may begin with the teacher modeling how to engage a reader through the use

of interesting sentence starters, powerful vocabulary etc. In the same shared session the

children use supported composition to practice and apply these new skills. In the Guided Writing

session, the children further apply these skills in a piece of genre-specific writing supported by

the teacher.

Guided Writing sessions can support children to:

 transfer ideas from plans into writing

 apply strategies and skills gained as readers to meet the needs of an audience

 draft their writing for meaning and content

Guided Writing sessions can be facilitated to further support less-confident writers from the
shared session, or to extend the shared session to challenge more-able writers.
Why
The purpose of Guided Writing is to give children the opportunity to expand their
writing knowledge from their name and a few other words to more words and
eventually sentences. Guided Writing is an important step in the continuum toward
conventional writing.

Objectives - Students will:

• increase their ability to write words and use punctuation
• use writing for different purposes
• foster creativity and the ability to compose
• practice writing to develop their voice
• publish their writing in the form of books, poetry, letters, and other genre
begin to apply their oral understanding of the Six Traits of Writing
- Ideas
- Organization
- Voice
- Word Choice
- Sentence Fluency
- Conventions

Planning and organizing for guided writing

In order for effective teaching of the writing process to take place, thorough assessment and
identification of the learning needs of the whole class must be ascertained. The assessment
information should subsequently be used by the teacher to group children with similar needs.

The groups must be flexible to ensure that needs are addressed. This may result in a child
attending two different guided writing sessions to consolidate a particular area of learning or to
extend their learning.
Guided Writing can take place:

Before writing

to support children’s planning and drafting of their work. The previous shared session(s) should be
referred back to and then extended to further children’s learning in the writing process. Examples:

 the teacher modelling the process of planning and drafting

 developing sentence construction and punctuation
 retelling a known story in the correct sequence
 speaking and listening objectives
 planning a piece of poetry drawn from a model discussed in the shared session
 oral rehearsal: in particular, those children who have poor literacy skills

At the point of writing

this can be when the children are beginning to, or have already begun to write independently. The
sessions should be used to praise efforts and offer constructive criticism in order to move learning on.
Examples:

 write the first or next paragraph of an explanation text and be invited to read it aloud to the group
 reread for clarity and purpose
 use of consistency in terms of character traits
 use genre-specific vocabulary; choice of phrases, use of complex sentences
 re-visit objectives for writing and check their work against the success criteria

After writing

Children should be given the opportunity to assess their independent writing. This can be achieved
independently or with peer support. Examples:

 discuss writing targets and agree upon next steps/new target.

 support children to edit, proofread and reflect on the impact on the reader
 evaluate work against success criteria

Ms. O’Connell - The Five Steps

think; draw a picture; write something; write your name; copy (or stamp or get an adult to write)
the date.