TESthink, educate, share

Forums

Avatar

TES Scotland primary - Forum

This is where primary teachers in Scotland get together to share ideas and to discuss the latest issues in primary education.

Members 588 Total Posts 1627

Advice needed re writing lessons with wide range of ability

  • post reply
    I'm hoping some people on here can give me advice about how to organise my writing lessons where the levels of ability are so diverse that a whole class lesson with differentiated activities/outcomes just doesn't seem to be working.  I have a middle stages composite class and I'm thinking of moving to a rolling programme of teaching a group at a time and leaving the others to engage in independent tasks (based on their previous taught session) which would allow me to give, hopefully, more focused teaching time.  My initial thoughts are to have 3 groups  and follow a system of teach one, partner/group activities for another, and independent work for the third as well as building in some floating time so I can observe/assist individuals where necessary.  Has anyone tried this in practice?  I would really appreciate any top tips, or top pitfalls, relating to this approach before I decide to go down this route.  Thanks in advance.
    Posted
    Please join this group to replyReply
  • post reply
    I am still looking for a solution to this after 25 years of trying! I too teach middle stages composite (p3/4/5), and think your rolling programme idea is definitely worth a try - even better if you have support from a classroom assistant in order to keep the rest of the children on task. When I have worked like this, groups have responded well and been much more focused on the lesson. One of the pitfalls I found was that I felt it took a long time to cover all the work with all the groups, but reckoned it was worth it for the quality interaction and writing produced. At the moment I too am teaching whole class lessons because I don't have a classroom assistant to supervise independent groups.
    Posted
    Please join this group to replyReply
  • post reply
    Thanks cmls.  I'm hoping to re-jig my timetable so I can get a decent time with each group, making sure I've got lots of worthwhile finishing tasks for the early finishers.  I suppose I can only give it a go and see if I can better results,
    Posted
    Please join this group to replyReply
  • post reply

    Have you looked at the Highland Literacy Project writing aspect, as this has the idea that you work with a group one week and then another the next, with lots of notes on organisation and similar stuff.  Is it the writing skills or extended writing that you are having trouble with?  I'm using the Big Writing right now which is good for differentiation as the children know what level they are at roughly and adapt their languag to try and be that level and most of the activities to promote this are oral so it is more fun and they don't feel they are always writing.  The main problem is that my class all (just about) really like story writing and when I get the 20 pieces back to mark after the extended writing period (45 mins), there is a lot of writing and some good ideas. 

    Now if only I could find the punctuation we would be bang on track! :)

     I do like the Big Writing stuff, but my main concern is that I'm not doing it right as I haven't done any training just read the books, but some of the boys who aren't big on writing have enjoyed it.  One was even quite disappointed on the return trip of a basketball session that they had missed it!

     But if you want to look at the Highland Literacy stuff go to:

    http://www.hvlc.org.uk/hlp/writing.htm

    Hope that helps. ^_^

    Posted
    Please join this group to replyReply