Pattern Stories At Writing Time

At writing workshop, we started a new unit of study focusing on Pattern Books. I have been recently reading Katie Wood Ray's books Study Driven and Wondrous Words, and she is reminding me the importance of teaching students to read like writers. I love the explanation below from Stephanie Parsons First Grade Writers.

Stephanie writes:

Reading like writers is an abstract concept. As with any skill, you need to break it down for your students teaching them the steps along the way. The goal here is that children begin to read like writers. So what part of reading like writers comes at the beginning? What part of the work do you do for them and what part can you expect them to do? One strong way to begin reading like a writer is immersing yourself in the kind of text that you can most easily envision yourself writing. 



Stephanies' book has some fantastic units of study to help children plan, organize and structure their writing ideas. I got the idea of exploring and creating pattern books from her book.


Frank Asch Books

I love how Frank Asch has a nature theme throughout his books.  The illustrations are beautiful, and these books lead easily into a classroom Shared Writing lesson. You can see a chart we wrote as a class.

I love Todd Parr.  His books have simple text with a powerful message.  Students can quickly come up with topics for special people in their lives.

I love all of these books by Paul Collicutt. The pattern is perfect for young students. These books have simple sentences, but the illustrations give you so much information about the topic!!  We talked about how these books have the opposite information on each page. The author Paul always ended the last page with something different from the pattern. 

Our class chart is recording some of our thinking! Below are some examples of pattern stories students are making in kindergarten. I just shared the first page or two.

 Happy News 
The bunny found a friend. 

Sad News

The Bunny lost his friend.

This train goes curvy. This train goes straight.

My big brother Christian likes little Lego's. My little brother Mark likes big Lego's.

Somewhere today a Water Snake it swimming.

Somewhere today a snake is laying 100 eggs