Foundational Skills
Recommended Practice: Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing.
- Overview & Tools: Video overviews and professional development materials
- Learn What Works: Expert interviews about foundational skills
- See How It Works: Videos and sample materials from schools
Teaching Foundational Skills to Help Students Become Effective Writers
Writing > Foundational Skills > Overview & Tools
This recommended practice focuses on providing instruction on foundational writing skills, such as handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing. This presentation...
Resource Type
Overview
Not Grammar for Grammar’s Sake
Writing > Foundational Skills > Learn What Works
Listen to a member of the IES Panel discuss the importance of teaching spelling and of supporting students in learning to construct sentences that convey their intended meaning. Teaching these...
Resource Type
Expert Interview
Learning to Construct Effective Sentences
Writing > Foundational Skills > See How It Works
A teacher talks about using mentor texts to help students learn how to construct effective sentences. She asks the students what they notice in the sentence. Students discuss the features of the...
Resource Type
School Example
Building a Solid Foundation for Writing
Writing > Foundational Skills > See How It Works
Teachers describe how they teach handwriting, spelling, and sentence construction skills. The teachers also use technology in their classroom to explore texts with their students and to teach...
Resource Type
School Example
Appositive Worksheet: How Do Experts Do It?
Writing > Foundational Skills > See How It Works
This sample material offers an example of different nonfiction sentences in a mentor text to show students how authors use appositives to craft sentences. Listen to the audio interview, Learning to...
Resource Type
Sample Material
Keep It Simple
Writing > Foundational Skills > See How It Works
Teachers can use this template to teach sentence construction in different subject areas to show sentence patterns and to help students construct simple and complex sentences. Listen to the audio...
Resource Type
Sample Material
Check This Out
Writing > Foundational Skills > See How It Works
Use the example questions from this sample material to help students understand sentence construction and different techniques that authors use to craft effective sentences. To learn how one...
Resource Type
Sample Material
Planning to Teach Sentence Construction
Writing > Foundational Skills > Overview & Tools
Use this tool to plan lessons using mentor texts to teach sentence construction. View the related sample materials and listen to the audio interview to learn more about using mentor text to teach...
Resource Type
Tool
Using Mentor Texts to Teach Foundational Skills: A Planner
Writing > Foundational Skills > Overview & Tools
Elementary school teachers can use this tool for organizing ideas and identifying mentor texts that can be integrated into lesson plans on grammar and sentence mechanics. Using this tool, teachers...
Resource Type
Tool
Self-Reflection Tool: Activities for Sentence Structure Development
Writing > Foundational Skills > Overview & Tools
This tool can be used to identify ideas for focused instruction within three research-based instructional activities for sentence development: sentence framing, sentence expanding, and sentence...
Resource Type
Tool
