Primary Chalkboard: Interactive Edits: Tips for Teaching Grammar and Mechanics

Hello again friends!

This is Jen from Out of This World Literacy. I am excited to share my latest thinking about interactive edits. In the past, I have used D.O.L. (Daily Oral Language) worksheets in my classroom in the hopes that my students would correct all the mistakes in poorly written sentences. I hoped, that by knowing how to correct numerous errors in poorly written sentences, they would be able to write correctly themselves.

My thinking completely shifted when I learned about Jeff Anderson and his idea of showing students well written sentences, rather than putting poorly written sentences in front of them. If you ever have the opportunity to hear Mr. Anderson speak, TAKE IT! He is phenomenal...and highly entertaining I might add.

Here he is explaining his thinking about inviting students to notice well written sentences:

Asking students to notice what works well in a sentence, rather than to identify errors, helps students learn good grammar and mechanics. When we practice finding mistakes, we only focus on mistakes. When we practice finding what is good, we are focusing on what works well in sentences. Since we want our students to write sentences full of strong grammar, mechanics, word choice, figurative language, etc., we will look at good quality sentences that model these traits.

After all, we don’t teach math by showing students how to find the wrong answers, or all the ways they could solve problems incorrectly. We teach math by showing students many different ways to find the right answer. Likewise, we rarely chose a poorly written book as a read-aloud. And we certainly would not pick a lousy piece of work and use it for mentor text in writing. We choose well-written work that models good writing. Let’s do the same through interactive edit by choosing well-written sentences that give students the opportunity to notice what makes a great sentence!

Here is a short video of our home school classroom, where my daughter Sophie helps us notice what works in a great sentence!