Webinar Transcript

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Karly O'Brien: Alright, well, we're gonna get started for…

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Karly O'Brien: the sake of all the wonderful things we want to share, want to make sure we can get through everything, so welcome. I'm really excited to have you tonight to our next Every Family Counts webinar. Tonight we are talking about at-home writing strategies for grades K, excuse me, 3 to 5. We already did a session similar to this for grades K to 2, so if you joined us or are familiar with our webinars, welcome back. If you haven't.

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Karly O'Brien: and are interested in seeing that webinar or any other webinars we've hosted before, you'll be able to revisit this session, as well as those, in our archive, and I'll be able to share all those links throughout the chat while, we're kind of co-presenting throughout.

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Karly O'Brien: Just wanted to share that closed captioning is available for this webinar, and we encourage you to use the chat and the Q&A throughout the session to share any questions, ideas, or reflections.

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Karly O'Brien: Tonight, we are going to be talking all about how to support your child's writing at home in ways that feels realistic and doable for you. Writing in grades 3 to 5 can sometimes feel challenging, for kids and for families, so our goal for tonight is to share simple, easy-to-use strategies that you can start using right away with materials that you already

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Karly O'Brien: already have at home, easy-to-use materials. We'll talk about topics such as supporting spelling, helping kids write more often, strengthening paragraphs, excuse me, paragraphs, and improving organization. Most importantly, what we love to do here at Riff is focus on keeping everything joyful and helping children see themselves as confident readers, and in this situation, writers.

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Karly O'Brien: We know that when kids, and I'm sure you all feel the same way, feel confident and supported, they're more willing to take risks, share ideas, and just keep going when writing can feel frustrating in those upper grades, so…

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Karly O'Brien: With that, we're gonna get started.

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Karly O'Brien: If you are new and haven't joined our sessions before, just a little bit about us. We are Reading as Fundamental, or RIF. For the last 60 years, we have been the nation's largest children's literacy nonprofit. Our mission is and always has been to inspire the joy of reading and ensure every child has the opportunities and resources to become a lifelong learner. And these webinars are… we are committed to

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Karly O'Brien: Supporting families and the educators who work alongside of those families with practical strategies that make

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Karly O'Brien: literacy feel joyful and empowering, so we are so glad that you're here with us tonight, and we are going to

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Karly O'Brien: jump right into the content. So, you've heard me talk a little bit, so you're probably like, who are you? My name is Carly O'Brien, I am the Manager of Literacy Services here at Reading is Fundamental. I am a former classroom teacher and reading specialist, and I taught fifth grade for the majority of my career, so this topic is really, feels real at home. I really do miss supporting, the upper elementary students.

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Karly O'Brien: Especially with writing, so I'm really excited.

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Karly O'Brien: to talk about this topic with you all, and I'm gonna throw it to you, Erin, to just share a little bit about you really quick.

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Erin Bailey: Thanks, Carly, and thanks for kicking us off. Welcome, everyone. I am hopefully at the end of a little bit of a cold, so you may hear it in my voice a little bit. My voice, it doesn't always sound like this, but I am glad to be here this evening. I am Dr. Erin Bailey, and similar to Carly, I'm a former classroom teacher, including 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, so I'm excited to share some practical writing strategies with y'all today.

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Karly O'Brien: Awesome, thanks, Erin. So, before we kick in, to the actual content, just wanted you all to think about two questions, and you can jot them down next to you, feel free to share them in the chat, or just, think about it, right now and throughout the rest of the session. So, the questions are.

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Karly O'Brien: How did you see yourself as a writer when you were in school?

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Karly O'Brien: And then, how do you see yourself as a writer now?

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Karly O'Brien: So throughout tonight's session, we're also gonna talk a little bit about writing identity, and what it's like to identify as a writer, and how that can impact, positively impact our academic outcomes. So, start thinking about those two questions, and again, feel free to share your thoughts if you'd like, but,

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Karly O'Brien: I'm gonna kick it off with, the content, so go ahead, Erin.

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Erin Bailey: Thanks, Carly. So, first, we're going to talk a little bit about writing genres. The standards that govern what writing is taught in schools vary slightly from state to state, but in general, there are three genres recognized. So, the first one is narrative.

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Erin Bailey: Which, if you think of a narration, it tells a story. This can be a real story, such as a personal narrative, or it can be an imagined story, such as a fairy tale remix.

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Erin Bailey: These follow a clear beginning, middle, and end, and often include characters, even if the character's yourself, a setting, and events. Events usually including a problem and a solution.

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Erin Bailey: Next we have what's sometimes called expository.

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Erin Bailey: or informational writing. This can include procedural writing. It explains or teaches about a topic, so you can think about if you're doing an animal report, or a historical biography report about a historical figure. You're sharing facts.

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Erin Bailey: steps, if it's procedural, and ideas. And then the third, this is called something different, depending on what, grade and what state you're in, but it's overall the same thing, so it can be called opinion writing.

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Erin Bailey: persuasive writing, or even, sometimes argumentative writing. Here, you are sharing the writer's ideas, things that the writer believes in, and is trying to convince the reader using reasons and examples.

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Erin Bailey: Very common ones are why, your child should be able to stay up later, or have a certain pet that they want, or have the birthday party that they've been asking for, or sell

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Erin Bailey: pizza every day in the cafeteria. These are some fun prompts that you may think of, for argumentative writing in grades 3 through 5.

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Karly O'Brien: Cool. Thanks, Erin. So, at this age, while they are exploring different types of writing and genres, it's really helpful for us to, as educators and family members, to know what's typical for students at this grade… in these grades 3 to 5, because what you're seeing at home is most likely, exactly what teachers are expecting to see. So, the first one being that grammar, spelling, and punctuation

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Karly O'Brien: during these grades are improving, and they're still growing. So kids at these age are learning these rules, they're trying them out, sometimes applying them consistently or inconsistently. For example, you might see capital letters at the start of some sentences, but not others, or incorrect punctuation that might show up correctly one day, but then completely disappear the next.

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Karly O'Brien: That's a totally normal part of this process, and it just shows you that they are trying out the strategies that they, have been taught or have been seeing in stories.

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Karly O'Brien: At this age, you might also notice that sentences are growing and getting longer. This is really exciting. Because of this, you might see some run-on sentences or missing punctuation. A run-on sentence is, like, a really… one really, really long sentence that has no periods, and it's really hard to follow. That is very developmentally appropriate at this age. Honestly, it's actually really exciting, because it means that

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Karly O'Brien: Your child has a lot of ideas that they want to share, and they're getting them all down on paper, so we can look at that as a positive and celebrate that growth, and then worry about teaching all the editing and corrections later.

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Karly O'Brien: Also, during this time, paragraphs are getting longer and beginning to carry one main idea, even if that idea isn't always clear to the reader. So, for instance, we can talk about the example that Aaron shared earlier about pets or animals. Your child might be wanting to write a paragraph about their favorite pet or animal, but they might accidentally include details that either are irrelevant or don't necessarily

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Karly O'Brien: make sense to their argument or what they're trying to tell you about. And this is just showing us that they're learning to group their thinking some type of way, and it will grow as time,

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Karly O'Brien: As time goes on.

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Karly O'Brien: And then finally, organization is beginning to emerge. You might see, an early attempt at a structure such as an introduction, a body paragraph with examples, and a conclusion that simply restates what they said in the beginning. At this point, because organization is emerging, if you're reading a sample that your child had wrote, it might feel repetitive or unfinished.

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Karly O'Brien: And that's okay and normal. Writing at this stage is really all about experimenting with what we are learning, and it's not…

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Karly O'Brien: Really supposed to be perfect at this… at this point.

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Karly O'Brien: So the big takeaway here is that, ultimately, writing is growth. Writing as you grow is not always linear, excuse me. And at this age, you might, see messy writing, crossed out words, incorrect or uneven spacing, or just

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Karly O'Brien: kind of a misorganization of ideas, and this is all normal and exciting to show us that students are learning how to express their ideas in new and different ways.

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Karly O'Brien: So we're going to take a look at, three different examples, 3rd, 4th, and fifth grade of samples of what you can expect, so kind of highlighting some of those things I just shared on the slide before this. So the prompt for all of these, samples were, what can you do to save water? So this is an example of a third grade,

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Karly O'Brien: exam… Third grade response. So, as you can see, there's a clear introduction. It's restating, what they are expected to know about water and why it's important. You can see long sentences here. Right next to the word live, in between four, there's a comma there instead of a period. You know, we talked about, that that's perfectly normal. They're practicing with different, punctuations

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Karly O'Brien: that they're learning, and you can see it demonstrated here. And then another small thing here is, like, at the end, they said there are lots instead of there are a lot, which is a little bit of, like, informal grammar, but, it's still such a really, really strong writing piece for what you'd expect in third grade.

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Karly O'Brien: And then similarly, for 4th grade, same prompt, what can you do to save water? So, what you can see here is, they have clear examples and details, they're giving, a clear… they have a clear, like, idea that they're sharing in the beginning, and as you can see just from the length here, they have more details than they might have had the previous year.

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Karly O'Brien: There's still some grammatical errors, like,

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Karly O'Brien: apostrophes here for plural words, but you can really see their ideas are starting to formulate, the sentences are getting longer, and the paragraphs are carrying that same idea across multiple sentences.

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Karly O'Brien: And then finally, for 5th grade, you can… I had to include two screenshots, because it was so long to include in one. So as you can see, there's… there's, the potential for multiple paragraphs here. You'll start to see

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Karly O'Brien: The papers get longer because of that, they have more ideas, they're adding more key details, but they still might have those errors that we talked about earlier, such as grammatical ones or missing punctuation.

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Karly O'Brien: And we're gonna jump into talking about spelling, which I know, Erin, you're very passionate about spelling.

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Erin Bailey: Right, so…

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Erin Bailey: So we'll go into some tips in just a moment, but first we want to go over the developmental, phases of spelling. So we have, pre-communicative, early, writing stage.

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Erin Bailey: This is for younger children who are using letters or symbols, but maybe isn't matching letters to sounds yet. You can think about probably when your child is really young, and they might scribble something on a piece of paper and say, this says cookies. Or maybe they know how to write the letter M, so they write the letter M down and say, this says, cookies. They're not quite yet connecting letters to sounds.

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Erin Bailey: And then we move into our, semi-phonetic, or beginning soundstage.

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Erin Bailey: beginning to connect, sounds to cookies, so maybe sounds to letters. I was about to use the cookies example again. So if they know now that, cookies starts with a sound, they might put a C, or they might put a K, depending on what letter they've, learned so far. You can see this other example, the letter U to represent the word U. They're starting to make some

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Erin Bailey: Connections, but not, proper spelling yet.

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Erin Bailey: And then phonetic, or the sounded out stage. This is where writers use words the way that they sound, depending on where they are in their, their phonics, learning, their letter sound learning. So maybe KOM for come.

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Erin Bailey: You know, you might see a student, write from F-R-U-M, sounding it out that way.

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Erin Bailey: And then we move into our transitional stage, and conventional stage. So this is really where 3rd, 4th, 5th graders are. Starting to use common spelling patterns, words look almost correct, and I'm going to show you some examples there, too. And then, of course, our conventional stage, where the writer understands spelling rules and can recognize most incorrect spellings.

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Erin Bailey: So, we're gonna pause and reflect. You can feel free to share in the chat, or just think to yourself for a moment, what do you do when you don't know how to spell a word? And you might have to think for a moment, when was the last time you actually encountered a word that you didn't know how to spell, but what did you do?

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Erin Bailey: Okay, so here's some practical tips to support spelling at home, and keeping in mind, for families, spelling… your child's spelling is not a measure of their general intelligence. There are plenty of very, very, very smart people out there who aren't very good at spelling,

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Erin Bailey: And so it's just something, if your child struggles with spelling, that you can work on and improve over time. But it doesn't mean that they can't be a good writer. So the first thing is, because they're in that more, transitional and.

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Erin Bailey: Conventional phase, you can… sometimes you might think of a big word, like, forgetful, Saturday, administration, and you automatically get stuck. You're like, that is way too long of a word. Well, if we chunk it up into syllables, like, forgetful.

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Erin Bailey: Chances are your child knows how to spell for, knows how to, spell get, and knows the, suffix.

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Erin Bailey: full, so therefore they can put that word together. So sometimes just stopping and chunking up a word into syllables and writing the spelling for each syllable can help them out there.

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Erin Bailey: Next is my favorite one, create your own mnemonics. And so, Carly, on the next slide, there's a little video that I am going to share to illustrate this. Mnemonics are just a tool that you can use in your brain to help you remember, something.

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Erin Bailey: So here we go. This is from the movie Bruce Almighty.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Oh, you're done now.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Great.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: B-E-A Beautiful.

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Erin Bailey: Okay, so I know for me, the moment that I saw that movie.

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Erin Bailey: any time that I went to go spell beautiful from that day forward, it was B-E-A-Utiful, and that helped me to spell the word beautiful.

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Erin Bailey: I don't write bananas very often, but you bet when I'm spelling bananas, I'm singing Gwen Stefani, B-A-N-A-N-A-S. It's just fun ways to get yourself to spell things. There's a little image here, desert versus dessert.

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Erin Bailey: You want that double S in dessert, because either you want double dessert, or you can think of strawberry shortcake, or sugary sweet. We need two S's for that.

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Erin Bailey: So you and your child together, if you come up with some words that you're especially struggling with, try to come up with some fun mnemonics that you can play around with.

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Erin Bailey: I mentioned earlier prefixes, suffixes, and root words. These are super helpful for, children, and I know especially fifth graders, they start to work on these, identifying these to help them understand the meanings of words, too, so this can certainly help them spell words.

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Erin Bailey: And then engage your child's curiosity. There's a lot of ways to explore why words are spelled certain ways, so here's one of my favorites. Why does the word have

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Erin Bailey: and with an E.

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Erin Bailey: Does anyone know?

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Erin Bailey: If you go down the Google path, you can find a lot of different answers for this. Most commonly noted is that

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Erin Bailey: no words in the English language, end with a V. Now, I'm sure you're gonna go find one and stump me there, but… and then somewhere along the line, when Old English was transitioning into Middle English.

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Erin Bailey: and there was a… E's were always added to the ends of V's. I've also read some… yeah, E's were ended at the end of V's. I also read somewhere that

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Erin Bailey: when the typewriter was invented and people started typing instead of printing, V was too sharp of a letter, so there was always an E next to it to help people recognize it. So you can use your curiosity, because otherwise, if we just go by a simple rule, like E always makes the vowel a long vowel sound, well, that word's have, then, and not have. So engage with, your curiosity.

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Erin Bailey: Here's one of my favorite websites for doing that. It's called Edom Online. It's where you can explore, a word's etymology. So if you're ever stumped on a word, or just kind of curious why is that word spelled that way, check out this etymology dictionary, and you can, you know, explore how different spellings emerged.

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Erin Bailey: Another trick is, if your child is a strong reader, but not as strong of a speller, have them write it out all the different ways that they think it could be spelled. This might be a trick that some of you do. I remember I was working with a student once, and he really struggled with, the ER sound. There's 3 ways to write that sound. ER,

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Erin Bailey: I-R-U-R. So I told him, if you have a word that you're trying to spell, and it has that in it, write it down. Bird, bird, bird. Which one looks correct to you? He was a strong reader, so he could know. B-i-r-d is bird. I explained this trick to his mom, and she said, you know, I… I do that myself, and it's like, great. Some of the tips that we use with ourselves can… we can use with our children as well, if they work for us.

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Erin Bailey: as kids grow, help them learn how to correct words as they're spelling them that they're using often. This is kind of what I was getting at with the mnemonics. If you have a word that you are constantly misspelling over and over and over again.

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Erin Bailey: for me, that word is restaurant. Come up with a fun trick to help you remember that word. I know even my dad had a list of words that he was like, these are my most commonly misspelled words, and I keep a list of them so that I can remember how to spell them. It's okay, we do it as adults, children can do it too.

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Erin Bailey: And of course, dictionaries and spell check.

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Karly O'Brien: Erin, if you have a trick to remember how to spell restaurant, you need to teach it to me at some point, because that… that… I completely agree. That word gets me literally every time, so… Awesome. Well, thanks, Erin, for walking us through that. So, now that we have all of those tips, what are some things we can do to practice, spelling, to practice writing, and just, increasing the volume with… with simple, materials that you have at home?

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Karly O'Brien: So…

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Karly O'Brien: The first one is to create a simple, inviting writing space at home. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It could be a small little basket with colorful pens. I know for me, I…

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Karly O'Brien: loved those smelly markers that had the different fruity smells, so if… when I had one of those, I was way more motivated to, engage with writing, so something like that, or a special notebook, can really make writing feel exciting. When I was teaching 5th grade, my last year, I got a notebook as a gift from my class with my name embroidered in it, and now it is my

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Karly O'Brien: notebook that I bring to conferences, to trainings, and even I write the silliest things that I didn't even need to take notes on, just because it's a fun notebook that I really… it feels special to me, so,

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Karly O'Brien: something like that is, is… can make writing feel really exciting for students. The second one is use whatever materials you have at home. So that being said, if there are no fancy journals, that's absolutely okay. Scrap paper, the back of mail, whiteboards. I know for me, sometimes I write messages, to my friends, or, like, my former roommates in college, we would write them on napkins before

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Karly O'Brien: before we would go to class. So it doesn't have to be something that is,

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Karly O'Brien: fancy. It could be something that is just a part of your everyday life, and it actually makes the connection that writing isn't just something that I do sitting in my desk for school. Writing is actually something that I have to do throughout all of my, my day-to-day things.

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Karly O'Brien: So, tied to that, encouraging everyday writing. So, having your child help you write a grocery list, with familiar words or, sounds that they know. Leaving a note, speaking of notes in lunch boxes, leaving a note for your child is an awesome way to show that you are a writer yourself, and you are leaving them a scripted message. Writing thank you notes or cards.

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Karly O'Brien: I know…

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Karly O'Brien: Kids love to write special messages, so, anything that really is just encouraging those everyday things, and it doesn't have to be something that you only do sitting in the classroom or sitting at school.

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Karly O'Brien: Also offering choice in the format that you, offer students to write. So, some kids really enjoy making, top 10 lists. So, like, these are my top 10 movies, these are my top 10 superheroes. Some kids really enjoy writing letters to friends, or creating comic strips. We actually have some resources on the screen right here that

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Karly O'Brien: all of RIP's resources that are available are free, so I have some examples of these choices or formats on the screen. Family recipes is another, awesome way to practice different writing skills.

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Karly O'Brien: And then something that, you could also do is, if you are really comfortable with the way that you already engage in read-alouds every day with your child, you can extend writing after reading a story. So after finishing, a new book or a familiar book, you can invite your child to write a different ending, a new plot or storyline for the main character. One of my favorite things is writing from the different perspectives of care.

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Karly O'Brien: So, if you're familiar with the story Wonder by R.J. Palaco, it's also a movie, one of my favorite books to read with my fifth graders, and there's just so many different characters in that story that you can write different perspectives from.

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Karly O'Brien: Oops, excuse me?

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Karly O'Brien: Alright, so on the topic of increasing volume, with volume comes more paragraphs and a more desire to be organized and a fluent writer.

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Karly O'Brien: So how can we help support our children to do that at home? The first one, you can share a model or a sample paragraph from a book that your child might love, or a website, something pulled from online. Doesn't have to be anything complicated, just an example of what a strong paragraph could look like. You can even write a message yourself, and have your child read it.

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Karly O'Brien: We kind of talked about this before, but them seeing you as a writer in any way, shape, or form is great. So you can… you can write the model paragraph yourself about something that you all enjoy to… to read together.

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Karly O'Brien: And then similarly, after reading it together, whatever you choose, you can simply just ask your child, what do you notice about this paragraph? You might hear them say something like, it has details, it has a sentence, a topic sentence, and this is just, again, showing you that, understanding where your kids are at without overwhelming them with all of these

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Karly O'Brien: different strategies.

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Karly O'Brien: Another one, encourage planning, before you go and write long paragraphs. So this could be, for example, if they're writing about their pet or, their dog, they might jot something like, brown fur, loves tennis balls, scared of thunder. Those are just bullet points that they might be outlining first. And a strategy like this just helps them organize their thoughts.

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Karly O'Brien: So when they do go to write that longer paragraph, they actually have an outline to follow.

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Karly O'Brien: Similarly to a mentor paragraph or a model paragraph, you can do the same thing with sentences. If you're modeling, we'll stick with the pet example, you could simply give them an example how to start it, of one thing I will never forget about my dog is, you can give them those starters to get them started, or you can

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Karly O'Brien: brainstorm different ones and have them choose which one they enjoy the most. Again, when kids are seeing you write starting sentences, they can learn that that's something that adults have to do as well.

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Karly O'Brien: And then finally, reminding them that one paragraph usually focuses on one idea, so if you are writing about your animal, you are just writing about your animal. You are not writing about your animal in one paragraph, and then another about the birthday party that you went to. You're really focusing on one clear idea.

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Karly O'Brien: And then the last bullet point here, this one I really want to stress for a second. Give one focused feedback note at a time. It can be really overwhelming for anybody, even for adults, to get a lot of feedback at once. So simply saying something like, I really… you had really strong details in this paragraph. Let's work on adding a stronger

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Karly O'Brien: topic sentence. So you're affirming what they already are doing, and you're focusing on one thing that you can… that you can work on together. And as you can imagine, this just makes it more a joyful and memorable experience.

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Karly O'Brien: Practicing joy and identity, Erin!

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Erin Bailey: Thank you, Carly. And I want to emphasize a couple things, that Carly said there, that giving one feedback at a time, making sure that you include compliments, when you're giving feedback in your child's writing, and that overall the tone of feedback is positive.

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Erin Bailey: And sometimes it's really, really hard for us, like, we're reading, we want to focus on more the content, did my child get their ideas down? But that spelling, or that period in the wrong spot, that comma in the wrong spot, they are just glaring at us. But sometimes that's not the most important thing in that moment, and so to give them some compliments and some direct feedback on the content.

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Erin Bailey: And then, in another setting, move on to, let's clean up your spelling a little bit here, let's clean up your grammar. It becomes less overwhelming for the child, and they'll be less of a reluctant writer if they overall feel positive about their writing.

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Erin Bailey: And then secondly, what Carly said about you yourself being a writer, I also want to emphasize, it is never, never, never too late to start to see yourself as a writer. And if writing is something that's intimidating to you, start small. Start by making a list. My favorite thing to write on, right here.

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Erin Bailey: yellow legal pad. And I can tell you, my daughter must see me doing this all the time, because she will sometimes leave me notes on this, and she's made a comment to me, one time, like, I see you writing on this all the time, so I wanted to write on it, too. And I looked, and her note was, you know, like, I heart mom or something. Very simple like that, but clearly the connection, was there that I valued this

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Erin Bailey: a yellow legal pad, enjoyed writing on it, and she wanted to add some of her own writing to it. So,

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Erin Bailey: How writers… how children see themselves as writers.

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Erin Bailey: is what they care about writing. So especially if you are writing at home for fun, just as Carly mentioned about having some papers, some choice options, keep it fun. You don't have to use prompts that are in school if you're trying to create more of a leisure writing environment. Create a topic that matters to them.

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Erin Bailey: Writing letters.

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Erin Bailey: writing poems, writing stories, these are great ways to practice and strengthen writing, that aren't necessarily what those, you know, three genres that they might be covering in school. And then, when children see themselves as writers, they're more likely to take risks and push through challenges. So, I included this. This is a real photo, that my mom brought for me. As you can see, I was a child in the

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Erin Bailey: 90s, based on this font and images here. But it's very clear my mom brought me this book that I had written in about

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Erin Bailey: you know, second or third grade, why do hyenas laugh?

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Erin Bailey: clearly in school, we were covering the folklore, fable kind of genre, and I wrote this at home, and she said to me, it was this moment when I knew that someday you would write a dissertation. And I thought, what? That's crazy, there's no way that this one book told you that, but…

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Erin Bailey: The point is that my family was always supportive to me as a writer. My parents always gave me feedback on my writing, you know, positive, and here's areas to strengthen feedback. I also had an aunt who has literally read everything that I've ever written.

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Erin Bailey: And these kind of things kept me going as a writer, and it maintained my identity as a writer.

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Erin Bailey: And it, you know, helps when it's something that your child is choosing to do. So just a few points on keeping it positive and protecting joy in writing identity for your children.

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Karly O'Brien: Thanks, Erin. It's one of my favorite stories. I don't have a really amazing story about when my mom thought I would write a dissertation, but that's one of my favorite stories, so I love seeing the picture.

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Karly O'Brien: Well, we're closing in on our time for this evening, so, just as we wrap up, just want to leave you all with a few big ideas based off of the things we talked about today. The first one being that writing growth comes from practice and not perfection. Just like anything we do, anything new that we're learning, we have to keep doing it to get better, even if it's messy and challenging at first.

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Karly O'Brien: The next one around spelling, spelling improves through sounding out words, noticing patterns, being curious about word origins, and using helpful tools such as dictionaries and, the website that Aaron shared as well.

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Karly O'Brien: The third one, writing often, especially when children have the choice in what Erin was talking about and get to write about things that they want to write about, it builds the strength when they have the opportunities to do that. So whether it's making a book about why hyenas laugh, or making a comic strip, writing a review about your favorite movie, making a fake social media post.

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Karly O'Brien: Any type of frequent writing practice builds fluency.

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Karly O'Brien: We talked a little bit about how talking and planning can support stronger organization. When… I don't know about you, but this also works for me. When I say my ideas out loud first, I'm more likely, to remember what I want to talk about later on. Same thing with doing bullet points, same idea there.

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Karly O'Brien: And then, one of the last ones, joy and encouragement, grow confident writers. So, as you can hear through all of Erin's wonderful stories and, all the things that we talked about tonight, it's really important that we're celebrating the effort that our children and our students are, are showing, such as

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Karly O'Brien: Positive feedback, affirmations, and this can really build their motivation, far beyond if you were, correcting every single mistake that they were making.

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Karly O'Brien: And then finally, start small. You don't have to do all of this at once. Even one of these things, like planning with the bullet points or writing a grocery list together, can really start the trajectory of a meaningful, writing development journey. You're probably already doing more than you think you are, so it matters, and just continue to do it.

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Karly O'Brien: So, before we jump into Q&A, I just wanted to, while we still have you and your attention, just wanted to show you all, some upcoming webinars, opportunities that we have. So if you enjoyed, hearing Erin talk about, creating a writing… a strong writing identity, we actually have a webinar later on this month all about engaging students in their writing through relevance. It is a webinar that's

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Karly O'Brien: focused in our Every Educator Count series, so it's more geared towards educators, but

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Karly O'Brien: please come if you are a family member as well. There's definitely, just some helpful tools or resources that our guest facilitator, will share. She's an

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Karly O'Brien: beyond an expert in this field, so we're really excited to… to have her. And then next month, we have two other webinars coming up, another educator one, and then, An Every Book Counts. That's more, for educators and families as well. And then finally, RIF launched a podcast, earlier this year. If you haven't listened, would definitely encourage you to do that. A lot of these talks

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Karly O'Brien: topics that we cover during our webinar series will also be covered in deeper discussion on our podcast, so if you find anything that interests you in the webinars, go check out the extensions in the podcast as well.

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Karly O'Brien: But that was all we had for you, so thank you all so much. We really appreciate it, depending on where you're calling in from, this could be very late for you all, or right around dinner time, so we really appreciate you taking your time and spending… spending some time with us, so…

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Karly O'Brien: Thank you all, and we will be sure to send out the recording. Feel free to share the recording with any colleagues or family members, and we hope to see you at the next webinars.

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Karly O'Brien: Thank you all so much, have a good night!