WriteShop has been helping teenagers learn composition skills for years. They've recently developed a new early elementary level, Writeshop Primary.
Writeshop Primary: an incremental writing program by Nancy I. Sanders is a gentle creative writing program for grades K-3. It is parent led and does not require reading or writing experience. Book A has recently been released and I was happy to have the opportunity to receive it for review. The heart of the book is the Guided Writing Practice. You will sit down with your child and talk them through writing a short story of two or three sentences (You will do most of the physical writing). Prompts are given to guide you, along with topics and themes.
Activity sheets are included and are adorable. One of my favorites has a "Story Train", where you write the beginning sentence on the engine, the middle sentences on the box car, and the ending sentence on the caboose. Another is a primary level "Mad-Lib" and another has your child creating Book Titles for friends.
The Teacher's Guide gives ideas for creating a Writing Center for your child. There are also wonderful pre-writing ideas. One that I absolutely love is creating word banks out of file folders. Throughout the lessons, your child will be creating themed "Portable Word Banks". These would be helpful for vocabulary, spelling, and just plain creativity. I think this is my favorite idea in the book.
I don't know if it's proper to call a book "cute", but that's my first response to this program. It's cute. Sitting down with your child to make up sentences is a wonderful idea. I can't imagine any five, six, or seven year old protesting at spending fun time with Mom. This would be a nice addition to your early elementary studies, especially if this is your oldest child.
The print version of WriteShop Primary A is available for $26.95. You can also purchase this as an e-book for $24.25. When you add in what you save on shipping, this option is actually $7 less than the print version. Books B and C are not available yet, but I am assuming they are in process and coming soon.
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