Working at your child's pace

This week we have started "writing" more in our class.  We read the story "When The Library Lights Go Out".  The first day we read it, and talked about the characters.  We then each got our own story board and decided who the characters in their story would be.  The children drew the pictures of the characters and tried to write the names of the characters.
The next day, we tried to retell the story.  We looked at the beginning, middle and end of the story. Together, we drew pictures and wrote key words about the story we read together.  Then, some students went back and drew pictures to represent the beginning, middle and end of their story.  They retold what they drew and I recorded it for them, or they tried to write some of it themselves.  The next step will be looking the formation of a story- with words and pictures, and eventually creating our stories into a puppet show.
There is a lot of literacy development in this process.  It is all about working at the children's pace, supporting their natural development, and fostering their love of early literacy.

Some websites that have valuable information on them include:

http://www.heyquitpushing.com/why-sooner-inst-better.html

http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/intelligent-creative-child/child-loves-read