Bayfield first graders are learning to express themselves in writing, or at least printing, and it's not just, "Run, Spot run."

Teacher and first grade team leader Jan Alderton described the writing strategy to school board members on Oct. 28.

"Right now we're focussed on information writing using Write Tools," a writing education strategy, she told the Times. "I've been using that for about 15 years, but we have a lot of new teachers. It's a really great tool."

In August, Elementary School Principal Diane Sallinger reported dissatisfaction with flat or declining BES scores on annual assessment tests. She described the focus on writing. "We've rearranged our schedule so every kid has at least 60 minutes of writing each day," she said.

That's what's happening, Alderton told the Times. They get 40 minutes before lunch, and 25 minutes after lunch when they work on their handwriting and things like starting sentences with a capital letter.

Alderton told the school board, "We read informational passages (as opposed to stories) two times to the first graders. It was about apples, all the different kinds, the vitamins, how they grow. It was pretty difficult. We gave them the writing prompt and read it for them two or three more times while they were drawing a picture."

Their first-time responses were pretty minimal. Alderton cited one boy who wrote "A apple." A month later, he wrote more than one full sentence that showed some structure and organization.

She also cited a girl who wrote a sort of sentence with a lot of words on the first try, but they didn't make sense. Kids are asked to read what they've written, and if they see a mistake, they can fix it. This girl didn't see any mistake. A month later, her sentences did make sense.

One boy did better with his first-time sentence, but it was one long sentence strung together with a lot of "ands." The second time, his sentence had more structure with transition words, Alderton said.

"We introduce a topic with multiple texts - fact passages that they have to look at for information, oral practice at first before they write," she said. "They are collecting information and saying it back to you. The teacher helps organize them."

She continued, "The process was repeated with multiple topics. This week (before Halloween), it's pumpkins." Now, heading toward Thanksgiving, it's turkeys.

"They have to sequence information before they write," she said. "Every sentence will have a transition word. After they write a paragraph, I would cut them apart and pass (the parts) out and they reconstruct them."

The next step was for the kids to create content paragraphs using one color to designate the starting sentence, another color for the "big idea" for the paragraph, and yet another color to show a transition to the details.

Alderton clarified to the Times that "content paragraphs" contain information rather than opinion or a narrative. They don't contain personal feelings or "I" statements. "Transition words" are needed to go from one "big idea" to another.

"We gave an end of first quarter writing prompt. While their organization is growing, it's a mess, really hard to read," she said, meaning poor handwriting. "We are focussing on the handwriting as well," she told the Times. Aside from making their work easier to read, it helps develop fine motor skills and links within the brain, "so spending time on it is well worth it."

Work is continuing on the color-coded paragraphs and fixing problems. Kids are put in groups to make individual words into sentences, then all the sentences into a paragraph, she said.

All this has to be adjusted for four English language learners, one of whom doesn't speak any English, Alderton said. "We differentiate for them and for students who have trouble getting a lot of information on the paper," she said, meaning kids who still struggle with the idea of complete sentence structure. "The kids that struggle just write words that aren't sentences," she said. Students who struggle were grouped together. "We talk to them about 'who' doing 'what,'" she told the Times.

"Before lunch, we have writing practice," she said. After lunch the kids fix what they wrote and then write in their journals, on any subject they want.

They will continue group correction of writing on a variety of topics, including independent planning and writing with sentences on strips of paper. The kids confer with their teacher and re-write sentences as needed, then copy them into a paragraph.

Alderton said the kids will be introduced to opinion writing, starting with "I think." They will have to include information on why they think that.

"After winter break, we might have a training on narrative writing," she told the Times. "Write Tools has training for that. We can transition from information to opinion writing a lot easier, because they use the same structure of start with the topic, transition, state facts that support the opinion."

She showed classroom videos of the kids doing the writing exercises to the school board, including kids showing their paper to classmates, looking over the top and reading what they wrote.

Superintendent Troy Zabel commented, "One of the things that really impressed me was when the kids were reading upside down. This is incredible work, really bringing our first graders far along."