Do you want to know what I love the most when I meet teachers from around the country during my travels? That it gives me the opportunity hear how WriteSteps is making a positive impact in their classrooms. I also enjoy learning about writing apps teachers have discovered that inspire students to become better writers and make writing fun!

I love my iPad and am an advocate for combining education with the use of technology for the purpose of engaging and motivating students. The following apps are great for students to use outside of the classroom that reinforce their writing skills in a format that is fun and enjoyable! They cover a wide range of writing skills for all levels of writers. From apps that help beginning students just learning to write, to apps that help more advanced students organize their thinking prior to beginning a narrative, there is an app that will inspire any elementary school writer!

December 14, 2012. This date will forever remain in the hearts of people across our nation. Months have passed since the tragic events unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but the scars will never completely heal.

We invite you to hang these remembrance posters in your school hallways and classrooms so the Newtown community knows the lives of the children and educators lost will never be forgotten.

At WriteSteps, we realize the importance of integrating technology into elementary classrooms. Students have higher motivation, immediate access to quality instructional materials, and increased engagement. Utilizing technology in your classroom also prepares young students with the skills necessary to succeed in our technology driven lifestyles. Technology provides teachers like you with an unlimited wealth of resources and tools to teach and expand your knowledge; there is no limit to the resources you can use to help your students in today’s information age!

The unspeakable events at Sandy Hook Elementary School have shaken the WriteSteps team to the core, like so many people around the world. Many of us are former elementary school teachers and educators, so this tragedy felt very personal. We are still trying to make sense of the events in Newtown. Though this senseless act can never be explained, we hope those personally affected can find comfort from the outpouring of love that is being sent to the victims and families. We decided to pool our energy and resources into honoring the precious lives that were taken on December 14, 2012. Many students, whether...

I am a firm believer that students learn best by example. In our WriteSteps K-5 Common Core program, we provide teachers with real student t writing samples demonstrating the different writing topics students learn. We include low, medium and high quality samples so students can see all levels of works. Picture books can also be a great way to demonstrate a specific writing skill to your students. If you are looking to supplement your writing lessons, in addition to the student writing samples provided in our daily lesson plans, here are some good suggestions. Below you will find five examples of picture books and how they can be used as mentor texts when teaching a particular writing skill to your K-5 students....

This cartoon would be hilarious if it weren’t so ominous. It’s ominous because it pokes fun at a distressing problem: text messaging may be harming kids’ language skills. That's the finding of a new study published in New Media & Society, a top-ranked, peer-reviewed journal. The authors of Texting, Techspeak, And Tweens say:


Does this worry you? It worries me. But my friend Chris Drew is unconcerned. In the spirit of friendly debate, we decided to trade blogs on the topic. I’d love to know what you think, too!

Thanks to my friend Chris Drew, for permission to re-blog the following post, originally published in the Pocket Literacy Coach blog on August 14, 2012.  ~Suzanne

A friend of mine, Suzanne, at WriteSteps recently shared a story about how "Texting May Undermine Language, Spelling Skills." It's an interesting summary of a new study about correlations between "techspeak" and grammar test performance. We had a friendly back and forth about our disparate perspectives on this issue. In a nutshell, she generally supports the claims of the article, and I do not. The issue of texting impacting language and grammar skills is much more complex than this one story would lead us to believe. As pop news reporting on academic research usually goes, though, the author, Rick Nauert, doesn't quite flesh out the whole story from a much larger context.

So Suzanne and I had a bit of a back and forth and we decided to trade our thoughts more publicly to see what our readers think and where they stand.  

Last week, we published "4 Free Technology Tools to Jazz Up Writers Workshop" in the August issue of Inspired Writer. If you missed, it you'll definitely want to check out these powerful motivators for young students developing Common Core writing skills: StoryBird, Little Bird Tales, ePals, and iMovie.

Then, if you haven't found your way into blogging yet, try another publishing option your students will love: a free blogging platform that's so simple, even first graders can use it! Our fourth-grade curriculum creator, Katie Davis, recently gave WriteSteps Coaching Director Arlynn King the scoop on Kidblog.

Why do America’s children write so poorly? Writing instruction has seen a lot of innovation since I was a kid. Like many of my peers, I struggled with writing under the old system of the 3 A’s – assign, assume, and assess. My teachers assigned a topic, assumed we could write about it, and assessed our finished pieces.

Today's kids have it better. Yet there’s still a disconnect. Despite the advances in instruction since I was a child, most teachers still don’t teach writing well. On the last national writing assessment (the NAEP), less than a third of 12^th graders, and less than a quarter of elementary students, could write proficiently.

How do we reconcile promising changes in writing pedagogy with this reality? That calls for a quick history lesson in writing instruction.

Message Over Mechanics

New approaches for young writers emerged in the 1980’s when process writing made its way into American classrooms. The whole language movement had made its impact on reading, and now Donald Graves and Donald Murray brought a similar holistic approach to writing.

A report on Suzanne Klein's Common Core writing presentation to the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

I was drawn to this breakout session not only because Common Core was included in the title, but because writing is an area of challenge for my school, and from what I understand from my peers, for many others.

How many schools have a dedicated "writing time"?

WriteSteps is a Common Core based program that teaches writing to elementary-age students. One of the things I picked up early on in this session is that it is not just the process, but also an attitude, that will make the difference. If teachers are afraid of or unsure how to go about the teaching of writing, the time that is dedicated to writing will continue to be negligible. It seems that most everyone thinks it is important, but the proof is really in the intentional time it is given.