My Routine for Tutoring Writing

As I said in my previous blog post, I’ve been tutoring for the past few months. Along with my reading students, I have a few kiddos that see me for support with their writing. Although I try to include writing in all the subjects I tutor, I have a specific routine that I use for students that see me just for support with their writing. Here’s what my writing students do in a one hour session:

1. Quick-write

Our sessions always begin with a journal warm-up. My students get five to ten minutes to choose a prompt and just start writing. The prompts are interesting and engaging, and my students look forward to choosing a prompt and get to writing. When they’re finished, I have them share their writing aloud to me. By doing that, they find where they can revise and edit. My goal with doing that is to get them accustomed to reviewing their writing.  I use Pocketful of Primary‘s Monthly Writing Prompts.

2. Grammar/Usage/Mechanics

Before getting deep into writing, my students get in a little practice with language. This is particularly useful for my English Language Learners whose native languages often have different syntax organization. During this portion of our sessions, we work on parts of speech, sentence construction, how to use various punctuation appropriately, etc.

3. Skills/Strategies

Since I generally work with a student one-on-one during tutoring, this is my equivalent of a whole-group mini-lesson. Depending on the genre we are working on, this is where I specifically teach a writing skill or strategy through a shared or interactive writing. For example, if a student is working on informational writing, this is where I would teach about text features. I treat this no differently than when I taught writing lessons in a whole-group setting.

4. Writing Application

Now, it’s my student’s turn to write. My students are given ten to fifteen minutes of uninterrupted writing time to apply what was taught and practiced earlier in the session. This is where I just observe and take anecdotal notes. I note if a student used a skill or strategy, applied grammar and mechanics appropriately, and where the students still needs support and instruction.

5. Conferring

Five minutes before our hour-long session ends, I guide the student to stop writing and review their work. Just like with the journal prompt at the the beginning of the session, I will have the student read what they’ve written aloud. And, just as with the quick-write, they often catch where they can revise and edit as they are reading. If a student misses an area that needs revision, this is where I can prompt the student with a question or remind them of the skill/strategy we worked on earlier. I can’t stress enough how important reading their writing aloud is to the process of reinforcing writing skills. I have yet to figure out how to do this effectively in the classroom setting, but it has made an incredible difference in my individualized tutoring sessions.

How do you organize your writing block? What procedures and routines for writing are working for your students right now? Let’s help each other become amazing writing teachers! Don’t forget to leave a comment so we can all learn from one another. Until next time… Happy Teaching!

*This is not a sponsored post. Any links provided are my own suggestions for use.