Session 15 in Show and Tell: Slowing Down to Leave Spaces Between Words

**Have students bring their whiteboards, erasers, and a marker down to the carpet.**

Connection:
Explain to students that you are going to write a note, and you would like students to tell you
what you did wrong.(write on a sentence strip, so you can cut it out).

Teaching Point: “Today I want to teach you that when writers write books that others will read,
they help make their words easy to read by leaving spaces between their words.”

Teaching:
Demonstrate writing a sentence, emphasizing how you use your finger as a tool to help you
leave spaces between words. Then, cut apart the sentence you wrote on the sentence strip to
have students recognize the need for spaces to clarify their writing.

Active Engagement:
Have volunteer students help you place each word on large poster paper. Then, have students
practice writing a sentence on their white boards, using finger spaces.

Link:
“When you go off to write today, write in ways that are easy to read.”

Mid-workshop:
Writers, look at you write! I see a lot of you using your finger to make spaces. I want to show
you a different way that might be helpful: show students how to use their pencils to create
spaces.

Share:
Encourage partners to read each other’s work and give compliments.

Small groups 3 and 2

Assessment:
-Teacher observation
-anecdotal notes

Accommodations/Modifications:
-Implement IEP supports
-document camera
-highlighter for tracing