When Sherri Hyatt works with her South Elementary (Upland, IN) first graders to brainstorm words for the day’s writing, she makes a list on chart paper. As the students offer suggestions, Sherri writes each detail word in a different color. Then, when the students work to transfer the words into sentence details, she can refer to a word on the chart by its column and color. She essentially created a “cheat sheet” of details while they were brainstorming and had it hung up in front of them for their writing time. This not only aids the children in tracking as they look back and forth to copy the words from the paper, but also helps the struggling reader.
