How to Motivate Your Emergent Writers to JUST Write

"Once Begun is Half Done"

My teaching mantra.

The groggy person hitting the snooze button at five in the morning drags her feet off the bed to exercise.

The nonreader picks up this amazing book to read even though it's 5, 000 pages long.

Those scenarios, although unrelated, have ONE thing in common.

Starting something is often the most difficult task. How many times have you needed that BEGINNING motivation, which led you to take off once you decided to start?

Motivating 26 emergent writers to WRITE when they are just learning to write alphabet letters is as hard as getting up at five in the morning to exercise, or picking up a 5, 000-page book to read! Finding the BEST solution to encourage my 26 five-year-old students to JUST WRITE is just as hard.

The solution came to me in the form of a phrase I had heard in a teaching conference many years ago: "Once Begun is Half Done." This was a light bulb moment for me!

I understood that I needed to find a way to motivate my students to JUST START. To JUST write a letter, or a word or a sentence. To JUST WRITE at least ONE character on their paper. This would be 50% of the battle!

Of course,  the question that followed was, "How do I teach five-year-olds to write when they can't even hold a pencil?!" 

Here's how...I followed these three simple ideas to encourage my emergent writers.

1. Draw- Drawing is a form of emergent writing. After students draw their picture have them orally share what they drew. They can share with a partner, whole class, or with you.

2. Label- Labeling a simple picture can motivate students to write letters and words. For example, I printed a photo of me (their teacher), added labeling boxes to some of my body parts and had my students label me! They had a BLAST writing!!

3. Self-Guided Direct Draw and Write: This can be done by providing your students with a step-by-step direct-draw picture cards and asking students to label their picture.  This is the most flexible type of writing because it allows students to self differentiate. You can ask those students who are ready to write sentences, to write a sentence about their picture instead of just labeling their picture.

Direct-Draw Picture Cards  and Writing Samples

I promise you that if you stick to those three writing ideas to motivate your emergent writers to just START writing, you will find success. The key is CONSISTENCY even when it gets hard!

ONE MORE THING... accept what your students produce, however they produce it and praise, it. PRAISE, PRAISE, PRAISE!!

Remember, hitting the snooze button and getting up to exercise at five in the morning, even in a groggy state, is a START. Just the same...you want your students to JUST START writing because "Once Begun is Half Done."

FREE WRITE: "I am thankful for Mrs. Munoz teaching us."