Kindergarten Writing Skills Progression

Teaching writing in Kindergarten always shows tremendous growth in your students. They will start Kindergarten barely able to write their name to being able to write a few complete sentences independently! But, just how do you get there? This writing blog series will teach you all about the writing progression in Kindergarten and how to teach each skill throughout the year.

Writing Skills Progression in Kindergarten

Throughout the year, your student's writing skills will grow as they learn new writing skills. Here you will find the writing skills overview that's worked for me, along with more in-depth blog posts links about each skill.

Writing Names: 1-2 Weeks

Most of your students will be able to write their first name on the first day of school. However, you will notice that they are at a wide range of skill level. Some students will be writing in all uppercase letters, some will have backwards letters, some will not use the lines, and a few will be able to write their first and last name correctly. It is important to spend the time practicing writing their first name with a variety of fun activities. This is an easy skill to practice the first two weeks of school, while you are focusing on classroom management. You can read more about writing name activities here:

Name Writing Activities

Handwriting: 2 Months

Teaching handwriting is NOT my favorite thing in the world. In fact, I can think of plenty of other things I'd rather teach, because handwriting is at the bottom of that list. However, it is one of the MOST important skills we will teach as Kindergarten teachers! Your students will be writing throughout elementary school and their penmanship needs to be legible when they are writing 5 paragraph essays in 5th Grade. That's where you come in! You can read more about how I teach handwriting here:

How to Teach Handwriting

Modeling How to Write a Sentence: Throughout the year

You can start modeling how to write a sentence on Day 1 of your writing lessons! You want to be modeling how to write a sentence throughout the year. However, about a month or two into your school year is when you will start letting go of some of the modeling. Read more on how I model how to write a sentence or watch this video to see it in action here:

How to Model Sentence Writing YouTube Video

Sentence Building and Modeling How to Write a Sentence: 2 Months

Now this is where teaching writing gets more interesting! Usually, you are teaching sentence building around October/November, when you've got your classroom management techniques down. With sentence building, you are teaching them the process of thinking of a complete sentence in their head, then transferring it by saying it aloud or through an activity. You can read more about how I teach sentence building and some fun activities to practice it with your class here. You can also watch sentence building in action here:

Teaching how to Build a Sentence YouTube Vidoe

Independent Writing: 2-3 Months

Independent writing is the skill that takes the longest for Kindergarteners to master. However, once they've got it, be ready to watch their writing bloom! The goal for independent writing is for students to be able to write 1-2 complete sentences (including ALL 5 parts) on a specific topic independently. At this point in the year, you are still doing whole group lessons, but fewer times per week, because your students are putting what they've learned into practice. You can read more about the various activities I use with my students to practice independent writing here:

Independent Writing Activities

Creative or Challenge Writing: 1 Month

The last month or so of school can be a CRAZY time, so that's why we focus our energy on more creative writing! Before you start this last skill, you want to make sure your students have completely mastered all other skills. You may want to do a week or two of handwriting review, or maybe throw in some sentence-building activities in your writing centers. Your goal is to have them prepared for First Grade Writing, so they need to be strong in the first four areas of writing. Depending on your group of students, you may have more or less time for this skill.

Writing should not be a difficult subject to teach. It does take a lot of modeling, practice, and patience, but all of your students can be successful if they are given the right tools. I hope you feel more confident with understanding Kindergarten writing skills progression through the year. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Grab your FREE Kindergarten Writing Skills checklist here.