Today, in the Science of Reading community, lots of teachers are questioning how to most effectively equip children to become skilled writers. We’ve been learning a lot about the essentials when teaching kids to read, and now teachers are wondering about what scientific research says when it comes to early childhood writing instruction. Many schools had adopted “the writers’ workshop approach” a while back, but since the Lucy Calkins curriculum for reading has been eschewed (UH-SHOOED) and explicit systematic phonics instruction has (finally!) taken its rightful place in beginning readers’ classrooms, teachers are wondering about what to do with writing time. Should there be time set aside for explicit writing instruction? If so, what are “writing blocks” supposed to look like? Some folks, like Natalie Wexler (one of my heroes) say that teaching writing separate from knowledge-based content is not a worthy time spend. Others, like Tim Shanahan (also one of my heroes) feel that about 20% of literacy instruction time (25-45 minutes or so) should be set aside, daily, for explicit writing instruction. What’s a teacher to do when the experts can’t agree?

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