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Building Writers

Support for All Writers

Building Writers eases students into their writing journeys with scaffolded support that builds writing fluency, language, and vocabulary.  

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Structured Writing Practice

Each page within Building Writers’ student editions is carefully structured to provide students with the resources they need to be successful, regardless of their writing level. Students begin writing with sentence stems they can complete with word banks, gradually releasing them into independent writing exercises.  

Customizable Writing Templates

Flexible resources provide structure for those students who need it and offer opportunities for creativity for those who thrive with independence.  

Each student edition developmentally designed content gradually prepares students for independent writing, focusing on narrative, information, and opinion/argument writing types. These templates can be adapted to apply the learned writing skills in each section to curriculum-specific content, student-chosen topics, or other individualized subjects. 

The Six Traits of Building Writers

Ideas

Cross-curricular topics and engaging themes serve as a starting point and inspiration for students’ own ideas.

Voice

In each section of Building Writers, students practice matching their voice to the purpose of the piece they are writing.

Organization

Building Writers activities carefully scaffold students to organize their writing in a logical manner.

Word Choice

Our activities provide content-rich and specific vocabulary to encourage intentional, meaningful word choice.

Sentence Fluency

Fourth graders practice writing a variety of sentences and develop an understanding of how they flow within each writing section.

Conventions

Students are supported with solid writing samples at the beginning of each section that model the correct capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and other genre-specific conventions.

Assessing Young Writers

Building Writers includes checklists to assess common characteristics of high writing expectations for each grade level and serve as a tool for teachers and students. For best results, use the checklist alongside others to monitor your students’ writing growth continuously.

Explore Writing Journals

Give your students room to grow! These grade-level writing journals provide an organized tool for independent writing.