Independence

When 6 year old Malcolm (not his real name) first joined my class in September, he was unable to form sentences independently. He always had brilliant ideas during Literacy, seemed confident and always called out during the group writing activity. So I was quite disheartened and concerned when during our very first writing assessment, Malcolm sat at his table unable to write anything. He did nothing. He stared into space and as I was just getting to know the children, I couldn't work out why Malcolm could not put pen to paper, especially when every other child (even those who had special needs) wrote 'sentences' even if they did not make sense.

When the bell rang for playtime and all the children started going out to play, Malcolm frantically wrote a sentence and handed me his sheet of paper. In a desperate attempt to write something, anything, Malcolm copied the wording off a display board. "The Isle of Struay on the woll is nis" his sensentence read. In the weeks to come Malcolm's confidence grew and he was able to write more and more independently.

Last Monday as the children lined up for lunch, I sat down to mark a pile of 25 homework books. I was amazed when I got to Malcolm's work. He had written a whole page on the Great Fire of London! I knew it was his independent writing, as only a child who had sat in my class could have written the things Malcolm did. At the bottom of the page, his mum had written "Malcolm did this all by himself." I called him over and talked about his work and how amazing it was. He beamed and looked so proud. I praised him lots and he walked away cheering "YES!!!"

Today, he raced ahead of his group and said "Look! I've done it independently!" Tomorrow is our end of term writing assessment. We (the children and I) have worked so hard for the last 12 weeks and I can not wait to see what Malcolm and the other children can do...independently.