Young Editors and Storytelling

Holliday Independent School District teachers Karen Craig and Jacki Dowdy use their passion for teaching to create strong readers and writers. Craig and Dowdy have spent the past school year collaborating through the Texas Lesson Study program on how to use engaging books for teaching foundational writing skills to young children.

As a part of the collaboration, Craig and Dowdy worked together to create a new lesson plan kindergarten and first grade students. The teaching duo team taught a targeted lesson about editing skills to 16 kindergartners and 16 first graders. In this lesson, students discovered why writers make edits and how writers use punctuation by taking a closer look at a children’s book. “Collaboration between the two grades is beneficial for the students,” said Craig, noting that the students can use what they learned in kindergarten to gain a better understanding of more complex content in first grade. “Engaging the students with the stories and bringing them to life helps the student to learn storytelling.”

“We want to create an unshakable confidence in young learners and in the art of written expression,” said Dowdy. “And we know using literature to anchor any lesson helps to engage our students and makes learning more meaningful.” #IAmTXEd #TXLS @holliday.isd @EaglesatHES @R9_TXLS