Columbus School 1st grade students had the opportunity to be authors and share their narrative projects  with 4th graders last February 27.

Students worked since October on informative books on self-selected topics in Spanish class. Family, friends, animals, and sports were among the selected themes. They sat and read the books to 4th grade students to demonstrate their writing skills  to older and more experienced students. 

“The activity consists of publishing the informative books each student wrote during the trimester and for them to feel true authors. Each student chooses a topic in which they feel comfortable  to write a complete book and use the strategies learned during our lessons,” Lina de los Rios, 1st grade Spanish teacher, said.

Although the 1st graders had to read their books to older students, they were able to show them their skills at writing informative books like a writer would do. They read their books and recieved feedback from the 4th grader.

“I thought it was good and I liked it. At first I was shy and scared, but at the end I was able to read to them without any trouble. We told them what our book was about and we had some posters to show them about our books. Then they told us what they thought about them.” Silvia Arbelaez, 1st grader, said.

The 4th grade students visited the 1st grade Spanish class last Monday,  where the 1st graders shared their books through posters and the table of contents while the 4th grade students gave them feedback.

We gave them constructive appreciation, like to read louder. It was very fun to see what other grades were doing and I would do it again.” Emilia Quintero, 4th grade, said.

Other teachers also had a positive reaction to the results of the students in both the writing and sharing aspects of the project.

“What I’ve seen when I was in the classroom is that they have done a great job.  They are cutting pictures and putting them into their books almost like making magazines.  I saw that they are really engaged in a fun project,” Jonathan Keeler, 1E teacher, said.

This project has been done previous years to help and motivate first graders with their writing, and to help improve their confidence with their writing skills.

“We have always done this activity and it’s extremely important to make the students feel they are capable of writing a good story, like real writers would,” de los Rios said.