Mistakes to Avoid When Teaching Editing + Tips You Can Use NOW

Teaching writing, specifically how to polish writing by editing and revising, is one of the hardest things we can teach. Here are my top five mistakes to avoid when teaching editing to your K-1 students AND tips you can apply right now!

Mistake 1: Not Modeling Enough

When teaching writing to young learners, modeling is ESSENTIAL. Students learn from consistent and effective modeling. One of the best forms of modeling is using the think-aloud strategy. I remember back when I was in college and in my early years of teaching, this was a strategy that was the “buzz word” during that time. In all honesty, it was talked about so highly because it really is a good strategy.

As teachers, we really have to teach our students the process of thinking about writing (and editing). Whole group writing lessons are a great time to use the think-aloud strategy. When we are working on a shared writing piece as a class, I might say something along these lines to model thinking aloud about when to put ending punctuation: “I just finished my sentence and I am ready to start my next sentence. I know that when I am done with a sentence, I have to put punctuation. This is just a regular sentence, so I just need a period (add period to sentence).” This think aloud can be simplified over time to something like, “I’m done with my sentence, so I add a period.” Over explain in the beginning.

Note: See tips to find a chant you can say to your students to help them remember capitalizing the beginning letter and adding ending punctuation!

Mistake 2: Too Many Skills Too Fast

When students are in K-1, sticking to basic editing for ending punctuation and capitalization is helpful. We typically start with editing for capital letters and then move to punctuation. If we try to throw too many components, kids can get over-whelmed and they don’t end up finding anything to edit.

Once students have mastered checking for capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and ending punctuation, then you can add editing for the capitalization of proper nouns and adding appropriate ending punctuation, when necessary.

Here is a simple editing checklist that I put on my students’ writing folders. This is simplified for my K-1 students and hopefully it reminds them to how to compose a sentence so there won’t be too many things to edit. Get the FREE editing checklist.

Mistake 3: Not Having Students Read Aloud

Do you ever have students who write something like this?

I think hot dogs are the best food I like to eat the bun I put ketchup on my hot dog hot dogs are the best food.

Many times, when students write, it is just a stream of thoughts and they don’t know when to put a period. One way to help them understand where to put a period is to read their writing aloud. Reading a writing sample aloud that is written like this and using the think-aloud strategy to model how to notice when there are natural pauses is a great lesson. Students can read to themselves, a partner, or during conferring.

Mistake 4: Not Conferring with Students

Conferring is so important. It can seem impossible to meet every student, especially when class sizes are larger than ever, but it is essential for young writers. Students need that individualized conferring time to sharpen their skills.

Conferring also doesn’t have to be a long meeting. Keep it simple. Have the students read their writing, comment about it, discuss anything you need to talk about, and move to the next student. I taught my whole group writing lesson and then students went back to their seats to start their writing task. If they got done, I put extra paper, a choice board, and early finisher writing tasks in every student’s folders. This allowed the room to stay quiet and stay writing while waiting for me to confer with them. Note: I didn’t meet with every student every day.

Mistake 5: Practicing in Isolation

Finally, once students have mastered capitalization and punctuation, they need to keep their skills sharp. Giving them worksheets to practice editing based on an isolated skill isn’t going to do that. Students need practice with editing passages because that is what they see and do when they edit their own writing.

These editing practice pages are part of an editing pack that has isolated practice and passage editing practice. There are editing practice pages for the following: beginning capitalization, capitalizing proper nouns, ending punctuation, commas in dates, commas in a series, and finally passages.

Tips You Can Use NOW

Now that we’ve addressed common mistakes, let’s take a look at tips you can use right away.

Write out morning message in one long sentence. Edit as a class to fix punctuation and capitalization.
Use an editing checklist that is accessible and visible to students (and create an anchor chart that students can reference daily)
Have students partner edit. They can read their writing to each other and help look for capital letters that need to be capitalized/punctuation where it is needed.
Role play– During a whole group shared writing, have specific students who have mastered capitalization and punctuation model “think aloud” as they edit the piece. One student can be “Captain Capital” as they look for any missed capital letters. Another student will act as the “Punctuation Patrol” as they look for any missed punctuation.
Start editing with punctuation FIRST. Have them figure out the complete sentences and add the punctuation first and then go back and fix the capital letters. This is especially helpful for the students who write one gigantic sentence.
Practice, Practice, Practice- it is okay to practice editing for specific skills at first, but don’t forget to practice in passages too!
Try this chant- “Start your sentence with a capital letter; end it with a mark to make it better!”