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My 4th grader is a reluctant writer. As we have worked through our homeschool curriculum choices for the 2018-2019 school year, I realized we needed something more to develop his writing skills. I wanted something that would break down specific 4th grade composition skills into manageable chunks. I was excited for the opportunity to try out Evan-Moor’s Daily 6-Trait Writing as I thought it would be a great fit for our writing needs. I received a copy of Evan-Moor’s Daily 6-Trait Writing Grade 4 book in exchange this review.
Overview of Evan-Moor’s Daily 6-Trait Writing
Evan-Moor’s Daily 6-Trait Writing Grade 4 book is split into five units covering the writing traits of Ideas, Organization, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Voice. Different Writing Conventions (the 6th trait) are covered each week. Each unit is 5 weeks long, providing 25 weeks of writing instruction and practice.
Teacher Pages
Each week, the teacher pages provide daily lesson plans, an answer key for worksheets, and a Friday writing prompt.
Student Pages
The student pages teach the specific writing traits and have related practice activities. The student pages are available in both the e-book and printed teacher book. If you also purchase the consumable Daily 6-Trait Writing Student Practice Book, you will have all of the student pages plus a page for the child to complete the Friday writing prompt.
Scoring Rubric
The Scoring Rubric is used to assess the child’s weekly writing projects. The rubric can be used to assess only the convention covered during that week. The final writing project can be evaluated using the entire rubric. The rubric can also be used to assess other writing projects to look for progress and evaluate individualized needs for review and practice.
Benefits
1) Aligns with Educational Standards
As a former special education teacher and college professor, I look for curriculum that meets grade level standards for education. Like Evan-Moor’s other high quality products, you can look under the correlations tab on their website for Daily 6-Trait Writing and see that you are getting a product that teaches appropriate and expected content for each grade level. You can be confident that there will not be gaps in your child’s writing instruction.
2) The Daily Practice activities are broken down into manageable chunks
The student pages provide instruction and practice for a specific writing skill. This focused approach provides manageable chunks for the student to focus on in each lesson. The product is easy to teach and requires minimal preparation time.
3) Daily 6-Trait Writing is a Versatile Product
I have been using 6-Trait Writing with my 4th grader as a full writing curriculum that we complete in sequence. You could also use 6-Trait Writing as a supplement to your core writing curriculum by using the included rubric to evaluate writing projects and then select 6-Trait Writing units that would benefit the child most.
Benefits of Daily 6-Trait Writing for my Reluctant Writer
My 4th grader is good at summarizing content, but when it comes to really thinking about and generating original writing, we seem to hit a brick wall. I was left pleasantly surprised by how well Daily 6-Trait Writing worked for us.
Real Results
We are on our 5th week using 6-Trait Daily Writing. I scored his Friday writing assignments using the included rubric. I am impressed with how much his writing has improved with 6-Trait Daily Writing. If I were to score some of his previous writing assignments from other curriculum, they would fall under 1 or 2 on the scoring rubric.
Why the difference in comparison to our other writing curriculua?
I feel Evan-Moor’s approach of teaching specific skills each week really helped my child understand the target skill. In addition, the Thursday organizers that prepared my child for the Friday writing assignment really made the difference in the quality of his weekly writing projects.
Adaptations for Reluctant Writers
CLICK HERE to read about four adaptations you can use with highly reluctant writers.
Conclusion on a Review of Evan-Moor’s Daily 6-Trait Writing Book
I do highly recommend using Evan-Moor’s 6-Trait Writing series. These books align with grade level standards for education so you can proceed with confidence that your child will not have gaps in their writing instruction. The books teach specific writing skills incrementally and use high quality teaching methods.
CLICK HERE to go to Evan-Moor’s website to learn more or buy 6-Trait Daily Writing.
CLICK HERE to download a free sample of 6-Trait Writing.
Do you want to buy this product at a discount in a special homeschool bundle? CLICK HERE to learn more.
Thank you for the review of Daily 6-Trait Writing, Emily.
It makes so much sense to focus on each element of what good writers’ use as part of the writing process. It sounds like kids can understand and practice with this book without being overwhelmed.
I also like the scoring rubric. It helps both the kids and teacher/parent same on the same page for seeing progress!
Thanks again!