Reading and Writing, A Natural Connection

“When can we write our stories again?” “I’m just finishing up book three and it’s going to be the end of the series so I’ll have to start a new one.” “Please edit my book now so I can publish it!” These are all statements made in one of my recent classes. I teach special education and the students making these statements are fourth grade elementary school children with learning disabilities. “When can we write?” is not a question I’ve been asked by a child with a learning disability until I started using http://www.biguniverse.com in my classroom.

Big Universe has a tremendous area for creating, publishing and printing books. Kids, parents, teachers, anyone, can create their own book. Children, who normally can’t write a complete sentence, let alone one with adjectives, are able to do so when they are doing it around creative pictures and backgrounds. Teaching paragraph writing is much easier once a child realizes that writing a story, which they love to do on Big Universe, is the same idea as writing a paragraph. There’s an introduction, supporting details, and a great conclusion. Watching a child, who normally isn’t able to produce a cohesive piece of writing, print out their own book, is very rewarding. Big Universe makes this reward possible.

I always have my children read at least two of the beautiful picture books on Big Universe before they start working on their own books. I walk around the room as they are reading these books on their laptops and ask them questions about the way the book is set up. Now that they are writing books they notice the way the art is set and the text is put on the top or to the side. I also want my students to see that they can write two or three sentences on a page. Reading and writing are a natural connection. This connection is made flawlessly when the children can read a book and then write their own book on Big Universe.