First Grade Program
✓Instruction in First Grade begins with a quick review of the 8 Beginning Strokes.
✓Numbers 1-9 are reviewed in stroke groupings and numbers 10-20 have activities to check students understanding of one to one correspondence.
✓Lowercase and Uppercase worksheets present the alphabet in stroke groupings which helps students learn proper formation and avoid reversals.
✓First Grade students begin using ez Write Portfolios. They are designed as formative assessments to record and monitor creative writing, sentence structure, letter formation and writing speed.
ez Write First Grade Lessons
The ez Write First Grade Handwriting Program consists of 89 lessons and the activities in the ez Write Portfolios
9 Review Lessons
16 Number Lessons
32 Lowercase Lessons
32 Uppercase Lessons
Continuing to Teach ez Write in First Grade
If your students have been introduced to ez Write in Kindergarten, the transition to First Grade should be easy. Begin the school year with a review of the 8 Beginning Strokes by doing the nine Review Lessons.
Teaching ez Write for the First Time in First Grade
If your students are new to ez Write, they have not had the benefit of learning the 8 Beginning Strokes to “Muscle Memory” in Kindergarten. It will be important for you to spend some extra time at the beginning of the school year to teach the 8 Beginning Strokes to your students because the strokes are the foundation of this program. Start the year by presenting the Stroke Review worksheets. Most students are able to learn the strokes quickly, but it is very important that they learn them to “Muscle Memory,” which means they are able to write them from memory. You may want to do a lesson one day and the backside the next day since your students are new to learning the strokes. This may feel like a very slow start, but you will see the benefits soon when your students begin to do the worksheets.
The Materials to Send Home File on the Teacher Resource CD contains ez Write Simplified Instructions to use for a quick reference or to print and send home to help parents learn the ez Write language.
9 Stroke Review Lessons: Students review the 8 Beginning Strokes at the beginning of the year
16 Number Lessons: Numbers 1-10 are quickly review by the Beginning Strokes used to make them. 2 and 3 start with a Rainbow Curve, 4 and 5 begin with a Short Line Down, 6,8.9 and 0 begin with a C Stroke, Finally ez 7 begins with an ez Across line. Numbers 10 – 20 are reviewedwith application activities to check that students have one to one correspondence (number 16 front and backside worksheet shown above).
32 Lowercase Lessons: The letter of the day is practiced along with a review of the other letters learned using the same stroke. Teachers report that students enjoy hearing the sentence on the backside of the worksheet read without the letter of the day, “A onkey ade a ess.” This also helps students hear how important a letter sound is.
32 Uppercase Lessons: Students first fill in the letters of the day and then trace the sentence. Next, they copy the sentence to the line below and are encouraged to fold their worksheet on the line to try to write the sentence again from memory
Students were introduced to the ez Write Portfolio in First Grade and will continue to record their monthly Alphabet Races and journal entries through Fifth Grade. The Portfolio is used as a formative assessment to monitor the student’s progress in creative writing and handwriting speed (automaticity). The Teacher Portfolio is found in the Teacher Guide. The Portfolio is an important component to the success of the ez Write Program.