In January, students wrote an opinion sentence about their favorite animal. All students knew to write from left to right. Students used some of the conventions like beginning a sentence with a capital letter and ending with punctuation. However, they were still working on spacing and rereading their sentence to make sure they included all the words in their idea. Students also demonstrated their knowledge of letter-sound relationships. The writing samples for April show the growth students have made. Students selected an animal they wanted to learn about and were put in small groups to explore books by looking at the pictures, headings, and diagrams. Graphic organizers were used to help students take important details and organize their knowledge. Each sample has more than one sentence related to the topic and uses all conventions. Students used their knowledge of sight words and the classroom resources to spell words correctly. For unfamiliar words, students connected each sound in a word with a letter.