Guided Writing Activities Teaching Resources
Get guided writing activities, prompts, and more to help your students develop their writing muscles in your classroom. This elementary school teaching resource collection was created by the expert ELA teachers on the Teach Starter team.
These curriculum-aligned resources will save you time on your ELA lesson plans with classroom-ready printable and digital worksheets and activities that you can edit to differentiate instruction for individual learners.
What Is Guided Writing?
Guided writing is a technique used to help individuals improve their writing skills by providing them with a structure or set of guidelines to follow while they write. This can include prompts, examples, or specific instructions to help the writer focus their thoughts and organize their ideas more effectively. The goal of guided writing is to help the writer improve their writing skills and develop their own unique style over time.
What Does Guided Writing Look Like in the Classroom?
In a classroom setting, guided writing typically involves you, the teacher, providing students with a specific topic or prompt to write about, along with a set of guidelines or instructions to follow. This could include a specific word count, a specific format (such as a persuasive essay or a descriptive paragraph), or a set of key points that the student should address in their writing.
You may also provide examples of well-written pieces that students can use as a model for their own writing as well as giving feedback on the students' writing so that they can improve their writing skills.
Guided writing can take place in a whole-class setting, where a teacher leads the class through the writing process, or in small groups or one-on-one sessions where a teacher can provide more personalized instruction and feedback.
How Does Guided Writing Help Students Improve Their Writing?
Not sure if you want to add guided writing to your instruction techniques? Our teacher team has dug through the educational research on the topic for a more in-depth view.
Research has found that guided writing can be effective in improving various aspects of students' writing skills. For example, studies have shown that guided writing can:
- Improve students' writing fluency, increasing their ability to generate written text quickly and easily
- Enhance students' writing accuracy, including improved grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Increase students' writing complexity, helping students achieve a higher level of sophistication and maturity in their writing.
- Help students develop a greater sense of self-efficacy
- Encourage students' motivation to write
- Facilitate the provision of feedback and support from the teacher
Of course, the effectiveness of guided writing will depend on the specific approach and context in which it is implemented. For example, some research has suggested that guided writing may be more effective when it is used in conjunction with other writing instruction methods, such as independent writing, peer review, and self-reflection.
In general, when guided writing is well-designed, it can be an effective tool for improving students' writing skills, but we suggest using it as part of a comprehensive writing instruction program.
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Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of five grammar worksheets to teach about the structures of simple, compound and complex sentences.
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Super Synonyms List
Boost your students’ vocabularies with a synonyms list to reference in their daily writing lessons.
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Amelia Earhart Constructed Response Worksheet
Use this passage, second grade writing prompt, and worksheet to help students write a constructed response paragraph about Amelia Earhart.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
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Positional Words Interactive Clip Cards
Practice using position words (prepositions) with this Google Slides interactive clip card activity.
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Guided Writing Groups - Progress Tracker
Track student progress during guided writing sessions with this template.
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Find What Doesn’t Fit: Relevant Details Worksheet
Practice determining what details are relevant and irrelevant to a topic while providing a purposeful context.
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Fairy Tales Word Wall Vocabulary
Build vocabulary and inspire fairy tale writing with sixty-eight fairy tale-themed vocabulary cards.
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Persuasive Writing Planning Template
A planning template to use when writing a persuasive or opinion text.
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All About Sloths Animal Project Guidebook
Research and learn about the amazing tree sloth with a printable research guide for kids.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.
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All About Insects - Vocabulary and Writing Activity
Inspire young entomologists to read and write about insects with bug-themed writing prompts and word wall cards.
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Fall Color by Part of Speech - Nouns and Verbs Worksheet
Use this fall color by part of speech worksheet to review nouns and verbs.
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Adverbs Scoot
Build vocabulary and grammar skills with a game of Comparative and Superlative Adverbs SCOOT!
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Sort
Practice reading, identifying, and writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with a sorting activity.
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Irregular Plural Noun Match-Up
Practice using irregular plural nouns with an Irregular Plural Noun Matching Activity.
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Writing Out Loud: Dialogue Punctuation Worksheet
Practice using quotation marks in writing with a Punctuating Dialogue worksheet.
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Sentence Starter Task Cards
Practice writing simple sentences with these 16 sentence starter task cards.
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Roll to Create a Silly Book Title - Differentiated Writing Activity
Have some fun with a hands-on Read Across America activity using a die and chart to create a silly book title and storybook.
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Sloth Story Starters - Animal Writing Prompts
Help students get over writers’ block with these cute sloth-themed writing prompts.
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Opinion Writing Teaching Slides
Teach your students about the structure and language features of opinion texts with an interactive teaching slide deck.
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Narrative Writing Word Wall
A set of 44 vocabulary words related to narrative texts and narrative writing.
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Opinion Writing Anchor Chart - Letter Writing
Demonstrate writing a persuasive letter with an opinion writing anchor chart.
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Fall Parts of Speech Sort - Nouns Verbs Adjectives
Review three parts of speech by sorting nouns, verbs, and adjectives with a parts of speech sorting activity.
- Guided Writing Activities for For Kindergarten
- Guided Writing Activities for For 1st Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for For 2nd Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for For 3rd Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for For 4th Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for For 5th Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for For 6th Grade