Think about the Chart topic and how you will give it an interesting title, for example: ‘Things to Eat’, ‘We Dress Up’, ‘All About Slime’, ‘Room 5 Superstars’, ‘Animals We Love’, ‘How To Make Playdough’. Remember that Predictable Charts can be written during/after science, cooking, PE, health to further discuss and reflect on what students have learned, expand beyond "Predictable Chart Writing" time. Some teachers also like to connect the Chart to a field trip or the book of the week.
For our earliest communicators, write Charts about what the students know, have had experience with, and care about.
The ‘sentence stem’ for Emergent literacy learners should be two to five high frequency words that children first learn to speak/communicate, read, and write. These words come from lists such as Dolch, Oxford, or Core Vocabulary.
Eg, I like, I want, I put on, It is, I go to, I got, Look! I see a, We can, I can, Get some, I do not like, Put in the, I made, I play with…
For early transitional or conventional literacy learners the sentence stem would be words you wish to see them using in their writing. Remember about repetition with variety. Cycle through the same sentence stem but for different topics.
I put on…. Clothes, costumes,
I like… animals, sports, school activities
I want… food, presents, pets
Try adding ‘not’ to the next week’s Chart to extend the stem and the repetition
I do not like
I do not want
Do not put on
The sentence stem is planned and chosen thoughtfully. Are these core vocabulary words the AAC users need to learn to communicate? Are these words you can model in the AAC systems or in the classroom PODD? Are these words high frequency AAC words easily available to the students? Are these high frequency or sight words that the students need to learn? Are these the earliest sentence forms that the students are also seeing in their daily reading of Early Decodable Readers?
The sentence stem is the most important part of the Chart – these words are specially selected and will be focused on repeatedly throughout the week.