Description

Ninja Write Explanation

For Ninja Write, as with the Ninja Maths program, we have endeavoured to create a writing program that is not only highly effective, but also easy for teachers to implement. Ninja Write is created by teachers for teachers, so we certainly don’t want to add any more to your teaching load. We want to make life easier for you!

That is why we are notinto having 5 page theoretical introductions, that no one ever reads, we like to keep it simple; in that simplicity, gain amazing improvement and results from all students.

Ninja Write focuses on four main elements of writing: Punctuation, Vocabulary, Sentence Starters and Conjunctions. When students are motivated to include these four elements, you will see a marked improvement in writing quality across your whole spectrum of students. Ninja Write will give every student the chance to see real improvement in only a few weeks, and when the improvement snowball begins it is a fun ride for students and teachers alike. Fore once a child sees some progress, and gains the belief that they can improve, it is almost impossible to stop.

We are big on Growth Mindset and we believe that getting students to focus and then believe are the first steps to getting better. Ninja Write will help all of your students to start focusingandbelieving, as for you the teacher – just enjoy the ride!

Four elements

Punctuation

Vocab

Sentence Starters

Conjunctions

Ninja Write Jnr

Ninja Write Jnr focuses on two main elements of writing: Punctuation and Vocabulary. When students are motivated to include these two elements, you will see a marked improvement in writing quality across your whole spectrum of students. Ninja Write Jnr takes builds on the vocabulary bank with a focus on different sound groups in each excel tab. In every tab (other than SATPIN as it is our first tab) you will see:

‘Wonderful Words’– this groups of words will draw from all of the sounds completed in previous tabs. This is why we advise you start with the SATPIN tab and work your way across the tabs.

‘Lovely Lingo’– These are the simpler words using the sounds from that tab

‘Terrific Terms’– These are the more complex words using the sounds from that tab.

The Five easy steps of Ninja Write:

1. Give
2. Talk
3. Play
4. Write
5. Count

Explanation

Give: Hand out your randomly generated Ninja Write sheet (remember to press function key 9 – Cmd + F9 for Mac – to generate your sheet, it will generate a brand new sheet each time), a Ninja Talk note explain to parents what you would like them to do and your writing prompt (you can find writing prompts all over the internet – for example http://visualprompts.weebly.com)

Talk: Have students take the Ninja Write sheet and writing prompt home and discuss them with their parent/Guardian, brother, sister, cousin…or anyone who will listen. JThey don’t need to write anything, the more they talk about it the more easily their writing will flow.

Play: During the ensuing days play some language games to help get students familiar with using the words and their context. For example ‘Punctuation Bingo’.

Write: Give students 1 hour to complete a writing piece. It is advised to give students 5 minutes to talk about their ideas with a partner before beginning the writing hour. If the kids don’t finish in the hour – that is fine, still mark it then just give them extra time later to finish it off.

Count: Swap work with a partner, who will read the text and then mark using the appropriate highlighter colours. Highlighting correct vocab words yellow, punctuation green, sentence starters blue and conjunctions orange. The student only receives points once for each word or piece of punctuation, it must also be used in context.  For example they will only get points for one semi colon even if they use it multiple times.

The partner will then add up the total points and write it on the work. The author of the work will then get the appropriate Ninja Write card/stickers that corresponds with the amount of points earned as per the Ninja Write Ranking poster, if you choose to use stickers they can then stick them in their Ninja Write Passport.

If there is a question about if a word is used in correctly in context students can ask the teacher. Making sure you explain to the students that they can’t just list the words, they must be used in context before they start writing will help avoid this.

Extra Info:

You can introduce Ninja Write one element at a time. For example, starting with just vocabulary – you can access this by clicking on the ‘vocab’ tab at the bottom of the Excel page. This can be followed by the other three elements, while at any time moving onto all four elements in the ‘Ninja Write All’ tab.

Stickers:A fun way to implement Ninja Write is to print the Ninjas out on a sticker sheet – you could use ‘Avery Removable Labels 62 x 89mm White 90 Pack’ from Office Works, I have included the printing sheet set in the download files. Then as the kids earn the Ninjas, they can stick them in the Ninja Passport.

In the Excel doc you will see the red ‘Generator’ tab, this is where all the words are generated from – it is best to leave this tab alone so as not to mess with the formatting.