Young students learn some words in groups, such as "run," "bun," "sun" and "fun." These word groups help the young writer to recognize letter sounds and to put letters together to form words. Decoding and encoding skills help students to spell words correctly and to recognize them in print. The teacher may use a spelling list of similarly grouped words to teach the student to write. Students can write poems or sentences using the rhyming words such as "I run in the sun. It's fun!"
Teachers use shared writing to model good writing techniques and to create writing assignments beyond the present capacity of the student. The student dictates the content of a story, letter or poem as he wants it to be to the teacher or parent, who writes the words down. The student observes how the content looks in written form, learning to write from left to right, to use appropriate punctuation and to correctly spell words. The student may copy the material in its correct format or use the example to create an individual and unique assignment.
Teachers also use worksheets to teaching early writing skills. The students may fill in the blank to finish the word that describes the picture, such as adding the "f" to "ish" next to the picture of a fish. Kindergarten through primary grade workbooks include these kinds of activities. Worksheets and workbooks can include simple crossword puzzles and word scrambles created from spelling lists and simple word lists. The student may supply the word based on a clue or word definition.
Teachers can provide short stories with missing words as another writing activity. Students fill in the missing words from spelling and vocabulary lists. The teacher can write the words on a smart board, where she can read aloud through the story that may contain words the student can't yet read and then allow the student to add words he can read on his individual worksheets and booklets. "All About Me" provides a printable format for a child to enter information about himself and create a very personal booklet. A teacher or parent may assist by spelling out words for the child or writing them so the child can copy them. Once the book is complete, the pages are stapled together.