by Melanie Meehan & Maggie Beattie Roberts
Published May, 2026
Corwin
232 Pages
Paperback
Professional Learning Text
I am a bit of a professional book addict. I love reading professional texts to deepen and broaden my own knowledge and skills so that I can be the best teacher for my students. While I always learn something, not every professional text is as helpful as I hope it will be. Every now and then, a professional text comes along that is a game-changer--one that has the potential to impact the practice of everyone who reads it. Foundational Skills for Writing is one of those books.
It is an understatement to say that Melanie and Maggie have done their homework. They have done a deep dive into how executive functioning, oral language, large and small motor skills, handwriting, spelling, syntax, and sentence construction all play important roles in writing development. They provide predictable progressions of developmental skills, which will help educators determine next steps for students. Each chapter is grounded in classroom practice by presenting a student scenario. Then the student is revisited at the end of the chapter, and the authors give an update on how the students have progressed using the information and strategies presented in the chapter.
Most importantly, the authors provide replicable instructional strategies to address each foundational skill in a section called "Leveraging Literacy". These strategies are accompanied by sequential steps, visuals, and even direct links to resources. I got some new ideas that I will share later in this post. A section called Researchers to Know, includes a list of prominent researchers in the field presented in the chapter, including a brief description of their contributions. Each chapter ends with Conversations With a Colleague, where a practitioner in the field shares their experience, expertise, and advice.
The mark of a good professional text is in how it will impact the practice of an educator who reads it. Books like this one make me wish I were back in the classroom so that I could use what I have learned with my classroom writers. But now I read professional texts through a library lens. Below are the strategies and activities I will implement (or continue to implement) in my library program to support foundational writing development after reading and processing Foundational Skills for Writing.
Executive Functioning
- Allow extra think time
- Leverage quick-writes
- Use sketchnoting with students
- Incorporate more oral storytelling
Oral Language
- Turn & talks (pairing similar "talkers" together
- Asking students to share what they heard rather than what they said.
- Verbal rehearsal before writing
- Incorporate visuals like sketches as options
- Incorporate the use of sentence frames during discussions
- Ask questions to think deeper about characters from read-alouds, such as What would be the character's least favorite food?
- Have students orally tell the story of wordless picture books
Large Motor Skills
- Utilize large motor movements before read-aloud
- Encourage students to read books on their bellies propped up on their arms
- Incorporate yoga poses in the library
Small Motor/Handwriting/Spelling Skills
- Offer a variety of writing utensils
- Have a variety of paper choices on hand
- Offer Jigsaw puzzles
- Incorporate STEAM activities such as Legos
- Bookmaking activities
- Incorporate the use of sticky notes and mini notebooks throughout the library and during play activities
- Keep letter-sound charts and high-frequency word lists available during writing activities
- Do high-frequency word hunts in books
- Orthographically map tricky words
- Incorporate Interactive Writing
- Label the library
- Use magnetic letters for choice activities
Syntax & Sentence Construction
- Mentor sentence activities
- Sort a sentence
- Collaborative sentence construction
- Sentence scrambles
- Magnetic poetry
I would strongly encourage any educator to get a copy of Foundational Skills for Writing: A Brain-Based Guide to Strengthen Executive Functioning, Language, and Other Cornerstones for Writers by Melanie Meehan & Maggie Beattie Roberts.
