7 Mighty Writing Moves: Research-Backed, Classroom-Tested Strategies to Ensure K-3 Writing Success

In this practical guide, Lindsay Kemeny tackles writing instruction, sharing seven powerful shifts she’s made to align with research and accelerate her students’ learning. Each move focuses on a high-impact area of writing—from the most efficient ways to teach handwriting, spelling, and sentence-level skills to the most effective strategies for guiding students through informational, opinion, and narrative writing. With the approachable style that made 7 Mighty Moves a go-to resource for reading instruction, Kemeny shares the routines and strategies she uses every day to help students grow as they master foundational writing skills and apply those skills to composing with purpose and confidence.

The 7 Mighty Writing Moves are:

• Move 1: Teach Handwriting With Intention

• Move 2: Teach Spelling Explicitly and Systematically

• Move 3: Develop Strong Sentence-Level Skills

• Move 4: Teach, Model, and Support Strategies for the Writing Process

• Move 5: Use Text Structure to Teach Informational Writing

• Move 6: Use a Strategic Framework to Teach Opinion Writing

• Move 7: Use Story Grammar to Teach Narrative Writing