Norwich - To get a taste of the new writing approach in the city's elementary schools, the Board of Education on Tuesday viewed hand-written work of a kindergarten student - complete with drawings of flowers, a house and a car - as the student progressed from simple words to complete sentences and stories.

The school district used part of its nearly $3.9 million state-funded Alliance District improvement grant to hire Doug Kaufman, associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Connecticut School of Education, to work with teachers to improve writing in younger grades.

Kaufman is being paid $2,000 per day to spend 25 days in city schools last year and this year. In his presentation Tuesday, Kaufman encouraged board members to go beyond test score analysis and go into the classroom and see "the beautiful work" students are doing.

He uses a method modeled after how professional authors write, allowing creativity to enter the structure of the writing.

The samples projected on a large screen at the front of the room started with the student's first day of school in kindergarten, when she wrote: "I sa my yellow fish. I love my fish." Kaufman said that, while the temptation is to correct her spelling, the real goal on the first day of school was to allow the child to express herself as best she could using her knowledge of phonics.

Allowing "inventive spelling" invites the young students to write about elephants and giraffes rather than just dogs and cats, Kaufman said. By the second month, the girl was writing longer sentences and stories, with most of the spelling and punctuation correct. She added sound effects - "beep" for the car - to her illustrations.

"This is the kind of work you would see 10 years ago at the end of first grade," Kaufman said.

New requirements have pushed back expectations into kindergarten and, until this school year, many Norwich kindergarten classes were still half day - greatly restricting the time teachers could spend on writing or any other specific topic, teacher Heather Main said. Last year, she said, she felt like she was teaching writing "on the way to the bus."

The district used a combination of state Alliance District grant money and state Network Schools funding to expand kindergarten to full day.

The new writing program includes full class instruction, small group practice and individual writing, and kindergarten students have 15 minutes each day to practice writing, Main said.

Norwich Curriculum Director Joseph Stefon said the creativity methods work well, but Norwich still must focus on improved test scores, finding a balance between the goals.

Kaufman responded by encouraging school officials not to worry so much about test scores for the first two years of the new standardized tests the state is introducing this year.

He said in visits to schools throughout the state, he has seen that student writing is more creative in wealthier schools not so focused on test scores than in so-called Priority District schools that have less local funding and more reliance on state grants.

c.bessette@theday.com

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