3 Reasons Why You Need a Labeling Unit in Kindergarten

If there was one piece of advice I would give to a first-year kindergarten teacher, it is this: you need to explicitly model writing in kindergarten.

If your curriculum tells students to “go off and write” in August, that is a red flag. Sure, free writing is a great way to encourage creativity and fine motor development, but if we want our students to truly understand how to write a sentence, we need to model it.

Just like how we teach students to read by decoding words instead of guessing from the picture, we need to teach them how to write. Here’s why.

1. Students need time to focus just on letter sounds

I suggest teaching a labeling unit after your students have been exposed to all of their letter sounds and are beginning to master them. During the first month of school, spend time on my Illustration Unit, then transition to the Labeling Unit. In this phase, students draw pictures and label those pictures.

When we tell students to “go off and write,” we are asking them to manage too many steps at once. They need specific time to focus only on labeling. When they have that foundation, they’ll soon be able to copy a sentence stem and use their label to complete a sentence. Remember, we have to go slow in writing if we want to go fast later.

When students start labeling, they use phonetic spelling. This means they write the sounds they hear, not necessarily the standard spelling. Some may write only the beginning sound, while others write all the sounds they hear. Over time and with practice, they begin to include more sounds and move toward conventional spelling as they learn spelling rules and patterns.

2. Labeling is easily differentiated

Students enter kindergarten with a wide range of skills. Some already know their letters and sounds, while others are still learning to recognize their name. Labeling meets each student where they are. Everyone can draw the same object but label it in a way that matches their ability.

For example, if everyone draws an apple:
• One student might write “a” because they only hear the /a/ sound.
• Another might write “apl” because they hear all three sounds.
• A third might write a few lines for each sound they hear but only identify the /a/ and /p/ sounds.

All of these examples are developmentally appropriate and show progress.

In one drawing, a student wrote “wndo” for window but only the beginning sounds for cloud and sun. This mix of beginning sounds and full phonetic spelling is typical as students build confidence and letter mastery.

3. Labeling leads naturally into sentence stems

Once students have mastered labeling, they are ready to learn how to read and write sentence stems. Sentence stems are short, high-frequency word starters that help students structure their sentences.

A simple one is “I see a ___.”

If a student draws an apple and labels it “apl,” they can then write “I see a apl.” Through this, they are learning sentence structure, capital letters, spacing, and punctuation in a developmentally appropriate way.

By the end of the labeling unit, students will have learned how to label, use sentence stems, add a capital letter at the beginning, include spaces between words, and finish with a period.

If you are looking for guidance with labeling, I have created four weeks of scripted lesson plans, anchor charts, directed drawings, and more in my Labeling Unit. You can also pair this unit with my mentor text Labeling Our World to help students see labeling in action. The book shows how we can use labels all around us and gives students real-world context for what they are practicing in class.

This unit and mentor text are both included in my yearlong Growing Writers Curriculum, which takes students from drawing, to labeling, to writing complete sentences and stories with confidence.