The idea is that as you teach the conventions (spacing, capital letter, punctuation, etc...), you give a "did it dot" for each new thing you see the student using during their independent writing. For instance, if you've just taught them that you want them to put their name at the top of their paper as soon as they start a new piece, you give a sticker with a happy face on it right beside their name that day. If you've taught them to stretch out the sounds in a long word that they want to write (turtle talk), and you notice a child finally doing it for the first time, you put a sticker with a turtle drawning on their paper. Primariy Writing suggests getting the colored dot stickers and printing an abbreviation on each of them to use as did it dots. I decided to go ahead and make a few of the first ones extra special by getting these stickers. The happy faces from the Target dollar spot will be for name on your paper. The sun stickers will be for date on the paper. The turtles are for "turtle talk". And I'm still deciding how I'm going to use the star stickers.
