Writing+development

When children begin to write they are very limited in what they can express through there writing as learning to write and express is very complex and although they might have great ideas for stories they can find it very hard to put these ideas down on paper to create a story that can be understood. Children's oral stories usually consist of things that match stories that have been read aloud. Most children go through similar stages in learning to write, they usually start with squiggles and lines and then move on and begin to represent ideas in drawings. Ít's not until children start to realise that letters and symbols stand for different things that they are able to improve on the expression of stories in writing. There are several stages in a child's writing development and they are as follows:

Beginning Writing

Writting can occur in large circular shapes or in scribble like lines that may proceed from left to right. The child is exploring the writing they have observed when adults write in a flowing cursive form in continuous line (Hill 2006, pg283) Refer to figure 13.3 on pg283 of Hill: Developing early literacy

Early-emergement writing

In early-emergement writing, children explore the use of symbols-either drawings or letters-to represent words. The seperation of pictures and letter symbols is an amazing leap in development (Hill 2006, pg283) Refer to figure 13.4 on pg284 of Hill: Developing early literacy

Emergent Writing

In emergent writing, the child begins to create more letter like shapes. There may be spaces between the letters, and letters begin to represent sounds in words (Hill 2006, pg284) Refer to figure 13.5 on pg284 of Hill: Developing early literacy

Early writing

In early writing children continue to create or invent spellings of words. In inventive spelling, a letter may represent a syllable such as in Bcos. Children often repeat phrases and sentencesas if they were practisingor building confidence with what they already know (Hill 2006, pg284). Refer to figure 13.6 on pg285 of Hill: Developing early literacy

Transitional writing

In transitional writing, the volume of writing increases and there may bemany repetitive sentences and phrases-quantity not quality becomes apparent. The plots in narrative writing may be episodicand finding a satisfactory ending might be a challenge. Punctuation is well developed (Hill 2006, pg285) Refer to figure 13.7 on pg285 of Hill: Developing early literacy