1. Stages of Writing Development
EDU 280
Stages of
Writing Development

2. Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)
Stage 1 Palmar-Supinate Grasp
(1 and 1.5 year olds)
Held with fisted hand
Wrist slightly flexed
Wrist slightly supinated away from mid-position
Arm moves as a unit

3. Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)
Stage 2 Digital-Pronate Grasp
(2 and 3 year olds)
Held with fingers
Wrist straight
Wrist pronated
wrist slightly ulnar deviated
Forearm moves as a unit

4. Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)
Stage 3 Static Triposture
(3.5 and 4 year olds)
Held with crude approximation of thumb, index, and middle fingers
Continual adjustments by other hand
Ring and little fingers only slightly flexed
Grasped proximally
No fine localized movements of digit components
Hand moves as a unit

5. Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)
Stage 4 Dynamic Tripod Posture
(4.5 and 6 year olds)
Held with precise opposition of thumb, index, and middle fingers
Ring and little fingers flexed to form stable arch
Wrist slightly extended
Grasped distally
(Test by drawing tiny circles)
MCP = Metacarpophalangeal
PIP – proximal interphalangeal

6. All stages overlap and children progress and reach writing stages at many different ages.
The development of early writing skills is another aspect of the child's emergent literacy development.
Regardless of which stage the child is, writing development can be enhanced through being encouraged to write on a regular basis. 
Children should never be discouraged from exploring writing by the means they are able to do, whether it be scribbling, letter strings, invented spelling, or conventional spelling.
These stages represent a way of looking at writing development in children.

7. Preliterate: Drawing uses drawing to stand for writing
believes that drawings / writing is communication of a purposeful message
read their drawings as if there were writing on them

8. In the drawing and picture writing stage, children begin to express their thoughts and feelings, the pictures are usually unrecognizable.

9. Preliterate: Scribbling
scribbles but intends it as writing
scribbling resembles writing
holds and uses pencil like an adult

10. Scribbling
Scribbling looks like random assortment of marks on a child's paper.
Sometimes the marks are large, circular, and random, and resemble drawing.
Although the marks do not resemble print, they are significant because the young writer uses them to show ideas.

12. Early Emergent: Letter-like forms
shapes in writing actually resemble letters
shapes are not actually letters
look like poorly formed letters, but are unique creations

13. Letter-like forms
Letter-like forms emerge, sometimes randomly placed, and are interspersed with numbers.
The children can tell about their own drawings or writings.
In this stage, spacing is rarely present.

14. At this stage, the child begins to draw somewhat recognizable shapes and may tell about the picture. The child may try to imitate writing, as well.

15. Emergent: Random-letters or letter strings
uses letter sequences perhaps learned from his/her name
may write the same letters in many ways
long strings of letters in random order

16. Strings of Letters.
In the strings-of-letters phase, students write some legible letters that tell us they know more about writing.
Students are developing awareness of the sound-to-symbol relationship, although they are not matching most sounds.
Students usually write in capital letters and have not yet begun spacing.

17. The Writer: Assigns a message to own symbols
Understands that writing and drawing are different, e.g. points to words while reading
Is aware that print carries a message
Uses known letters or approximations of letters to represent written language
Shows beginning awareness of directionality; i.e. points to where print begins

20. Transitional: Writing via invented spelling
creates own spelling when conventional spelling is not known
one letter may represent an entire syllable
words may overlay
may not use proper spacing
as writing matures, more words are spelled conventionally
as writing matures, perhaps only one or two letters invented or omitted

21. The child begins to use some letters to match sounds, often using a beginning letter to represent the whole word. They may begin to use left to right progression, but letter reversals are still common

23. At age 5, Joshua uses his emerging knowledge of letters and sounds to label his drawing “Me AND MM” (Me and Mom) and tell about one of his favorite things to do: “IPLW MOM” (I play Legos with Mom).

26. Fluency: Conventional spelling
usually resembles adult writing

27. At this level children spell most words correctly, though phonetic based spelling still comes into play when they must spell longer words. 
They begin to use punctuation marks correctly and use capital and lower case letters in the correct places.