How children learn to write

How children learn to write
Learning to Write How children learn to write

What observations have you made?
Remember, remember…! Take a pen/pencil. Now write this sentence: ‘My name is …. [add your name].’ Now do it again but cover your eyes completely so you cannot see. Now switch hands and try it a third time. Compare your three sentences. What observations have you made?

Early Exposure to Printed Language

Early exposure to printed language
Which comes first, speaking or writing? Why? What relationship (if any) is there between speaking and writing? Can you remember anything about learning to write?

Reading towards writing
When does a child actually start to write? Is it when they put pencil to paper and produce recognisable letters or words? Or perhaps it goes back even further to when, as a sticky-fingered toddler, a crayon is picked up and scribbling commences? It is likely that the whole process of writing begins much earlier, when children are exposed to written text and become familiar with printed language. This starts the long- and often frustrating – process of connecting speech and writing.

Phoneme - grapheme Early reading enables young children to begin to see phoneme-grapheme correspondence, the connection between the sounds they hear and the written symbols that correspond to them. This will, in turn, enable them to move on from speech to written expression once that connection has been firmly established. Grapheme – the letter or blend of letters that represents a sound (e.g. s or ch) Phoneme – the sound of a letter or blend of letters within a word.

Early Reading: Girls’ Prep School visit
We will be visiting to help the younger girls to read. Participate, observe and listen carefully as these students learn to master a skill which we now practise effortlessly. What have you observed? Homework: write up your observations and/or answers to questions (300 words approx.)

Questions for Girls Prep
Can a teacher tell which children have been exposed to print before attending school? Is there a correlation between reading and speech? Do ‘good speakers’ naturally become ‘good readers’? Is it always hard for a child to learn to read? Is it a natural ability? Which is quicker to learn – reading or writing? What method do you use to teach the students to read? (synthetic and analytic phonics/look and say approach)

Phoneme - grapheme There is a strong evidence base to suggest that children who are exposed to a rich reading environment in early years become more successful both in in their writing and in school generally. Why? The most obvious reason is that children have increased exposure to letters and early words that they are going to try and write. In other words they become accustomed to letters and names, starting with their own name. From memory – and perhaps home practice – they become familiar with language and writing. Additionally, it seems logical that early enjoyment will promote understanding of the importance of the written word and a desire to master it.

The nature of early reading
Do you remember your favourite book as a child and who read it to you? Early books are designed as a shared reading process with adults. Often, a child will associate this early reading with relaxed home time. The process if made more enjoyable as it builds relationships and the child is also likely to be physically close to the person reading to them. This is necessary in order to look at the book together and enjoy the images and any other interactive feature of the book, such as flaps to lift or buttons to press. Often these books will introduce key learning concepts (e.g. colours/numbers).

Children’s Books Get hold of a child’s reading book.
What features make it a child’s book? How is the story written to help develop reading skills?

My early reading When did reading occur? Who read with you?
What kind of books did you enjoy and why? Are there any particular character you remember? Why were they memorable? Were there any features that appealed to you as a child, like rhyme, repetition or alliteration?

Children’s Books It is worth considering the ways in which early reading books successfully introduce language to children in a way that will appeal and encourage them to explore language further. See the following slide for a sample page of ‘Peepo’ which charts a baby’s typical day through the game Peepo. The child can ‘peep’ through a hole in each page to see the picture beyond. Read it and try to identify lexical, phonological, grammatical and graphological features used to engage young readers.

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Learning to Read

Learning to Read As a child gets older, the link between reading and writing becomes more obvious, particularly as they enter more formal childcare (e.g. nursery). Jeanne Chall (1983), an American psycholinguist, suggested a number of stages through which children learn to read. As they get older, the motivation for reading develops, so that there may be a wider range of reasons to read.

Learning to Read As children enter the initial reading and decoding stage, they will be explicitly taught methods in school by which they can start to make sense of the written texts they encounter. The two most commonly accepted approaches are the phonic approach and look and say approach. Phonic approach – encourages readers to break down words into individual graphemes and sound them out, to try and read the whole word accurately. Look and say approach – encourages readers to identify familiar words as a whole to read them

Stages of Reading

Learning to Read The look and say approach is encouraged alongside the phonics approach which is divided into two main groups – synthetic phonics and analytical phonics. Synthetic – teaches children the individual phonemes independently from reading. Once these are embedded, they can then blend them together to pronounce a word. The child is synthesising the individual phonemes to place them together into a whole word. For example, the individual sounds c, a and t can be blended to make ‘cat’.

Learning to Read Analytic – does not teach the individual phonemes to children before they begin reading but encourages the breaking down of words into key sections. These parts are known as the onset and the rime. The onset is the beginning of the word which is likely to be one or two letters long. One common onset is ‘th’ (e.g. thief, thumb, third). The rime is the section of word that follows the onset. This system encourages children to recognise patterns between individual words. For example, learning b-ond should permit a child to recognise p-ond and f-ond.

Common Onset

Table of rimes -ack -amp -all -ang -eck -emp -ell -eng -ick -imp -ill
-ong -ock -omp -oll -ing -uck -ump -ull -ung Complete the same exercise for the following rimes: -ank -ast -ask -and

Which system is best? Which approach do you think would be most effective and why? Consider the look and say method, synthetic phonic and analytic phonic methods. Try to identify advantages and disadvantages of each approach. For example, the look and say method might be criticised as children are not learning ways of decoding unfamiliar words.

Reading schemes There is a range of reading schemes used within schools. You may have heard of the more popular of these schemes: Jolly Phonics, Read Write Inc or the Oxford Reading Tree. All of these schemes use graduated reading books, whereby children progress through the different levels or colours as their reading becomes more confident.

Progressing in reading
As a child becomes a more confident reader however, they will find far more variety in the texts they encounter and begin to explore the conventions of non-fiction as well as fiction. Although these books will still contain repeated constructions and images to link to the text, there will be a number of more challenging features too. There will tend to be smaller font, longer sentences, a mixture of mono and polysyllabic words and a wider range of syntactical constructions.

Progressing in reading
Undertake some research into the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. Either online or through sourcing some of the books within the reading scheme, investigate books from different levels and decide what features characterise books at these levels: Red (level 2) Orange (level 6) Gold (level 9) Short, simple sentences, limited vocab, lots of pics. Longer, more complex sentences, punctuation, 20 pages Independent readers, 5-10 sentences per page, 25 pages.

The use of familiar texts to facilitate writing
The link between early reading of well-known stories and writing can be seen in text 14H. This was produced by Daisy during her Reception year at the age of 5:6 as part of a unit of work on familiar fairy tales. The fairy tale genre is one which will probably be familiar to most young children and here it has been used as a springboard to encourage writing practice. Using this familiar genre as a starting point is a popular and successful approach to encourage children to manipulate language and experiment with genres.

Daisy’s Letter Look at Daisy’s letter and consider:
What has the child been asked to do with the familiar fairy tale here? In what ways has the familiarity of the story of Goldilocks and the three bears facilitated the writing process?

Stages of Reading

Scaffolding It is evident that the task of taking on the perspective of Goldilocks has presented a range of challenges. How has the teacher scaffolded the writing task to help the child? Salutation (Dear…) Sentence opener (I am very sorry…) Complimentary close (Love from…) How successfully do you think Daisy has completed the task? Has she for example, understood the conventions of letter writing? What about adopting a perspective other than her own?

Further Research (2008) The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children’s Education, ref. DCSF (1986) The Forms of Capital – Pierre Bourdieu (2006) Cultural Trends, ‘Cultural Capital and the Literary Field’ (2014) Building Communities of Engaged Readers: Reading for Pleasure - Teresa Cremin.

The Process of Writing Development

What needs to be in place before a child can learn to write? It is helpful if children are introduced to printed text from an early age. It is also clear that listening to stories and talking about them together with a caregiver will develop a child’s oracy as well as beginning to develop their early literacy. Oracy – an individual’s development of speaking and listening skills Literacy – an individual’s development of reading and writing skills

It is very difficult for a child to progress in their literacy development if the spoken acquisition of language has not progressed. The general cognitive awareness of how language works needs to be in place before writing can develop. A child needs to have a wide lexical range and an understanding of how these words work together in terms of grammar and syntax in speech in order to start writing individual words and then progressing to the production of written sentences.

Fine Motor Skills Have a look at the way you hold a pen. Picking up a pen to write is likely to be a natural, unconscious movement for you but it is one of the first challenges for a child when learning to write. Carers in early years settings actively encourage children to use the tripod grip when writing or drawing. This use of the thumb, index and middle finger facilitate an easier controlled movement. The top end of the pen should be pointing towards the shoulder. Check your pen grip now!

Fine Motor Skills Young children tend to refine their motor development from gross motor skills to fine motor skills; this could explain why children’s writing can initially be over-large and imprecise. This gradually becomes less of an issue as a child’s fine motor skills are honed. Gross – the skills associated with larger movements, for example walking, jumping, climbing, waving Fine – the skills associated with more precise movement, using one’s fingers; writing, sewing, playing with Lego, using scissors.

Directionality Reading or looking at books helps children to develop an awareness that writing is positioned from left to right on a page and almost always presents itself in straight lines. Most early books contain images that encourage the reader to hold the book the right way up and to recognise correctly aligned letters. Often, early writers struggle to keep their words in a logical order, or a straight line. For this reason, children are usually given wide spaces lines to write on. Sometimes children are concentrating so hard on producing the right letters in the right order that they don’t realise the words are tumbling down the page. Directionality – the process of writing from left to right.

Directionality Directionality – the process of writing from left to right.

Cognitive Awareness Having spent the first few years of life acquiring spoken language and making sense of all the words around them, children are then presented with a new challenge. They must learn how words are presented, or encoded, into written form. This is perhaps the most challenging area of learning to write from a cognitive perspective. This skill is usually learnt alongside that of decoding the written word through learning to read. The connection between phonemes and graphemes is complicated.

Cognitive Awareness Often parents will invest in magnetic letters for the fridge or foam letters for the bath to help children become aware of what the different letters actually look and feel like. Once a child begins formal education, the alphabet system and the connection between these phoneme and graphemes begins to be taught more explicitly, usually through a reading and writing scheme that concentrates on a phonic approach.

Playing with Letters Work in pairs to create 26 small cards, one for each letter of the alphabet. Then take it in turns (using 2 minutes) to create as many three letter words as possible. Your partner will write down your words. Once you’ve both had a go, look at the words you have created and think about: Are there any particular types of words that appear more often (e.g. adjectives)? Are some letters used more frequently than others? How do you think this kind of activity might help children’s early literacy development?

Emergent Writing Before children can write coherent letters of words, it is likely that they will be in the emergent writing stage. At this point, a child will be engaged in a complicated process of making signs on the page that they intend to represent a particular word or series of words. They have understood that writing is something that occurs and are trying to become involved in this process, albeit without yet having the necessary skills or understanding. The product on the page might not include recognisable letters but these will tend not to make sense when placed together. At this stage, it is arguable that the child is imitating what they see around them without fully grasping the complexity of the exercise.

Examples of Emergent Writing

Broad stages of writing development
Before looking at specific elements of the writing process in more detail, it is useful to have a sense of how writing progresses following the emergent writing stage. In his 1981 book ‘Exploring Speaking- Writing Relationships: Connections and Contrasts’, Barry Kroll proposed that a child goes through four stages in the writing process. As before, the ages attributed are not definitive but it is expected that most children will tend to fall into particular stages at approximately the same ages.

Broad stages of writing development
Spelling Stage Features of Stage Preparatory (up to 6) Children are developing their fine motor skills, practising holding a pencil and getting to grips with basic spelling principles. Consolidation (7-8) Children are writing as they speak, usually in short declaratives, using conjunctions (and/but). Sentences often incomplete. Differentiation (9-10) Children are beginning to differentiate between speech and writing. Different styles of writing are understood. There are still a number of errors. Writing guides might be provided. Writing might reflect thoughts and feelings. Integration (mid teens) Children are developing a personal style and can alter their writing according to audience/purpose.

Investigating Writing Stages
For each of the following texts (J, K, L, M) try to decide which of Kroll’s stages it fits most appropriately, and think about how you could justify your choice. Sometimes you will see a piece of writing that you feel could fit securely within one stage but showing signs of developing into the next stage.

Attitudes and Theories about learning to write

Attitudes and Theories
Attitudes – the creative model versus the rule-based model. How should we teach children to write? As we have shown, children develop their writing skills at different speeds through a number of defined stages. How we teach and encourage successful development of writing skills is an important area of early years education. There are two contrasting approaches. Creative – trial and error, experiment creatively without correction; child less afraid to make ‘mistakes’ Rule- based – understand conventions of writing, SPAG will result in more rapid progress; child can produce texts understandable and appropriate for audience/purpose

Within the current education system, it is considered very important that children achieve particular outcomes and standards. Throughout their school careers, children will be assessed on their ability to write accurately and coherently. Indeed, the NC for September 2014 for English, expects children at KS1 (6/7 years) to ‘proofread to check for errors in SPAG’. This focus continues throughout a student’s career, with KS3 emphasising students should be ‘taught to…write accurately, fluently, effectively and at length for pleasure and information’ and ‘pay attention to SPAG’. In order to achieve success at all ages, a high degree of accuracy is necessary, so it is important students know the rules and apply them.

This leads to a wider discussion about the nature of Standard English, and of education as a whole. Are children in school to be instructed about the ‘right’ way to spell words, form sentences and produce longer stretches of text with Standard English being the ideal? When children are learning to write, such a rule-governed approach could be seen as stifling individual language patterns or idiolect and placing the educational focus on accuracy rather than creativity or learning through experimentation. John Abbott used the metaphor of ‘battery hens or free range chickens’ (1999) to describe the debate.

Further Reading ‘Creativity and Writing: Developing Voice and Verve in the Classroom’ (2005) by Teresa Grainger, Kathy Goouch and Andrew Lambirth. This summarises the findings of an extensive research project undertaken in response to growing concern that literacy skills were being valued more highly than developing creativity and an understanding of the purposes of writing.

Rules for Writing Creative Approach
Write a list of reasons why you think it is important for children to learn to write and follow the ‘rules’ of English spelling, punctuation and grammar. Creative Approach Look at Texts 14N and 14O which both demonstrate creativity in their writing approach but for different reasons. What arguments can you suggest for a more creative approach to learning to write?

Rules for Writing Write a list of reasons why you think it is important for children to learn to write and follow the ‘rules’ of English spelling, punctuation and grammar. FOR (RULE-BASED APPROACH) Ensures a common standard across the nation Allows everyone to have an equal opportunity at school (thereby aiding social mobility) Easier for teachers to compare students Ensures ease of understanding for foreigners (and ensures prominence of English on world stage) Ensures fairness of assessment (as each child is judged against a common standard) Makes it easier and quicker to learn Early introduction to rules-based approach ensures greater ease in maths/sciences/languages .

Rules for Writing Write a list of reasons why you think it is important for children to learn to write and follow the ‘rules’ of English spelling, punctuation and grammar. FOR (CREATIVE APPROACH) Allows children the freedom of self-expression and aid their own exploration of the language Promotes activity in the right side of the brain Promotes creativity across the curriculum (and enhances problem solving skills) Enhances creative skills for the job market Ensures healthier well-being as concept of ‘wrong/mistakes’ doesn’t exists

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Genre, audience and purpose
As students of language, you will have become very aware of the need to consider audience, purpose and genre both in your writing and when you analyse other texts. These are critical contextual factors that impact on the choices made by writers. But how are these areas important for writing acquisition? A number of approaches have concentrated on the development of a writer’s understanding of specific types of writing rather than just focusing on a rule-based approach.

Genre-based literacy Until the 1970s, much of the teaching of writing focused on technical accuracy rather than the text as a whole. In the early 1980s, Jean Rothery undertook research in the area of a more genre-focused approach. She published and introduced an influential model for literacy that considered a more functional approach; looking at what the purpose of the writing is and how this can be best fulfilled. Rothery identified four categories that appeared most in early writing.

Rothery’s 4 Stages 1. Observation/comment This is perhaps the simplest type of writing. A child observes something and makes a comment on it. For example, I saw a monkey. It was cheeky. 2. Recount This is a subjective, chronological account of an event. Students might be asked to write a recount of a school trip. It takes the structure of orientation, event and reorientation. Orientation sets the scene (Yesterday we went to the zoo). At the end of the piece of writing, the orientation draws some kind of conclusion (We had a great day and returned to school happy).

Rothery’s 4 Stages 3. Report A report is different from a recount since it is an objective and factual description of an event or thing, rather than the more subjective recount. It does not need to be chronological. For example, a student might produce a non-chronological report about World Book Day, focusing on key themes and events rather than writing about the day start to finish.

Rothery’s 4 Stages 4. Narrative The story genre is perhaps the hardest to achieve. It involves orientation, complication, resolution and coda. Orientation will set the scene. The complication introduces an issue, problem or event that needs some kind of resolution. Children are familiar with the narrative genre from early reading but writing a story themselves is a prolonged and complicated task. It might be that the coda, the reason for the story or moral, is omitted in early stories.

Rothery’s 4 Stages Observation/comment and recount are generally easier for a child to complete, since they will rely on the child starting with their own experience in order to write. However, the report is objective and the narrative might take a 3rd person perspective or be written from an imaginary character’s perspective. These last two categories are therefore more complex. The teaching of these writing styles might follow a pattern: Deconstruction Joint Construction Independent Construction

Teaching the harder writing styles
Deconstruction would involve the teacher introducing students to the type of writing and identifying generic features. For example, if writing a story, the teacher might look at an opening paragraph with the class and discuss the language used and the information provided (e.g. setting, character). Collectively, a story opening could then be produced (often seen as modelling) before students are finally enabled to work independently to produce their own writing in the narrative genre. Deconstruction Joint Construction Independent Construction

Britton’s Model Another useful way of considering how children develop their understanding of the functions of language is o consider James Britton’s model (1975). He suggested three key types of writing: 1. Expressive writing is that which children develop first. It is the starting point for children as it is an undifferentiated expression of self. It will take the first person and enables children to explore their own identity and preferences through writing. This idea ties in with previous exploration of Piaget’s notion of children being egocentric until they are about 7 years old.

Britton’s Model As their skills develop, Britton argues that children’s writing can be placed into two categories, transactional and poetic: 2. Poetic writing is ‘literary’. Poetic writing is often encouraged in early writing, since it allows children to be creative but also encourages them to think about the craft of writing by including imagery as well as phonologically pleasing features, such as alliteration, rhyme and rhythm.

Britton’s Model 3. Transactional writing is ‘worldly’. Transactional writing is seen as when the writer is able to separate their own identity from the writing, so the writer has been able to become entirely detached from the content of the writing. As a result, it will take an impersonal tone and is far removed from expressive writing. Britton’s approach allows us to focus on the purpose of writing as a while and the necessary writing style required to fulfil that particular purpose. If we think about the argument that if the function is transactional, then a rule-governed approach is far more necessary than poetic writing, which enables a more creative approach.

Transactional or poetic?
Decide whether each of the following writing tasks is transactional or poetic: A diary about the summer holidays A poem in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet A letter to apply for a job A short story in the crime genre A newspaper article about a recent school fundraiser A speech to deliver to new entrants to a school A description of your favourite place A history evaluating the impact of the Industrial Revolution

Environmental Factors

School and Teacher Input
Do you remember how you moved from being able to write your name and draw pictures to being able to write fluently, adapting your style to suit increasingly complex demands? This process is gradual and takes years, so it may be difficult to pinpoint when you became a confident writer. As we have already considered, prior to starting school, most children will have reached the stage of emergent writing and may be adept at drawing pictures and writing a few key letters and words. School and the input of teaching staff are arguably the most influential factors in learning to write. Just as primary caregivers are instrumental in the child’s spoken language so the teacher becomes another key figure in a child’s life as they approach the age of 5.

Teacher Shout Out Do you remember any teachers who helped you to write?

School and Teacher Input
In the UK, children usually start school in the September following their four birthday and spend one year in Reception. There is a significant difference between a child who has just turned 4 and an almost 5-year old, particularly in relation to the fine motor skills essential for learning to write. How do you think this range of ages might impact on the kind of input required and development seen in individual students in the course of their first year at school?

Analysing Early Writing
Look at Text 14P, produced by a child aged 4:11 after a few weeks in her Reception class. She has been asked to think about ways to stay safe and to make independent marks (i.e. produce some writing without a teacher’s support). Use your knowledge about lexis and graphology to identify what she has managed to achieve here. Exploring the role of an adult Identify five ways in which the teacher has supported this child in the completion of the written task in Text 14P.

Analysing Early Writing
Now consider Text 14Q, produced by the same child six months later. The child has written far more and you will probably notice there is more to comment on here in terms of the child’s writing development. Also, the nature of the support offered by the teacher has altered. This is the natural progression one might expect as a child becomes more independent and confident as a writer. You could also look at this text in terms of genre, as the specific styles of writing for particular purposes are now being shared with the child and she is being encouraged to use the genre conventions associated with instructional writing.

Exploring the use of scaffolding
Read Text 14Q carefully. Identify ways in which the teacher has again facilitated the writing through scaffolding.

Early goals The following early learning goal for writing appears in The Early years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework (2012): By the end of their first year in school, the aim is for children to show tangible development in relation to spelling/orthography and grammar, with words being plausible, even if not accurate and writing becoming increasingly cohesive in terms of sentence construction. Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.

Progression in writing development
To what extent is the child reaching these early learning goals in Text 14Q? Identify some of the key areas in which the child has progressed from the evidence we were given in Text 14P. You might want to consider lexis, grammar and orthography.

Writing beyond the school environment
A large proportion of a child’s writing will inevitably take place in school. It is important to think about how different environments might affect a child’s writing. A child who is starting to write may have ample opportunities to communicate through the written medium: thank you letters, birthday cards and postcards. A child who is encouraged to write for a variety of different purposes within the home environment will inevitably be developing their independence and starting to see the point of writing. By the same token, a child who does not write outside school might struggle to see the point of it within the context of their life beyond the school.

Writing at home Look at Text 14R, taken from Thomas’ summer holiday diary, produced when he was 6. Consider the ways in which this text differs from something that Thomas might have produced in the school environment. Do you think this kind of activity will be helpful or unhelpful in a child’s writing development? You will probably be able to find reasons for both points of view.

Geographical and social influences
Earlier in this unit, we considered how writing up to the end of the consolidation stage is likely to resemble speech. This means that a child’s lexical choices are likely to be a lot more colloquial than they will learn to be in their writing. A number of factors will influence the lexical and grammatical features emerging in a child’s writing. Just as established writers might write very differently when tweeting or sending a text, so a child will use different vocabulary choices according to context. The audience, purpose and genre of the writing will affect the vocabulary choices, but so too will age, gender, regional background and social class.

Exploring geographical and social factors
Look at the following words that a child might write to describe a female parent. For each word, decide how social and geographical factors might be shown through lexical choices and when a child might use one in writing. You could repeat this activity to explore words used to describe a male parent. Mamma Mam Female parent Mommy Ma Mum Mother Mummy

Handwriting and Orthography

Handwriting and Orthography
Quick recap: what basic skills does a child need before they can write legibly? Cognitive development Fine motor skills Awareness of directionality Historically, handwriting had much more importance attributed to it than it does now. In Medieval times (5-15th century AD), few people knew how to read or write. In possibly the most well-known example of written communication and education, monks often worked as scribes with the sole intent to copy sections of scripture, eventually contributing towards the development of the first English Bible.

Early Handwriting The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380's AD by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian. Wycliffe, (also spelled “Wycliff” & “Wyclif”), was well-known throughout Europe for his opposition to the teaching of the organized Church, which he believed to be contrary to the Bible. With the help of his followers, called the Lollards, and his assistant Purvey, and many other faithful scribes, Wycliffe produced dozens of English language manuscript copies of the scriptures. They were translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river! Do you know when the first English Bible was completed?

Early Handwriting Even more recently, until the late C19th, learning to write was judged primarily by the physical production of aesthetically pleasing script. Victorian school children had to learn to write in a copperplate hand.

Early Handwriting Nowadays children are encouraged to develop a cursive script in primary school after the initial acquisition of print handwriting. The key advantage of this approach is the speed with which writing can be completed if the pen is not repeatedly lifted from the paper. There is less preoccupation with handwriting than in previous times but there is still an expectation that a student will need to have a writing style that is both legible and not too time consuming to complete. A popular mid-point between cursive and print handwriting is casual cursive handwriting which has a combination of letter joins and pen lifts between letters.

Early Handwriting Print handwriting – the initial handwriting that a child will use, writing each individual letter out separately. Cursive script – also called joined up handwriting, which can improve fluency, speed and form of handwriting. Casual cursive – a mid-point between cursive and print handwriting, whereby some letters are joined but others are not (variety of letter joins and pen lifts).

Early Handwriting Text 14S shows a test sheet from a child’s first year in school. By asking the child to write their name at various different times, it becomes clear how handwriting might be progressing. It is immediately obvious that Ruth has, from the beginning of the school year, become capable of writing her surname as well as her forename. The writing in January and April appears a lot smaller, neater and more controlled than the September writing. There is a consistency to the later writing although the child is not yet using cursive writing. The skill is usually taught once the basic handwriting skills have been mastered at the age of about 7 or 8.

Does Handwriting still Matter?
It is interesting that the last example seems larger and perhaps less controlled than the previous two examples. There might be a number of contextual factors for this, either distraction within the classroom or perhaps Ruth is indicating a level of boredom at having to repeat the same task again and she is therefore not fully concentrating on it. Current thinking suggests that cursive script should still be taught in schools but this is coming under increasing pressure from technology. It is arguable that in many people’s working life, writing by hand is not as important as being able to use a computer, create a spreadsheet or send s. To what extent do you think handwriting is still important? Activity 37 may help you evaluate the extent to which you feel that writing by hand still matters.

My Writing Track your writing for a day:
Do you tend to write by hand or on a keyboard? What are the distinctive features of your handwriting? Do you write in cursive or print handwriting? Can you remember being taught cursive handwriting? Which form of writing is quicker? Do you ever vary your writing according to the situation? Do you think it is important to be able to use cursive handwriting? Have you developed any individual style to your handwriting and why?

Orthography Get ready for a quick dictation test!
They took their gloves with them. The weather was beautiful. It is necessary to wear socks in winter. There were lots of flowers in the park. Whether you want to go or not is immaterial. I wonder if they’re going. It is definitely hot in here! There are a lot of sparrows in the sky. I apologised sincerely. He suffered an unfortunate case of diarrhoea.

Orthography The term orthography covers the spelling system of any given language. English is well documented as a difficult language to learn and part of this comes down to the number of words which might be spelt the same but pronounced differently (homonyms) or spelt differently and pronounced the same (homophones)! There may still be times when you have to think carefully about which word to use. Homonyms – words that are spelt/pronounced the same but mean different things e.g. bow/bow). Homophones – words that are pronounced the same but have a different meaning and may have different spellings (e.g. there, they’re and their)

Homonyms and Homophones
Homophones: air/heir, son/sun, aisle/isle, sweet/suite, cell/sell, stationery/stationary, wonder/wander, tail/tale, there/their/they’re, pair/pear, some/sum, stair/stare, days/daze, knew/new, two/too/to, scene/seen, whether/weather, blew/blue, knot/not, steal/steel. Homonyms: Polish/polish, bark/bark, bow/bow, can/can, change/change, bat/bat, remote/remote, chip/chip, match/match, lead/lead, bass/bass, hood/hood, rose/rose, watch/watch, letter/letter, rock/rock, grave/grave, ship/ship, suit/suit, light/light, fair/fair, well/well, scale*4, glass/glass, cool/cool, blue/blue, fold*3, tie*3 nail/nail, file*3.

Spelling Stages Richard Gentry (1987) proposed 5 stages of spelling acquisition. *Stage one might be separated further to differentiate between scribbling with no purpose and the more purposeful attempts a child might make to try to produce actual letters, whilst still not managing to produce whole words.

Spelling Stages Stage Features
One*: pre-communicative (or non-alphabetic writing) Random letters and symbols appear on page with no letter to sound connection. Two: semi-phonetic (or partial alphabetic writing) Letters might be used to represent whole words. Writing will generally be formed from left to right and there is some letter-to-sound connection. Three: Phonetic stage (or full alphabetic writing) Spelling will be based on the sound of words, for example ‘preshus’ instead of ‘precious’. Four: Transitional Spelling will combine phonetic as well as visual approaches. Silent letters might start to be acknowledged within words. Five: Conventional (or correct spelling) Difficult spellings have been learnt and words with alternative spellings are known (e.g. their and there).

Identifying Spelling Stages
Look at Text 14T and identify what patters are emerging with Thomas’ spelling, aged 6. You might have identified all the non-standard spellings within the text: Abowt Remeberbrance/remebbrance Peapel/Poepull Hapend Were (instead of wear) Poppeys Remebrer

Identifying Spelling Stages
It is evident that Thomas seems to be emerging from the phonetic stage of spelling. He can correctly spell some simpler words in a non-phonetic way (e.g. died) and is starting to recognise silent letters (e.g. the e of have). It also seems that he applied his visual memory of a similar word, ‘were’ incorrectly to the word ‘wear’. Look again at another example text. What spelling stage is Aidan (just aged 7) at and what evidence is there for this?

Common errors in early spelling
There are a number of types of errors occurring in this piece of text: Phonetic spelling: A few words have been spelt phonetically. The word ‘remembrance’ is particularly difficult as an unfamiliar polysyllabic words and both the spellings that are attempted are phonetically plausible. It is interesting with both ‘remembrance’ and ‘people’ that there is inconsistency across the text. For the word ‘people’, it would appear that Thomas is employing sensible strategies to try to encode the word accurately. His first attempt takes the initial syllable and equates it to a word with which he is familiar, ‘pea’. In the second attempt, he tries to apply another rule, but this time to the second syllable as he spells it ‘pull’. This is consistent with the usual phonic approach to learning to read and write.

Undergeneralisation: In the example of ‘poppeys’, it is clear that there is undergeneralisation of the spelling rule for plurals. The standard rule is that a word ending in y will become –ies in the plural but it is not applied here where it should have been. If a writer were to do the opposite and applied a rule to words that did not require them, it would be overgeneralisation. Thinking about another plural, the words ‘donkey’ is irregular, so that plural is actually spelt ‘donkeys’. Overgeneralisation would be to write ‘donkies’.

Omission: The spelling of ‘hapend’ is an example of omission, whereby the extra p and e have been omitted. If extra letters are added, this is known as insertion. Substitution: When a letter is replaced with a different letter within a word. Here we can see that Thomas has logically placed ‘w’ in ‘abowt’ instead of the ‘u’ in conventional spelling. Transposition: When a pair of letters is switched around. For example, instead of writing ‘only’ a child might write ‘olny’, switching the l and n around.

Orthography Phonetic spelling – words that are spelt as they sound.
Undergeneralisation – standard rules for particular spelling patterns are not followed (e.g. y to -ies in plural). Overgeneralisation – regular spelling rules are applied even when it is not accurate to do so (e.g. run, runned). Omission – letters are missed out of words (particularly where double consonants appear) Insertion – the addition of extra letters that are not needed for the accurate spelling of a word. Substitution – where the right letter is replaced with an alternative (often phonetically plausible) letter Transposition – where a pair of letters is switched around

Common spelling errors
Phonetic spelling i.e. plausible but inaccurate Substitution (about – abowt) Omission (happened – hapend) Transposition (tie – tei) Insertion (blow - blowe) Overgeneralisation – apply a spelling rule when it’s not needed (run – runned rather than ‘ran’) Undergeneralisation – don’t understand that a standard spelling rule applies (poppies - poppys)

Orthography Abowt Abowt - substitution Remeberbrance/remebbrance
Remeberbrance/remebbrance – phonetic/insertion Peapel/Poepull – phonetic/substitution Hapend – omission/phonetic Were (instead of wear) – phonetic/substitution Poppeys - undergeneralisation Remebrer – omission/insertion Abowt Remeberbrance/remebbrance Peapel/Poepull Hapend Were (instead of wear) Poppeys Remebrer

Teaching strategies for spelling
From the moment a child begins to string recognisable letters together in school, there is a wealth of resources available to help children develop accuracy in their spelling. Adults supporting children in their acquisition of writing will be keen to support the learner to become more confident in the spelling of both common and more unusual words. It is also interesting that time will be spent considering initial, medial and final sounds within words so that a child can begin to segment words more accurately. thing

Early Spelling Teacher Aids
Search online for worksheets designed for early writers. Investigate how these are designed to assist early writing (and perhaps reading too). You will probably find that these resources often focus on simple three letter nouns that have consonant, vowel, consonant structure (e.g. dog).

Patters in Spelling As a child’s writing progresses, one strategy for developing spelling is to recognise patterns within words. For example, in Reception a child might learn vowel digraphs and think about clustering all the words that appear in this way. For example, oo appears in ‘books’, ‘took’, ‘foot’. ea, ee, ou, ie, sh, th, st, ph, qu Ou, gh (drought) Digraph – a cluster of two letters that represent one sound (e.g. ch).

Spelling Patterns Identify patterns that might facilitate learning of the following spelling groups. Once you have identified the pattern for each group, choose one to two groups and consider ways in which you might be able to teach the pattern to a group of younger students. See following slide for patterns.

Groups Words 1 Nobly, humbly, basically, frantically, gently, dramatically 2 Deceive, conceive, receive, relieve, retrieve, believe, ceiling 3 Partial, official, artificial, confidential, martial, special 4 Football, playground, farmyard, bedroom, blackberry 5 Information, adoration, sensation, preparation, admiration 6 Advise/advice, devise/device, practise/practice 7 Accept/excerpt, affect/effect, berry/bury, brake/break 8 Have, live, give, love

1 Nobly, humbly, basically, frantically, gently, dramatically

2 Deceive, conceive, receive, relieve, retrieve, believe, ceiling

3 Partial, official, artificial, confidential, martial, special

4 Football, playground, farmyard, bedroom, blackberry

Lexical and grammatical development

A developmental model If you think back to the features of a child’s early spoken language, comparisons can be drawn with a child’s early writing. In speech, a child will gradually start at the one- word stage and eventually reach the post-telegraphic stage where there is no omission of words and utterances are grammatically complete. What the child demonstrates at this stage is reached is a more sophisticated awareness of the world around them. Similarly, as a child begins to write, economy is key at the outset. A child will write less when they first begin to write, perhaps labelling images with individual words or attempting to write short phrases or simple sentences. This means that their writing skills do not match up to their understanding.

A developmental model As the writer becomes more confident, their lexical range will broaden (moving beyond nouns and verbs to incorporate adjectives, adverbs and function words) and sentences will become increasingly sophisticated. All this discussion points us towards a developmental model for understanding the way in which children develop their writing in terms of lexis and grammar. Only when the cognitive awareness is there, regarding different items, features or characteristics, can a child begin to incorporate this more ambitious vocabulary into their writing. It is thought that the child must have understanding on two different levels: knowledge about content or theme (i.e. what they are writing about) and linguistic knowledge, whether lexical, syntactic or rhetorical.

Research Point Bereiter & Scardamalia (1987) ‘The Psychology of Written Composition’ – suggested two levels of writing. The first, more straightforward, level is a knowledge-telling strategy. This is about content knowledge: for example, a child might be asked to write about their holiday and will sit down and write everything about their holiday from memory. The second, more complex level is a knowledge- transforming strategy, whereby a writer is able to use the knowledge they have, and also use their discourse knowledge or understanding about writing techniques, in order to transfer the knowledge to different types of writing. For example, a child might be asked to use what they know about a recent holiday location to produce a tourist information guide for the area. This is a far more complex task, since the child will be using both content and discourse knowledge.

Lexical development As a child starts writing, it is entirely natural that there will be a predominance of monosyllabic lexis. It is simpler to deduce the phoneme-grapheme correspondence of a simple monosyllabic word. Simple three letter words with consonant, vowel, consonant patterning are easier to encode accurately than longer words. A child will gradually move on to more complex lexical choices as their writing becomes increasingly confident and they wish to represent the extent of their wider understanding with more varied lexical choices.

Lexical development When accessing other areas of the curriculum, a child will begin to learn subject-specific lexis that they will then want to employ to demonstrate precision. For example, a typical science activity sheet for year one pupils might ask them to consider the particular characteristics of wood, glass, plastic and metal. A child will need to be able to refer to the transparency, strength and flexibility of these materials rather than using simpler lexical choices (like ‘see-through’ instead of the technically more accurate ‘transparent’).

Lexical development This correlates with the National Curriculum for KS1 which suggests: Pupils should explore, name, discuss and raise and answer questions about everyday materials so that they become familiar with the names of materials and properties such as: hard/soft; stretch/stiff; shiny/dull; rough/smooth; bendy/not bendy; waterproof/not waterproof; absorbent/not absorbent; opaque/transparent.

Lexical development It is clear that the school curriculum will challenge children to become increasingly ambitious in their vocabulary choices. Similarly, teachers (and parents) will also encourage children to become more ambitious in their word choices. Often, teachers will ban particular words from children’s writing, like ‘bad’, ‘good’ and ‘sad’. These simple words are very generic and children might be asked to consider synonyms that are less frequently used or that are more specific, in order to improve the quality of their writing.

Using more ambitious vocabulary
Choose one of the ‘simple’ adjectives identified above (bad, good, sad). Write down as many synonyms as you can for this words. What do you notice about the alternative lexical choices you identified? For example, do the alternatives have more specific connotations or do they tend to be polysyllabic words? Happy: delighted, elated, joyous, jubilant, ecstatic. Dark: shady, shadowy, dim, night-like, somber. Hot: baking, heated, blazing, scorching, blistering. Cold: chilly, freezing, icy, wintry, snowy, frigid.

Subject-specific vocabulary
Choose one of the National Curriculum subjects and investigate the expectations at KS1 (up to the age of 7) in terms of children’s vocabulary knowledge. Science Amphibians, reptiles, evergreen, deciduous, seasons Geography Continent, ocean, compass, weather, atlas, Equator Maths: chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/ Science: Maths Multiple of, fewer, curved, corner, a quarter Art Pattern, image, moulding, draw, design

Grammatical development
It is a straightforward assumption to make that children, as they become more accomplished writers, will move from creating simple sentences to produced compound and, finally, complex sentences. A simple sentence is fundamentally one unit of thought. A compound sentence is slightly more challenging, since a number of individual units of thought need to be organized and placed logically together. The complex sentence, with its subordinate clause(s), requires a far more sophisticated awareness of the link between different clauses within the sentence. This is likely to be the last sentence type mastered by children.

Simple, Compound and Complex
Simple: The apple is red. Compound: The apple is red and it is tasty. Complex: It is raining but it’s sunny so that means there’s also a rainbow somewhere. It is sunny, however I am indoors because I have exams. I went to the park on Tuesday with my dog but I couldn’t ride my bike.

Homework Reminder Table of theorists List of terms (glossary)
H/w (set today): send Ms Plumley 20 quiz style questions (10 for speech, 10 for writing) AND the answers.

As far as mood is concerned, usually a child will write initially in declarative sentences. The notion of expressive writing would suggest that these are likely to be the dominant sentence type. As a writer becomes aware of how to consciously craft language, exclamatory, imperative and interrogative sentences are then likely to emerge. There are a few other trends associated with writing development. Positioning of adverbials within the sentences becomes more flexible as a writer matures. For example, ‘We desperately clung on to the life raft’ or ‘Desperately, we clung on to the life raft’.

More advanced writers are also more likely to be able to use the passive voice. This links to the idea that more mature writers are able to develop a transactional style, as identified by Britton, whereby the style of writing is more detached and impersonal. For example, instead of ‘I bought an ice cream this afternoon’, writing ‘An ice cream was bought during the afternoon’. As grammatical development progresses, so too does the range of punctuation that a writer is willing and confident to use.

Early writing Later, mature writing Declarative Interrogative, exclamative, imperative Simple Compound/complex Adverbial Active Passive voice Expressive Transactional Basic punctuation More advanced punctuation (e.g. semi colon).

Semi Colon Listing (to separate items in a list)
Connects two connected sentences. Replaces full stop and/or connectives. I have many favourite records in my collection, including rhythm and blues; rock and roll; jazz; and classical. I have many favourite items of clothing; fashion is my hobby. They think they’re being nice; it’s just a nice way of being nasty.

Lexical choices and grammatical constructions
Look at Text 14U, written by Rachel at the age of Explore her lexical range, grammatical constructions and use of punctuation.

Explaining grammatical issues
Examine the following non-standard constructions in action. What prevents them from being Standard English? The flames was falling down everywhere. The door shaked. All of them had died except from one. And out came a dragon. Don’t go asleep. He didn’t do nothing wrong. He built a army of soldiers up. They was extremely rich. The rest of the group ran off home to show their parents what we have got. My favourite teacher she is very special.

Common grammatical issues
It is important that as we consider children’s early writing we do not take a ‘deficit’ approach, looking for ‘errors’ or ‘mistakes’. Often these ‘errors’ are in fact a child over-generalizing grammatical rules (e.g. I runned). As a final look, examine Text 14V, the opening of a short story produced by Maddie (aged 7). Referring to the data is detail, and to relevant ideas from language study, explore the idea that an understanding of genre is central to successful writing acquisition.

Bringing it all together – QUIZ!

Self-assessment: check your learning
Take a few minutes to read the statements in the table and assess how confident you feel in each topic.

Paper 1 Section B = 30% and choice of two questions (both essays and provide data that focuses on spoken, written or multimodal language). Equally balanced AOs. Ao1 Ao2

Paper 1 – AO1 AO1: Apply appropriate methods of language analysis, using associated terminology and coherent written expression Careful analysis of data Accurate analysis; appropriate use of linguistic terminology Range of language levels considered Essay structure: logical and clear line of argument, convincing

Paper 1 – AO2 AO2: Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues relevant to language use Clear understanding of issues; evaluate different approaches to the topic Stronger responses = critically evaluate (i.e. challenging ideas using data provided) Consider different contextual factors that affect speech acquisition.

Exploring possible questions
You will be asked to reflect on a particular issue in the light of the data you have been given. You will not just analyse data but use it as an opportunity to begin discussions about the given topic, drawing in relevant research and concepts. Please refer to your handout for Question 1 (speech) and Question 2 (writing).

Question 1 (speech): Mother is dominant speaker; guides the conversation; features of CDS. Book is designed to encourage interaction by posing series of questions to engage child in response (verbally or physically). Recasts ‘kenguin’ to ‘penguin’ Uses plural ‘we’ to encourage shared ownership Questions to elaborate on book Allows Esther control in choosing book (preferences) Positive reinforcement Diminutive ‘froggy’ to make word more appealing

Question 1 (speech): CDS (how caregivers encourage language development) Books can be used to encourage enjoyment of language (alliteration/rhyme) Operant conditioning – Skinner’s imitation theory Bruner – support system. Parent is scaffolding by encouraging child to consider the characteristics of particular animals.

Question 2 (writing): Explain the ways in which children develop their spelling accuracy – Gentry’s five stages of spelling and spelling difficulties. Reflect too on contextual factors that might influence spelling accuracy. Text written outside school – less explicit scaffolding or support in spelling of unfamiliar words. Identify non-standard spellings (e.g. deckerishens) Now identify common types of error evident in these spellings: ‘Deckerishens’ has been spelt phonetically Homophones (passed/of/whitch) Transposition accounts for the spelling of ‘picture’ to ‘pictrue’. Omission in ‘Granma’ Insertion is clear with extra letter of ‘she’rd’

Question 2 (writing): Context: may have less technical accuracy since written for more familiar audience of the parent, who is perhaps perceived as less critical than a teacher. The child has added a picture and perhaps enjoyed writing in a context where there are seen to be few rules. Consider different stages of spelling (Gentry) and how child appears to be progressing. Evaluate the importance of spelling, perhaps linking data to the creative model. Perhaps it is more important that the child is writing voluntarily, rather then unwilling for fear of getting it ‘wrong’.

How children learn to write

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