How do children learn how to write?

Encode: to create meaning by writing words together in a particular way

Context:

  • Awareness of written texts begins at a young age

  • Children are encouraged to participate in story-time, be surrounded by text (print or on screen), draw and paint etc.

  • This encouragement with painting and colouring, threading and manipulating dough allows the development of fine motor skills, helpful for writing.

Thus, early exposure to language enables children to be familiar with the culturally embedded communicative codes. They’ll soon be taught to read and then write.

Of the three language skills (speaking, reading, writing), writing is the last to develop with any fluency.

Rick Traw (1993): suggested that as children, who are exposed to a rich range of oral language, gradually become fluent speakers themselves. Thus, writing develops more rapidly when children are exposed to a wide range of written language. This corresponds to an acceleration in writing development.

Emergent writing

  • Involves the production of texts and images that are clear signs that a child is getting reading to learn to write.

  • It demonstrates a clear understanding that meaning can be encoded by others, or by the child, linguistically/symbolically.

  • Emergent writing enables children to explore the connection between phonemes and graphemes.

At this point, a child will possess the motivation to write or draw as a means of self-expression, but lacks the capacity to do so with clarity and precision.

Drawing

  • Usually draws something connected to the world around them or words that represent something important in their lives.

  • The first words written will often be the child’s name or an image that is explained as a parent or caregiver, a sibling or the actual child. (Piaget’s notion of egocentricity)

Emergent writing continued

  • Emergent writing then evolves into something more recognisable.

  • Occurs when the child understands the connection between phonemes and the corresponding graphemes.

  • A child beginning to write needs to understand the structure of language on a number of different levels

Levels

  1. Patterns of letters in words (spelling)

  2. Patterns of words (grammar)

Barry Kroll (1981)- suggested that the changing relationship between speech and writing for a beginner writing could be used as a way to present a developmental model for learning to write

https://knowt.com/note/4e4d7257-1b63-4c19-9e13-2baddaa493f6/Kroll-1981-Writing-Development