Developmental Stages of Writing

Charisma Crystal JohnNazeerah NasirYushamri Omar

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF WRITING

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Readiness

Early Writing

Developmental Writing

WRITING READINESS

Emergent Writing

• Children begin to understand that writing is a form of communication, and their marks on paper begin to convey a message.

Writing Readiness

A child need

sunderstand

Intelligible

Interests

Differences between print and pictures

Discriminate shapes

Visual memory for

shapes

Develop arms and

hands muscle,

forefinger, thumb

Problems • Postures• Pencil holding• Lefthanded/Righthanded• Book placement• Awareness on exercise book lines• Words spacing• Lower/Upper case

Early Writing Activities

Activity Books

Colouring /Modelling– helps discriminate

shapes

Cutting, pasting, tracing and drawing

Sorting out shapes

Copying

Writing with chalks, sand trays, clay

Mechanics of Writing• handwriting• Spelling

• Punctuation• construction of well formed sentences, paragraphs and texts.

The Writing Stages•Drawing – Scribbling – Letter-Like Forms – Well-Learned Units or Letter Strings – Invented Spelling - Conventional

Questions• 1. Why is it important for a teacher to have the knowledge to recognize signs that a child is ready to write?

• 2. What will happen if the teacher teaches writing to children who are not ready yet to write?

WRITING READINESS: EARLY WRITING

The stages in early writing

Sentence buildingParagraph writing

Do you know what are they?• Phrase?

• Sentence?

• Fragmented sentence?

• Paragraph?

Do you know what are they?• Phrase: a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause

• Sentence: a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses

• Fragmented sentence: incomplete sentence• Paragraph: a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.

Early writing: Focus on writing a sentenceWhy?

• Sentences are the backbone of all writing.How?

• Teacher must explain that sentences are:• A complete thought, not a partial one• A statement, question or exclamation• Must end with an appropriate punctuation

Early writing: Focus on writing a sentence• Teacher must explain that sentences are:

• Proper sentence that should say who did somethingWhat they didWho or what they did it to

• Teacher should guide pupils to rewrite if they produce a fragmented sentence

Part of sentence• Teacher need to discuss with the students about part of sentences – the structure

• Teacher need to provide examples of sentences• Teacher need to provide enough practice

Why pupils should practice writing complete sentence? • It’s an important writing skill• The pupils can write more smoothly and able to convey their ideas

• Good writing lead to good verbal skills. • Children who understand the concept of complete sentences tend to use better grammar and syntax

Teacher’s role:1. Read to Them!

• Writing and reading are closely related • Read to them will help to increase their knowledge of

vocabulary• Pointing to words as you read them in stories or writing

words said in a conversation will help them understand the link between spoken words and written text. 

• Read a variety of things : to develop the pupils natural curiosity and thinking skill

• A considerable body of research confirms the link between being read to and learning to read and write successfully.

Teacher’s role:2. Play rhyming and word games• Children begin to learn about the sounds of language as they enjoy nursery rhymes and word games.

• Knowledge of nursery rhymes helps build phonological awareness later on - the ability to hear similarities and differences in words.

• Phonemic awareness refers to a child's understanding that speech is composed of identifiable units, including spoken words, syllables, and sounds.

Teacher’s role:3. Support Invented Spelling• Invented spelling = phonic spelling• Example: a child may initially write ‘b’ or ’bk’ for the word book to be followed by a more conventional form later on.

• As children engage in writing, they are learning to break down the words they wish to spell into their corresponding sounds.

Teacher’s role4. Offer Writing Opportunities

• Writing helps children understand that there is a systematic relationship between letters and sounds. They learn that the alphabet includes a limited set of letters, and that these letters stand for the sounds that make up spoken words.

• They can grab this knowledge and skill through various of writing activities.

• Therefore, teacher need to provide meaningful context for learning the mechanics of learning

• Why? Learner learn best through something that they can relate to

• Example: use pupils’ own oral composition for giving them insights into writing

Example of writing activity in early writing stage:

Sentences Writing Activities• Picture Card Simple Sentences• Steps:1. Show a picture card to the whole class.2. Get each pupil to write a sentence.3. Pupils share their answers.4. Add a twist by getting pupils to write a question.

Teaching Writing Skills in the Primary ESL Classroom Week3/Sem.2,2013/TAB 25

Picture cards

Sentences Writing Activities• Word Card Activity• Steps:1. Pupils are required to rearrange card from individual

bags to form a sentence.2. Pupils switch bags and repeat the activity

Sentences Writing Activities• Not a sentence 1. Teacher gives 2 index cards “sentence” and “not a

sentence”2. Teacher reads phrases and sentences aloud.3. Pupils to decide whether it was a fragment or

sentence.

Sentences Writing Activities• Fill in the Story1. Provide pupils with a one-page story that has missing

words.2. Pupils read and fill in the blanks.3. Get pupils to share as a class with each pupil

presenting a sentence from their story.

Sentences Writing Activities• “Showing” Sentences-important for • developing critical thinking abilities.1. Teacher provides worksheets with a list of “telling”

words with space so that pupils can add more detail and emotion-incorporating the five senses.

2. Allows pupils personal freedom to create their work.

Sentences Writing Activities• Visual Stimulus1. Use a visual motivator (an image of an animal or a

person) to get pupils to think 2. Get them to form a set of descriptive sentences

detailing the subject’s actions and emotions to tell a brief story

KSSR-aims in this early writing stage• At this stage, pupils would have mastered the mechanics of

writing by forming letters, leaving sufficient space between letters and words so that their writing is legible. Pupils then learn to write at the word, phrase and sentence levels.

DEVELOPMENTAL WRITING

Developmental Writing• A child progresses into a deeper understanding of the mechanics of writing which includes:• Spelling• Grammar• Text organisation and cohesion

Spelling• When teaching spelling, the teacher should focus on:

• Teaching the relationship between the most common phonemes of English and graphemes.

• Teaching the most common words.• Developing visual memory for shapes of words.• Developing relevant dictionary skills.• Helping pupils devise ways of helping themselves to

remember common but some trouble words.

• The most practical approach is to integrate spelling in listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Grammar• Grammar rules are essential to be taught to children as it enable them to be better writers.

• Teachers can refer to a range of resource for ideas to teach grammar meaningfully and enjoyable.

• Here are some ideas:• Expose your students to the proper use of English grammar.

Children will internally develop many grammar rules on their own through exposure to the language. This means always modelling proper grammar in your speech and writing.

• Teach grammar rules systematically. Exposure alone won't teach all the grammar lessons children need to know. Most professionals agree that exemplary reading and writing instruction requires a balance of these two technique. Focus on one particular skill that you want your students to learn, and provide a mini-lesson teaching this skill. Your mini-lesson should introduce the grammar rule in question and give examples of its use. Once your students master the selected skill, move on to other topics.

• Provide hands-on experience to help children master grammar rules. Provide your students with ample opportunities to write. Then, provide grammar-based feedback. Take your students' writing level into account when providing feedback. For example, in a second-grade classroom, you will see many grammar and usage errors. Don't mark up every mistake in red pen; it's too discouraging for students. Instead, focus on the grammar rules you have specifically taught.

• Give students opportunities to edit others' work. Often, when students look at their own writing, they miss grammatical errors because as the writer, they know what they intended to say. Those same children can identify similar mistakes in others' writing, however. To this end, have students peer review each others' work. Also, editing worksheets provide opportunities for students to apply the grammar rules they have learned.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_4493979_teach-english-grammar-children.html#ixzz2hzW0NE9E

Dictation as a Writing Exercise• Dictation is a time-proven technique in writing practice.• Benefits of using Dictation as a writing exercises:

• Dictation makes the students and the teacher aware of the students' comprehension errors--phonological, grammatical, or both. In English, typical errors include the frequent omissions of bound morphemes such as:The -s pluralThe -'s possessiveThe -s third person singularThe -ed ending for regular past participles.

• Dictation shows students the kinds of spelling errors they are prone to make. Students seeing their own written responses next to the correct ones in exercises should provide invaluable guidance in the ways that their spelling can be improved.

• Dictation helps to develop short-term memory. Students practice retaining meaningful phrases or whole sentences before writing them down. Students are introduced to more and more dictation exercises, their ability to both forecast what is coming and to retain what has already been said increases rapidly and noticeably. Both abilities point to evidence of an increased familiarity with the language.

• Dictation can serve as an excellent review exercise.Once a passage has been dictated, much valuable work can be done in getting students to ‘notice’ their own errors on the page they have just written; what happens is that many students come to recognize their errors by virtue of the positioning of items in sentences – parts of speech, for example, as well as equally obvious things like verb tenses.

• Dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is.It goes without saying that dictation exercises must involve everyone in the room, although with more advanced classes, a sort of mixing of passages would be very advantageous, particularly since much natural language heard in vitro, is not heard in isolation.

http://whatsnewintheworld.blogspot.com/2008/06/many-benefits-of-dictation-exercises.html

Text Structure and Organisation• Refers to how information is organised in a text or passage.

• Organised according to certain patterns/format.• Writers as well as readers need to know the various patterns/format to enable them to write accordingly.

• Seven common text structures:• Cause and effect

• The results of something are explained.• Chronological

• Information in the passage is organized in order of time.• Compare and contrast

• Two or more things are described.  Their similarities and differences are discussed.

• Order of importance• Information is expressed as a hierarchy or in priority.

• Problem and solution• A problem is described and a response or solution is proposed or

explained.• Sequence/process writing

• A problem is described and a response or solution is proposed or explained.

• Spatial/descriptive writing• information is organized in order of space (top to bottom, left to right).

Predicted sample question…• Given samples of child’s handwritten work. Identify the problems and discuss appropriate techniques to help overcome those problem.

• Identify suitable activities to develop sentence construction and paragraph writing skills among primary-level pupils.

THE ENDCharisma Crystal John

Nazeerah NasirYushamri Omar