literacy: writing

• read


  children's spellings are creative because they notice distinctions that adults are no longer aware of. eg: 'cruise' as 'crews'
• orthographical errors

  1. substitution - one letter is swapped for another
  2. omission - unstressed sounds get missed out
  3. insertion - supurious letter is added
  4. transposition - letters are the wrong way round
  5. cluster substitution - combination of letter are swapped for a different set
• ferreiro


  children think that words must have several letters. also states that children believe that words should have different letters and as a result, double letters may be missed
• biancardi


  believes that children think the bigger the object, the bigger the word. (eg: they may include more letters in 'whale' than 'ladybird')
• statistical learning


  states that children find patterns in spelling from exposure to forms of writing
• seidenberg


  believes that pattern finding is part of finding connections between words
• treiman

  says that the child's name can have an influence on their orthography. A child will use a capital when there is no need because they believe that their name needs a capital
• reyner


  believes that children should be taught to write from 'sounding out' the word and writing down what they hear. Does not work for silent letters and words that do not have phoneme-grapheme correspondence or homonyms
• curtis


  believes that children should be taught how to write as whole words as it is more fluent. He says it aids comprehension over pronunciation. However, if the child has not seen the word before it may be difficult to write
• Kroll stages 1-2

  Stage 1: preparatory (up to 6 years) -Motor skills acquired, basic spelling system

  Stage 2: consolidation (6-8 years) - Written work reflects spoken language, writing can be colloquial, declarative mood dominates, hypotaxis – use of conjunctions to join clauses, struggle to end sentences, sentence form emerges
• kroll stages 3-4

  Stage 3: differentiation (8 to mid-teens) - Differences in mode become apparent, work becomes less speech like, awareness of genre develops, structure emerges

  Grammar and sentences are more complex, punctuation is more controlled and accurate

  Stage 4: integration (mid-teens upwards) - Writing is now very accurate, vocab is now expanded, spelling is more accurate, awareness of the audience and purpose of writing, personal style is developed
• barclay 1-3

  1. scribbling - marks are random and not letters or words, unsure control of pen, talk through what they are doing
  2. mock handwriting - shapes forming, pseudo-letters, writing skill emerges,
  3. mock letters - letters formed but not as words, spacing is irregular
• barclay 4-7


  4. conventional letters - sounds linked to letters, spacing not there

  5. invented spelling - phonetic dominates, familiar and simple words often spelt correctly

  6. appropriate spelling - complexity arises, standard of spelling, writing is legible

  7. correct spelling - spelling more accurate than not, cursive font now common
• maley


  creative writing promotes playful engagement with language which allows children to test out the bounds of writing in a supportive environment. Believes creative writing develops children lexically, phonologically and grammatically
• craik and lockhart


  believes creative writing requires 'semantic processing' which indicates an act of 'deep processing'; whereas accuracy is more about 'strucural' and 'phonemic' processing which is indicative of 'shallow processing'
• dornyei


  believes creative writing offers respite from other classroom monotony, allows students to experience success, motivate students, makes tasks more enjoyable and increases autonomy
• crystal


  believes writing can be seen as a prison and that playing with language in a creative way may be the key to opening success within writing
• goouch and lambirth


  believe that there is a negative impact on a child's self-esteem if their writing is wrong
• karmiloff-smith


  research places social aspects of writing first. eg: if the child writes letters to caregivers and discussing or telling other about the work they have produced
• heckman


  believes that we live in an 'audit culture' in which measuring learning and accuracy is more important than creativity. Believes that this has been created by pressure placed on schools by the government
• rickford


  argues that there is a necessity of having rules and that as such, creative writing should be done with rules in place. Also thinks that children should be taught to write in dialectal, colloquial and accent forms. Thinks the end-goal is to get children to write in standard english
• torrance


  believes that teachers can enhance a student's creativity through judging their level of accuracy and that correcting them leads to better writing
• rothery


  divides children's writing into 4 categories:

  1. observations and comments - writer will make observations and evaluate comments
  2. recounts - chronological recounts of events which are subjective. follow a set pattern of 'orientation-event-reorientation'
  3. reports - factual descriptions in an objective manner of events or things (usually not chronological)
  4. narratives - stories but must follow set order. ending cannot come before middle and children find this difficult