Writing and Literacy Development

1
Writing and Literacy Development

• ECE 358
• Created by Stephen Garretson
• Edited by Josh Thompson
• 2004

2
Early Writing

• Ways writing is acquired
• Childrens early literacy experiences are
  embedded in the familiar simulations and
  real-life experiences of family and community
  membership.
• How is this true? Give examples.

3
Early Writing

• As a process, early writing development is
  characterized by childrens moving from playfully
  making marks on paper to communicating messages
  on paper, to creating texts symbolic
  representation.

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Early Writing

• Children learn the uses of written language
  before they learn the forms.
• What shows us this?

5
Early Writing

• Childrens writing develops through constant
  invention and reinvention of the forms of written
  language.

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Early Writing

• Childrens involvement in written language,
  though typically embedded in social situations
  and interactions, is essentially self-initiated
  and self-directed.
• In writing, as in talking, story making is a
  primary impulse and activity.

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Early Writing

• Children learn about writing through direction
  from teachers, by observing others more skilled
  than themselves, and by participating with others
  in literacy events.
• What does this tell us about our roles in the
  lives of young children?

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Early Writing

• Children need to work independently on the
  functions and form of writing that they have
  experienced through interactions with literate
  others.
• Children practice what they learn about writing,
  which is best when self-initiated.

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Theory

• Literacy Development is part of language
  development
• Language development is part of symbol
  development
• Symbol development is part of the development of
  social and cultural meanings

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Writing Development

• Examine writings from children.
• What stage are they in?
• How do you know?
• What environment has to be created to encourage
  this type of production from a 5 year old?
• What can you take away from this to improve your
  understanding of what children can do?

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Objectives for Writing

• Come up with a list of activities to promote
  writing development.
• Process and Product

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Types of writing

• Shared Writing
• Teacher writes as students give ideas and input,
  and then shares the pen with children
• Morning Message- modeling
• Class stories
• Brainstorming sessions
• Come up with other ways to incorporate shared
  writing into the class. Be creative and span
  across the curriculum areas.

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Types of writing

• Language Experience Approach
• Write what they say exactly
• Group writing- Teacher dictates and serves as a
  model.

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Types of writing

• Independent writing
• Writing center and writing in centers
• Design a center and look at how you can
  incorporate writing into that center. What
  materials do you need?

15
Making Books with children

• Types of books

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Writers Workshop

• Critical to your classroom
• Management is the key.
• Children choose their topics
• Steps
• Minilessons
• Model brainstorming
• Model ideas
• Model mistakes
• Model editing, revision, publishing

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Minilesson

• Drafting-
• Children write
• Skip lines
• Take erasers away
• Mistakes help you see their thinking.
• Its about the process

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Writers workshop

• Revising
• Adding to your story
• You have to reread
• Editing
• Ask three before me
• Teacher conference time
• Make editing charts
• Ongoing Process

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Writers workshop

• Publishing
• DO NOT PUBLISH EVERY PIECE
• DO NOT START PUBLISHING UNTIL EVERYONE HAS A
  READABLE STORY
• SHARE PUBLICATIONS

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Writers workshop

• Authors Chair
• Make it fun
• Give feedback, not just you but the kids as well.

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Focused Writing

• Model and Demonstrate
• Letters
• Poems
• Paragraphs
• How tos
• Not just a 5 paragraph format- Thats out

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Supplies

• Plenty of paper
• Writing utensils
• Graphic Organizers
• Samples
• Magnetic letters

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Other types of writing

• Research- critical starting at a young age
• QUAD- questions, answers and details
• Response Logs
• Journals
• Types
• Personal-private, not shared
• Dialogue- like private, but shared with teacher
  and peers
• Reading response- responses to what was read
• Learning logs-

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Spelling and Punctuation

• Children need to learn how to create letters
  correctlyhow?
• When children begin writinglet them explore and
  make mistakes.
• When they feel comfortablebegin helping with
  punctuation and spelling.