DEVELOPING WRITING

1. DEVELOPING WRITING Age 5+

2. KEY AREAS OF STUDY • What are the functions of writing? • What are the developmental stages? • Genre conventions and register? • Key concepts around writing? • Linguistic approaches to texts?

3. Discuss! • Think back to your own experiences of learning to write. How did your writing and skills develop? Were you excited to be allowed to write with a pen instead of a pencil as this meant that you were a competent writer? Another milestone may have been when you joined up your handwriting cursively and made decisions about your writing style?

4. Stages of writing • Drawing • Letter-like forms • Copied letters • Child’s name and letter strings • Words • Sentences • Text

5. The skills involved(graphological aspects) • Holding the pen / pencil correctly • Learning the letter shapes (upper and lower case) • Learning to write in the correct direction (left to right), starting at the top of the page and moving downwards • Leaving spaces between words • Using full stops and capitals correctly

6. More skills(lexis and grammar aspects) • Spelling • What is a sentence? • How are sentences linked? • Using a range of punctuation • Writing for various purposes and genres • Grammar rules for written English • Finding your own style

7. There is much more involved in writing however! To summarise... • The vocabulary system and connotations of words (lexis) • Creating sentences that create meaning (grammar) • Graphemes that relate to phonemes and punctuation choices (phonology) • Social conventions within certain types of written texts (pragmatics) • Cohesive structures (discourse) • The layout of texts, the use of graphemes and images to create semantic meaning (graphology) • Variation sin language to suit audience, purpose and context (register) Orthography is also important – this is the study of spelling and the graphemes used.

8. Consolidation stage (approx. 7-9) Some punctuation used and some simple connectives

9. Kroll (1981) – recognised 4 stages of development: • Preparatory stage (approx. 4-7) Basic motor skills develop and principles of the spelling system acquired. • Consolidation stage (approx. 7-9) Children begin to use writing to express what they can already say in speech. Writing closely reflects the patterns of spoken language. There may be colloquialisms, strings of clauses linked by “and”, unfinished sentences. Some punctuation is used, but not always accurately. • Differentiation stage (9+) Between the ages of 8 and 10, children’s writing increasing shows more consistent and accurate use of punctuation and begins to take on the grammatical aspects and structures that categorise ‘literate’ language. There is increased use of embedding rather than simple conjoining with ‘and’ and ‘but’, which is more characteristic of spoken language. Noun phrases become more complex and verbs are modified by adverbs and prepositional phrases. • Integration stage (14+) Writers have such a good command of language that they can vary their stylistic choices at will and develop a personal ‘voice’. This continues to develop throughout adult life.

10. Practising basic motor skills and acquiring the spelling system • Preparatory stage (approx. 4-7)

11. Grasping idea of what a sentence is, however many are strings of clauses linked with ‘and’ or begin with a connective • Consolidation stage – differentiation (approx. 7-9)

12. Preparatory stage (approx. 4-7) Hand-eye co-ordination still being developed

13. Emergent writing • Read through Oliver’s writing and the description surrounding it. • P50 Explain how Cameron’s writing has developed compared to Oliver’s.

14. Key terms • Orthography – study of use of letters/ rules of spelling • Emergent writing – scribble writing • Ascender – bit of letter above line • Descender- below line • Cursive writing – joined up • Print – not joined up

15. Homework: Learn KROLL’s stages1981 • Preparation • Consolidation • Differentiation • Integration

16. Genre – and register • Early genres? • Register – vocab choices & grammatical constructions contribute to tone • Purpose & audience • Later – dev of tone

17. Genre at school Rothery’s categories • Observation/comment • Recount • Report • Narrative Britton – 3 modes • Expressive • Poetic • transactional

18. Katherine Perera • Chronological • Non-chronological

19. Spelling – how do we do it? • Sound clues • Meaning clues • Grammatical knowledge • Dictionary/spellcheck • Digraph – 2 letters make one sound • Phoneme – sound • Grapheme – written letter • Homophones = difficult • Diarrhoea

20. 5 spelling stages • Pre-phonemic • Semi-phonetic • Phonetic • Transitional • conventional

21. Types of sp error • Insertion • Omission • Substitution • Transposition • Phonetic sp • Over/undergeneralisation • Salient sounds

22. And don’t forget punctuation development!

23. museum texts - answer This question offers plentiful scope for identifying linguistic features and relating these to a developmental model of emerging writing. The data represents the strong, middle and weaker levels of written maturation in the group and as such shows the very different pathways and levels of proficiency of young children of a similar age. In some ways the weaker accounts are the most revealing about the difficulties all children encounter and have to overcome in learning to write. The institutional context of a class activity in which everyone is compelled to write about a shared activity has contextual significance and also allows the candidate to see some norms and variations across the data set.

24. What are we looking for? Reward precision of observation and relevant application of terms and concepts about the language levels. Stronger responses will include some comment on grammatical and/or pragmatic choices. Credit groupings of examples across the data.

25. strong answers Such relevant knowledge pre-supposes a rich text interpretation. Deficit prescriptive evaluations will allow little relevant purchase on the data. Good candidates should be familiar with the kind of child language metalanguage indicated in the AO3 descriptors. Stronger answers in the top band will be informed by secure knowledge of ideas from language study research. Responses will tend to be more explicit and wide ranging in their coverage, more probing and explicit in their analysis and more cautious in the way in which they draw conclusions on the basis of this evidence (due tentativeness). There may be some preparedness to consider the data and research background critically.

26. AO3: contextual awareness Contextual awareness will relate to: • the situational variation including the school setting, the event the children participated in • the kinds of conversation which led to the writing. • The support which was given to the children once they had the instruction. • The connections being made by the children with the event and their own experience; • the specific contextual factors relating to written language development.

27. AO2: ILS – Ideas from language study The students will show awareness that literacy usually is acquired in a social context and with deliberate strategies of help from more literate members of the community at home or in school. Students will show awareness of the complexity of the process at the language levels of sounds and spellings, vocabulary and meaning, grammar and discourse. They will show an intelligent appreciation of the kinds of meanings children are reaching for albeit with a limited control of language and the written mode. Rich text interpretation rather than prescriptive evaluation will inform the observations made. At the highest level students will settle into the uncertainty of some details showing due tentativeness about what can be known. As in other units comments on more sophisticated and technical aspects of structure (grammar, cohesion and discourse) are likely to score more highly than comments about accessible levels. The data set provides opportunities for discussion of institutional contexts and the approach of this school.

28. Language & Social Class • What is social class? – occupation & income? • How does social class affect language use? • Basil Bernstein – influential sociolinguist • researched Lang & class in context of education • used terms: restricted & elaborated code to describe language differences • ideas seen as controversial

29. Deficit hypothesis - 1961 • w/c (esp l w/c)– do badly at school due to home language • use restricted code • m/c – use elaborated code • this accounts for w/c children's poor performance • led to language enrichment & remedial programmes for w/c kids to overcome deficits in their language • e.g. Operation Headstart in US

30. restricted code= • short, simple, incomplete sentences • ltd vocab • frequent use of ‘you know’

31. elaborated code= • complex sentences • subordination • extended vocab • use of 1st person • used by m/c teachers whose lang MATCHES that of these speakers • ieMATCh btw home and school lang whereas w/c kids have to speak TWO langs effectively

32. Refinements to the theory 1. position-oriented /closed families V 2. person-oriented/open families 1. personal/ context-bound/ shared assumptions/implied meanings 2. impersonal/ context-free/ fewer shared attitudes & views

33. Critique • We all use both kinds of codes in different contexts. Language is not as fixed as Bernstein suggests & we all use language on a continuum btw these 2 different styles.