Emergent Writing

1. Emergent Writing

2. “Writing is the shaping of letters to represent spoken words which, in turn, represent what is in the soul.” The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldûn – 14th Century

3. Emergent Writing Definition: Emergent writing means that children begin to understand that writing is a form of communication, and their marks on paper begin to convey a message.

4. Research Point: Children understand that writing conveys meaning before school entry • Why might children have a better (emergent) understanding of writing processes than reading processes before school entry?

5. Social - constructivist view of early writing 1. How do the principles of social-constructivism apply to writing? 2. What are some examples of functional writing that most children will see at home?

6. The Adult’s Essential Role • Children’s earliest drawing/scribbling stages represent discovery and are windows into their literary awareness. • Research (Dearden, 1984) shows that teachers whose style promotes and rewards discovery facilitate independent learners. • Excessive structure impedes independent learning and limits the early literacy concepts that the child can perceive/take in.

7. The Adult’s Role (cont.) • Promote DISCOVERY • Offer GUIDANCE where needed (e.g., directionality) • Teacher is CONSULTANT first; specific rules come later.

8. First Relevant Writing: Own Name • Using what you know about young children’s psychological development, why would this be developmentally appropriate?

9. Interesting Emergent Writing Fact: • Initially, children don’t distinguish between drawing and writing because both convey meaning. • How can we make use of this knowledge in encouraging even the littlest ones to “write”?

10. 2 Broad Phases of Writing Development • What might you expect to see in birth – 3? • In ages 3 – 6? • How can your awareness of these phases help you with young students’ learning differences? • For more detailed categories of writing development, see Sulzby (1985) – summarized in Morrow text.

11. Details of Writing Stages: Can YOU put these in order? • SCRIBBLING • DRAWING • LETTER-LIKE FORMS • INVENTED SPELLING • CONVENTIONAL SPELLING • WELL-LEARNED UNITS OR LETTER STRINGS

12. The “Pancake Effect” -- a cause for concern? • Marie Clay (1991) calls reversed writing “the pancake effect” or “flipped writing”. • She notes that this is usually a temporary variability, not a concern at early stages of writing. • If it persists, it may represent a disturbance to the child’s directional schema and is usually responsive to teacher guidance for correction.

13. Helping Children Change Their Directional Responses • Adult modeling of movement pattern • Promote consistent use of one hand* • Provide books and models with messages consistently starting in roughly same place • Provide a prop (e.g. green sticker) to show starting position *General directionality games – Hokey Pokey etc. – helpful at this stage – TRY THIS ONE: “JOE”

14. When child runs out of space, he/she writes around the edges Not a concern, merely a developmental stage “The Pebble in the Pond”

15. Summary: • Morrow text has practical suggestions for all the ways to expose children to writing, from early childhood at home, into preschool • Essential: writing centers, journals, writer’s workshop, using literature etc. • Chapter 8 has a good early writing checklist PLUS excellent references, particularly because author (Morrow) has done a good deal of primary research on this.