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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > Child Language Acquisition - Writing
Why people choose to write
- Child learns to express feelings and opinions in the form of writing.
- Use writing to communicate – practical communication – text, email
- Social/ interactive communication – letter
- To use writing for job related reasons – lawyer
- Record keeping
- Stimulate ideas e.g. planning an idea
Basic skills a child needs
- A child must have the motor skills- being able to hold and control a pen.
- Be able to form letters including upper and lower case.
- Know the importance of letter direction e.g. b,d – p,q
- Cursive – so they can learn how to join phonemes.
- Child needs to recognise graphemic combinations – suffixes i.e. reading proto words.
- Lineation – being able to write in a straight line and space out words.
- Punctuate- understand writing needs a comma, full stop where they pause when they speak.
- Being able to plan what they are going to say in advance.
- Later on – be able to use form and conventions i.e. write a letter /story
- Need to be able to monitor their own writing.
Theory 1: B.M. KROLL 1981
4 stages in the development of writing.
Stage 1: PREPAROTARY STAGE
- Masters the basic motor skills needed to write
- Learns the basic principles of the spelling system.
Stage 2: CONSOLIDATION STAGE (age up to 6)
- Child writes in the same way it speaks.
- Uses short declarative sentences which include mainly ‘and’ conjunctions.
- Incomplete sentences as they don’t know how to finish the sentence of.
Stage 3: DIFFERENTIATION STAGE (age up to 9)
- Child becomes aware of the difference between speaking and writing.
- Recognises the different writing styles available e.g. letter, essay.
- Lost of mistakes.
- Use writing guides and frameworks to structure work.
- Write to reflect thoughts and feelings.
Stage 4: INTEGRATION STAGE (12+)
- Child develops a personal style.
- Child understands that you can change your style according to audience and purpose.
Theory 2: DOCTOR CATHY BARCLAY 1996
7 stages to a child's developing its writing skills.
Stage 1: SCRIBBLING STAGE
- Random marks on a page
- Writing and scribbles are accompanied by speaking
Stage 2: MOCK HANDWRITING STAGE
- Writing + drawings
- Produce wavy lines which is their understanding of lineation
- Cursive writing
Stage 3: MOCK LETTERS
- Letters are separate things.
Stage 4: CONVENTIONAL LETTERS
- Usually involves writing the name as the first word.
- Child usually puts letters on a page but is able to read it as words.
Stage 5: INVENTED SPELLING STAGE
- Child spells in the way they understand the word should be spelt- own way.
Stage 6: APPROPRIATE/ PHOENTIC SPELLING STAGE
- Attach spelling with sounds.
Stage 7: CORRECT SPELLING STAGE
- Are able to spell most words.
The ways in which a child spells
- Doubling consonants – e.g. breezzy, dissappeared
- Spell phonetically – e.g. ment, brite
- Stressed and unstressed letters – knife = nife, stomach = tomach
- Vowel combinations – i.e. ‘I comes before e’ e.g. coulourful
- Suffixing and prefixing – e.g. living = liveing
- Initial letter – e.g. England = Ingland
Cohesive features used in writing
- Connectives
- Punctuation – full stop, colon
- Order of the text
- Tenses used
- Paragraphs
- Headings, sub headings
- Consistency of audience
- Anaphoric references – referring to the past - last week
- Cataphoric references – referring to future – later on
- Continuity of style
- Conventions followed
- Structure
- Illustrations
- Layout
- Consistency of sentence lengths
Comments
These notes are aimed at A Level English students at A2 level.
Originally written by BlondKelly18 on TSR Forums.
