Writing

When the word writing is mentioned, most people immediately assume one is talking about handwriting, however it is more than that. Writing involves being able to communicate and organise ideas through a piece of text. The first hurdle children must come is distinguishing the difference between written language and spoken language. Written language has to be much more specific, you can't simply say "It is over there" as the reader can't see you point or gesture. Nor can they hear what tone something is being said in, which is why it is important to be more specific when writing a piece of text. (Hill, 2006, p.280) Writing Development Children learn different skills in order to be able to create pieces of writing. Some of the most important skills are as below; The Sign principle (The realisation that symbols/signs represent a greater meaning) The Flexibility principle ( Beggining to understand that some letters are allowable while others are not, and that letters can be writen in different ways) The Linear principle ( Learning that English is written from left to right in lines that go horizontally across the page) Spaces between words ( Understanding where a word finishes and another begins, represented by spaces between them) (Hill, 2006, p. 281-282)

Children go through different stages when learning to write. These stages allow a child to be able to understand and to create pieces of writing. They generally follow a pattern and a quite easy to categorise by there characteristics. They are as follows;

__Beginning writing__- Children use pictures to communicate their ideas. They also form scribble like lines from left to right as they try to reconstruct adult cursive writing. They may also use symbols that look like numbers or letters. __Early-emergent writing__- Children in this stage explore the use of pictures and letters to represent words. They often use single letters to represnt the sound in a word. __Emergent writing__- Children begin to form more letter like shapes and begin to use more letters to represent the sounds in certain words, eg "PPL for people" (Hill, 2006, p.284). Writing often begins to appear in lines from left to right with more letter sequences evident. __Early writing__- Spacing between words becomes more consistent, with children often placing a ful stop or something similar to remind them to add a space. The exploration of capital and lower case letters also becomes evident. Children begin to understand that different text types exist and they enjoy copying sentences in which they are familiar with. An example can be seen above left. __Transitional writing__- The amount of writing dramatically increase and it is evident that qauntity becomes more important than quality. Punctuation becomes alot more evident in writing. __Extending writing__- Children learn to use appropriate genre for writing. Writing resembles that of an adult, wih correct spelling most of the time. (Hill, 2006,p. 283-286)

Once the skill of basic writing is gained, children need to learn the process of writing a piece of text. The writing process includes; Selecting ideas Organising the ideas Drafting Revising and proofreading Publishing Response and evaluation Punctuation, grammar and handwriting (Hill, 2006, p. 293-295)

Teaching Strategies __Modelled writing__- Children observe while the teacher does the writing and describes the thinking process in order to create a piece of text. __Shared writing__- The teacher acts as the scribe whilst the children offer ideas towards the piece of text. Teacher provides guidance through the process. This is a collaborative process. __Guided writing__- The children do the writing in a mini lesson for small groups. __Independent writing__- Children choose the topic and write independently. __Language experience__- Teacher acts as the scribe while the students engage in a conversation about an event or experience. Children are encouraged to attempt some parts.media type="custom" key="707583"An example of shared writing (Teachertube, 2008)