Effecting teaching of writing comes through recognition of the different stages of writing. There are six different stages of writing that a child progresses through, during their childhood. Beginning writing is the first stage of writing for children. This developmental stage looks at writing, which has been formed through drawings, shapes and ‘scribble’. Following beginning writing is early-emergent writing, which is a progression of beginning writing. Early-emergent writing looks at symbols being used, whereby drawings and letters are formed to mean different words. Children in the early-emergent writing stage listen for sounds and try to articulate those sounds with letters. Emergent writing is the next stage in the writing development for children. In the emergent writing stage, letters begin to take form on a page. The letters on the page can correspond with a sound, they may not be spelt right, however words are taking form. From there is the early writing stage whereby there is a huge leap in ability. Children in the early writing stage are using high-frequency words and phrases are being formed. Capital letters, lower case letters and spacing within sentences have been explored and children are beginning to have a grasp on these concepts. Transitional writing is the next stage within children’s writing capabilities. Within transitional writing there is an increase in how much children are writing, however a specific conclusion to a piece of work is not apparent. Transitional writing also shows punctuation being developed. The final stage of children’s writing is extending writing. Extending writing is where spelling, grammar and punctuation is definitely apparent. There is fluency within the children’s writing and children are grasping different use of text types within their work.
Strategies that are involved in becoming an effective teacher of writing follows a scaffold, similar to that of reading. The scaffold includes modelled writing, shared writing, guided writing and independent writing. These four strategies within the scaffold promote writing and are a progression for children through primary school. Modelled writing is regulated by the teacher, where they demonstrate forming of letters, words and sentences by writing for the children. The children’s role throughout modelled writing is solely on observing the teacher. Within shared writing, there is more interaction from children, where the teacher and children can demonstrate the forming of letters, words and sentences. Teachers guide children through shared writing, whereby children have made a progression and are starting to understand the concepts of writing. The next stage within the scaffold approach to writing is guided writing. The features with guided writing is based upon writing groups, where children interact with one another and doing the writing, but are offering assistance to one another. Guided writing can include having the teacher nearby, but the onus is on the children’s writing. Following guided reading in the scaffold, there is independent writing. Independent writing involves self instructed children, where a child can choose the topic for their piece of writing, and are not directed by the teacher. An independent writer can sit at their desk, decide on the text they are going to write and go about their work. Independent writing occurs in the older levels of Primary School, such as level three and four.
Different activities can be explored to assist with writing. To be an effective teacher of writing, different activities and strategies need to be implemented to keep children interested and engaged, to ultimately promote writing. Writing activities range from a young age and can follow through to grade six. Activities to assist with writing can include an introduction by getting the children to learn how to write their name. As an introduction to writing, children’s names are a great place to start as an activity. This activity can be run where children become familiar with the sounds that their names make and can adapt that to their writing and phonemic work. From there children can start to learn the sounds that other children’s names make. Being able to write is a progressive exercise that starts at a very young age. Another activity or strategy in being an effective teacher of writing can include doing work on sentences. Sentence stems offer an activity for children to do, where they can work on high-frequency words. Sentence making also helps children with reading and writing, whereby they can construct a sentence.
