Early+Years+Writers

= = 

**Early Years Writers **

Most children learn to speak well before they learn to write. The skill of any communication, whether it’s verbal or written, is a progressive experience. Children start to realise that spoken language differs from written language (Hill, 2012). You will notice that children are able to tell a much more complex story than what they can write. The mechanics of writing involves being able to form the letter, writing them without reversals, spelling correctly, writing from left to right, forming the correspondence between the written word and the spoken word and holding the pencil (Hill, 2012). All of these aspects take time and practice, in which all early literacy programs will need to embrace.

Children at this stage are able to communicate a message through a drawing and read out the message from the drawing. || Children realise that there is a distinction between pictures and words representing certain messages.This can be shown by the separation of the drawing and the letters in the placement on a page. || Children begin to use letters to represent sounds in words. For example, the word ‘like’ may be represented as ‘l I k’. There may also be a mixture of capital letters amongst lower case letters. || In this stage, children repeat phases and sentences in their writing as though they are building assurance in what they already know. There is also an apparent difference between capital and lower case letters. The spacing of words becomes coherent. Children will learn that there are different types of writing such as narratives and information texts. || There is also an apparent repetition of sentences and phrases in writing; hence the pattern of quantity over quality becomes evident. Punctuation becomes well developed in this stage. Narrative writing is also developed and storylines become episodic. || Development of different text types is built on. For example, narrative writing starts to include direct speech and a persuasive piece includes arguments to portray a certain view. || 
 * ** Stages in children’s writing (Hill, 2012) ** ||
 * // Beginning writing // || At this stage children explore how adults write and imitate cursive-like writing by scribbling in large circle shapes in a progressive line from left to right.
 * // Early-emergent writing // || The use of symbols is explored in this stage. The child will use letters and/or drawings to represent words.
 * // Emergent writing // || The creation of more letter-like shapes in writing occurs in this stage.
 * // Early writing // || There is a continuation of creating or inventing words. For example, one letter may be used to represent one syllable such as the invention of the word ‘bcos’ to represent ‘because’.
 * // Transitional writing // || There is an increase in volume in writing produced by children.
 * // Extending writing // || Writing starts to resemble that of an adult in this stage. Spelling becomes more accurate and punctuation is coherent.


 * Literacy Programs Experience **

Through our assignments in this unit ECL210, we were able to see different writing strategies embedded in different literacy programs throughout various primary schools. We have also all gone through our first placement in which we have observed some literacy programs. In assignment two, I was fortunate to observe a well-structured literacy program for a grade 2 class. The writing activity was initiated by //**shared writing**//. Through shared writing, the teacher will write on a white board and act as a scribe (Hill, 2012). There is collaborative decision-making between the teacher and the students to construct the text. In the grade 2 class, the teacher recorded what one student did on the weekend. The children were able to contribute certain ideas for the teacher to write, however the pen was not shared between the teacher and the students. This way the teacher was able to guide the proper way in which a ‘recount’ should be written but still incorporated the children’s contribution. After the teacher practiced shared writing with the children, they were sent off to do some **//independent writing//** and write their own recount of the weekend into their writing books. The children were able to refer to the example of the recount the teacher wrote on the whiteboard.

There were many teaching strategies of writing observed on placement. The grade I had the pleasure of spending ten days with was a composite prep and grade 1 class. Through the composition of grades, I was able to notice the developmental stages in writing for early years. I was also able to witness the difference amongst one grade in terms of their development of writing. Like every class, there were different rates of learning amongst the students. Throughout the preps, there was a broad spectrum evident. There were a couple of students who were struggling with writing and others that were well advanced. This was also the case for the grade ones. As Hill (2012) describes, I was able to observe some preps go through the transition of **//emergent writing//** where the child concentrates on letters representing sounds in words, to **//early writing//** where there was creation and invention of words used in sentences. The preps showed they knew the difference between capital and lower case letters and their spacing became consistent. With the grade ones, I was able to see their development into **//transitional writing//**. Their volume of writing was more than what was required of the preps which highlights the progressive distinction between the two grades. Their narrative stories were becoming episodic and their punctuation was developing too. There was a writing activity that both preps and grade ones completed together. Each student received a laminated photograph, in which he or she was required to write about. The pictures didn’t contain a certain theme, but included pictures like animals and children playing in the park. Like most of their writing, the preps were able to draw a picture and write one sentence about the photograph. The more confident preps wrote two sentences. On the other hand, the grade ones were required to write more of a story about the picture. Significantly, there was more depth in the writing was requested from the grade ones compared to the preps.

It was also interesting to observe the variety of different learning rates amongst the children. We were always told that children learn at different rates but seeing it first hand in a classroom was a fascinating experience. The grade one child I completed the early learners profile on was slightly different to the grade ones I dealt with on placement. She was an advanced and confident reader, however her enthusiasm towards writing was not as great. The advanced readers I observed on placement were also advanced writers. These advanced writers began to delve into information texts in their writing and their reading, whilst the other grade ones were more focused on fiction texts and narratives. I observed two advanced students in grade one that were reading more complex texts such as information texts about different countries. When it came to comprehension activities these students were asked to complete worksheets about those information texts as the rest of the grade ones completed comprehension on a shared story book. My supervising teacher explained to me that she thought it was important to keep these advanced children intellectually challenged in regards to the literacy programs. I realised the importance of this notion as I noticed that sometimes they would get bored with the work they had to do thus became ill-interested in the activity.

Through placement and the assessments in this unit I was very fortunate to gain insight into three year levels- preps, grade one and grade two. I was ab le to profit understanding towards the different stages of writing and the transitional process throughout. I am now first-handedly awareof the vast variety of learners that teachers encounter at different year levels. I now know the extent of what being a good teacher involves, that is being able to recognise and embrace the diversity in learning of children. This insight has triggered thought processes and strategies that will help me later on in this profession. It has been a great experience.