Young Children and Writing: What Can We Learn From the Research About Teaching Children Experiencing Difficulties Learni

1. Young Children and Writing: What Can We Learn From the Research About Teaching Children Experiencing Difficulties Learning to Write? Julie K. Kidd, M. Susan Burns, and Tamara Genarro George Mason University jkidd@gmu.edu

2. Need for Focus on Young Children’s Writing • Writing can be a challenging task for some (Graham & Harris, 1998; Saddler & Asaro, 2007) • Writing is cognitively and linguistically complex (Boscolo, 2008) • Integrate phonological-orthographic, syntactic, semantic, discourse, pragmatic, and prior world knowledge • Control metacognitive reasoning within the context of the input of stimuli and output of resulting writing products (Nelson & Van Meter, 2007) • Early emphasis on writing will assist in promoting young children’s writing development and will reduce the possibilities of later writing difficulties (Graham, Harris, & Mason, 2005)

3. Purposes of Writing • Learning the alphabetic code • Writing to provide meaningful text • Narratives, expository text, and persuasive writing • Writing for remembering (note taking) • Highlighting, handwritten notes, underlining text, use of graphic organizers, and summarizing (Burns, Kidd, & Genarro, 2010)

4. Print and Learning the Alphabetic Code • Instruction is needed that helps children produce the writing code: • Develop directionality and features of space (Clay, 1988; Levin & Bus, 2003) • Write recognizable letters (Gentry, 2005) • Develop sound-letter relationships in words • Gain phonemic knowledge of how alphabetic sound is related to print (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998) • Develop conventional spelling (Gentry, 2005)

5. Scaffolded Writing • Children are provided tools for writing • Placeholders for words • Sound maps • Alphabet chart with letters arranged by how and where sounds are articulated when spoken • Contextualized writing that directs their behavior • Plan for learning center time that defines what child wants to accomplish during learning time • Teacher supports child and gradually releases responsibility to child • Children use phonemic features of writing as a result (Barnett et al., 2008; Bodrova & Leong, 1998, 2001; Gentry, 2005)

7. Providing Meaningful Text • Effective writers • Consider their audience, the purpose for writing, the topic, and the form of writing • Generate and organize their ideas and capture their ideas in writing • Revise and edit while drafting (Flower & Hayes, 1980) • Ineffective writers • Write down information retrieved from memory and then use these ideas to generate additional ideas (Graham, Harris, & Larson, 2001) • Do not recognize need to revise or have ineffective or limited revising strategies that consist mostly of editing or writing a neater draft (Graham, 2007; Graham et al., 2001; Saddler & Asaro, 2007)

8. Sound Writing Program • Provides an environment and tools conducive to writing • Provides opportunities to write on a daily basis • Promotes children’s choice and motivation to write • Encourages purposeful and authentic writing • Provides opportunities for interactions with and feedback from teachers and peers (Graham et al., 2001; Kidd & Bromley, 2008; Kissel, 2008)

9. Writing Instruction Teachers • Provide direct instruction on specific writing strategies • Model effective writing strategies (Harris, 2006; Lienemann et al., 2007; Saddler, 2006; Saddler et al., 2004) • Scaffold the use of strategies (Gentry, 2005; Graham & Harris, 2005; Harris et al., 2006; Lienemann et al., 2006; Saddler, 2006; Saddler & Asaro, 2007) • Teach self-regulation strategies • Goal setting, self-monitoring, self-instructions, and self-reinforcement (Harris et al., 2002) • Provide support that reduces cognitive demands • Explicit instruction, guided discovery, and individualized assistance (Harris et al., 2002)

10. Writing Instruction Continued Teachers • Shift responsibility gradually to children (Graham et al., 2005; Lienemann et al., 2006) • Provide opportunities to generalize (Graham et al., 2005) • Adapt instruction to meet individual needs (Lienemann et al., 2006) • Integrate writing across the curriculum (Kidd & Bromley, 2008)

11. Self-Regulated Strategy Development • Develop and activate background knowledge • Discuss the strategy • Model the strategy • Memorize the strategy • Support the strategy • Independent performance (Harris et al., 2002, p. 112-113)

12. SRSD Strategies • POW (Lienemann et al., 2006) • Pick my ideas, organize my notes, write and say more • WWW, What = 2, How = 2 (Graham & Harris, 2005) • A who, when, and where question, 2 what questions, and 2 how questions • TREE (Graham & Harris, 2005) • Tell what you believe, give three or more reasons, end it, examine it

13. Conclusion • Children who experience difficulty with writing can experience success, independence, and enjoyment with writing when teachers • Provide explicit and systematic self-regulation and writing instruction • Provide scaffolding that gradually shifts the responsibility to the children • Adapt instruction to meet the abilities and interests of the children