1. Writing Development Principles/Concepts Assessment Learning to Look at
Print
Writing Instruction
Introduction
Dianne Frasier, Ph.D.
Fort Bend ISD

2. Early Writing Theory Organizes the visual analysis of print
Directionality
Objective evidence of what child has learned
Close connection to early reading
Developing a writing process is complex. It’s is important to observe what children are writing – it’s actually a window into the child’s observations about print.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

3. Recurring Principle
Clay in her book, What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior identified certain principles and concepts about young children’s beginning writing.
She looked at children’s between the ages of 4:10 and 7:0. Children develop at different rates and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with intelligence but rather what aspect of their environment they choose to pay attention to.
The recurring principle. A child who knows a few letters, squiggles, or words can take a short cut to a long message by repeating what he knows again and again.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

4. It is interesting to observe at what stage repetition of words, letters begins and when it ends.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

5. Directional Principle
You can see when the child understands directionality in his writing. When observing this child, he very clearly went top to bottom, left to right.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

6. Generating Principle
Children begin to realize that long statements are generated from a limited number of symbols.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

7. Inventory Principle
Children will often take stock of their own learning systematically and spontaneously order the things they have learned into lists or inventories.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

8. Contrastive Principle
Special kind of structuring to establish opposites – They begin to see that early letters made with lines and angles contrast one with another in some feature.
AH MW
Or they make a perceptual contrast where they make up a list of items and ask, Are they the same.
Semantic contrast
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

9. Flexibility Principle
Or they become flexible with their writing such as the e – how far can they go with flexibility and the letter still represent its intent
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

10. Sign Concept
A sign carries a message. Problems arise when children fail to move beyond the stage of producing signs to produce primitive messages.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

11. Message Concept
The child at this stage realizes that the messages that he speaks can be written down. At this early stage of scribble Susan is hoping that what she has written corresponds with what she is saying.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

12. Rating Rubric Language Level
Alphabetic (letters only)
Word (any recognizable word)
Word Group (any two word phrase)
Sentence (any simple sentence)
Punctuated Story (of two or more sentences
Paragraphed story (two themes)
From her observations of young children learning to write, Clay devised a rubric to look at children’s writing on three levels – linguistic, the message itself, and on directionality.
We’ll look at some samples and give them ratings.
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

13. Rating Rubric Message Quality
Has a concept of signs (uses letters, invents letters, uses punctuation
Has a concept that a message is conveyed (tells you a message but what is written is not that message)
A message is copied and knows more or less what message says
Repetitive, independent use of sentence patterns like “here is a”
Attempts to record own ideas, mostly independently
Successful composition
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

14. Rating Rubric Directional Principles
No evidence of directional knowledge
Part of the directional pattern is known – start top left, move left to right, return down left
Reversal of the directional pattern (right to left and/or return down right). A sample with one lapse should be rated at this level.
Correct directional pattern
Correct directional pattern and spaces between words
Extensive text without any difficulties of arrangement and spacing of text
Clay, M.M What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior, Heinemann.

15. Rubric A B C 1-4 5-6 Language Level Message Quality Directional
Principles
Not yet
Satisfactory
1-4
Probably
5-6

16. Writing Samples

17. Visual Discrimination
“The visual discrimi-nation of each symbol, one from another, is a large learning task and the accumulation of skill is slow and gradual over the first two years of instruction for children who begin school at five years.” Clay, B. L., p. 267
Children have to learn to look at print. Until they begin to read and write, they look at their world from their own unique perspective.
When they look at a cup, it is a cup like this, like this, and like this. It is still a cup. But when they learn to look at print, they have to pay attention to directionality, features, it is very complex.

18. Learning to Look at Print
Choose one of the characters on this page. Have a good look. Now look away and write the character.
How did you know what to write? What did you have to attend to?

19. E m 3 U n h r Looking at Print
Young children learning to write have to attend to the smallest details, fine features, directionality, fine motor control. . .

20. “Often the first two or three letters that occur in a child’s name
become distinctive because of these
efforts.” (learning to write his/her
name).
Clay, B. L., p. 267
Their names are most important to them and it is often their entry into print and writing.
Look at the samples of children writing their names. They were in my three year old Sunday School class and are such good examples of how children begin to attend to the features of print.

21. What features is she attending to?
Her name?
She actually wrote it in the correct order but when confronted with a blank page, started at the right and wrote right to left.

22. What features does this little girl see in print?
Her name?
First two letters of her name, c and a

23. Children find it easiest to distinguish letters with the maximum of contrast at first. This is a good teaching principle – they must gradually learn the minimal differences for discrimination within sets of similar letters.
Clay, B. L. p. 281
Really important considerations for teachers of young children. It takes a long time for them to sort out differences among b, p, d…… m, w

24. Instructional Terms Journal Writing Demonstrated Writing Shared
Guided
Writing
Interactive
Writing
Writers’
Workshop
Independent
Writing

25. Interactive Writing

26. During Video Think About
Teacher’s role
Decision making
Teacher’s language
Student’s role
Active
Construction of Text

27. “In the end, I suspect that excellent
teachers will do what they have always
done: grow. And the growing will be
as it has ever been: the result of
their tuning in to their students,
responding to them, and learning from
and with them even as they “teach” them.”
Lindfors, 1987, p. 386

28. Baghdan, M. (1984). Our Daughter Learns to Read and Write.
International Reading Association.
Clay, M. (1975). What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior.
Heinemann.
Clay, M. (1991). Becoming Literate: The Construction of Inner
Control. Heinemann.
Ferreiro, E. & Terberosky, A. (1982). Literacy Before Schooling.
Schickedanz, J. A. (1999). Much More than the ABC’s: The Early
Stages of Reading and Writing. National Association for
the Education of Young Children.
Teale, W.H. and Sulzby, E. (Eds.) (1986). Emergent Literacy: Writing and Reading. Ablex.