The purpose of this paper is (1) to report on the design of the early writing observational writing rubric designed to observe and describe change over time in the writing of children emerging into conventional literacy (ages 6-7) within an instructional setting and (2) to investigate the initial reliability and validity of the rubric. We used an…

See, Say, Write is an adaptable classroom writing routine that teachers can use across a range of activities in the preschool classroom. This preschool writing routine offers an opportunity for teachers to build on a shared experience through engagement in rich conversation and writing. After a shared experience, teachers will provide a visual…

Assessment and instruction of reading tend to dominate current discussions of early literacy. Shifting the focus to writing, this article addresses the assessment of writing for students in kindergarten through second grade. Using curriculum-based measurement of written expression for beginning writers, teachers can measure growth of smaller…

We studied the processes involved in synthesis writing, focusing on planning, editing and self-regulation strategies. The aims of the study were a) to analyse the temporal distribution of cognitive strategies and self-regulation across the different phases of writing, b) to identify different writing approaches (i.e., profiles), and c) to…

Print in the environment is typically posted in early childhood classrooms. However, the print that exists is often not meaningful to children, and teachers rarely engage children in using the print. This is a missed opportunity to support children's writing. This article presents research-based ideas for engaging children with meaningful print in…

Early writing is important to young children's development--research indicates that writing is predictive of later reading and writing. Despite this, preschool teachers often do not focus on writing and offer limited scaffolding to foster children's writing development. This article shares innovative ways to scaffold early writing across the three…

Early writing is important to young children's development -- research indicates that writing is predictive of later reading and writing. Despite this, preschool teachers often do not focus on writing and offer limited scaffolding to foster children's writing development. This article shares innovative ways to scaffold early writing across the…

Writing studies' "recent enthusiasm" (Roderick "CF 25") for complexity theory has morphed into higher education's rabid embrace of reform. New curricula claim commitment to an "advanced," "networked," and "global" culture by erasing introductory composition, thereby dismissing the…

Purpose: This study examined dimensions of written composition by using multiple evaluative approaches such as an adapted 6 + 1 trait scoring, syntactic complexity measures, and productivity measures. It further examined unique relations of oral language and literacy skills to the identified dimensions of written composition. Method: A large…

Research has shown that novice writers tend to ignore opposing viewpoints when framing and developing arguments in writing, a phenomenon commonly referred to as my-side bias. In the present article, we contrast two forms of argumentative discourse conditions (arguing to persuade and arguing to reach consensus) and examine their differential…

This full-year experimental study examined how methods of writing instruction contribute to kindergarten students' acquisition of foundational and compositional early writing skills. Multiple regression with cluster analysis was used to compare 3 writing instructional groups: an interactive writing group, a writing workshop group, and a…

The development of expertise in writing is a complex but important achievement for young children as they become literate. Writing is a critical component of literacy development, yet there are few accounts of change over time in early writing development that attend to both changes in writing behaviors, the complexity of written messages, and the…

Print in the environment is typically posted in early childhood classrooms. However, the print that exists is often not meaningful to children, and teachers rarely engage children in using the print. This is a missed opportunity to support children's writing. This article presents research-based ideas for how to create and engage children with…

In this study, we examined the development of beginning writing skills in kindergarten children and the contribution of spelling and handwriting to these writing skills after accounting for early language, literacy, cognitive skills, and student characteristics. Two hundred and forty two children were given a battery of cognitive, oral language,…

The goals of this study were twofold: first, to examine whether preschool children's name-writing proficiency differentiated them on other emergent reading and writing tasks, and second, to examine the effect of name length on preschool children's emergent literacy skills including alphabet knowledge and spelling. In Study 1, a range of emergent…