Framed within the fields of applied linguistics and language play, the writing of three attainment groups of 9-11-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of an imaginative narrative. The scripts were from a larger repeat-design study of writing development that addressed a range of…

The writing of 38 9-10-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of two kinds of writing, imaginative narrative and persuasive description. Framed within a consideration of language play in general, and children's use of punctuation in particular, the investigation revealed the ways in…

Fans often express their love of authors or books by creating and sharing "fanfiction," a genre wherein fans write new narratives that add to beloved works or take place in existing story worlds. In this article, we describe a kindergarten teacher's efforts to enhance students' foundational literacy skills by combining author studies…

Writing is a critical foundational literacy skill for preschool and kindergarten and has received increased attention in research and policy as a result. Further, the nature of literacy more broadly is shifting towards more digital forms and formats. Research suggests that children approach tasks with and without technology differently and…

Early writing (i.e. young children's emerging skills prior to the onset of skilled writing) provides important foundations for literacy; however, its components are not evenly understood, assessed, or supported. Transcription skills (handwriting/spelling) are emphasized, while other aspects of composing are often sidelined. Understanding multiple…

Emotion is closely associated with language, but we know very little about how children express emotion in their own writing. We used a large-scale, cross-sectional, and data-driven approach to investigate emotional expression via writing in children of different ages, and whether it varies for boys and girls. We first used a lexicon-based…

Writing is necessary for workplaces, and schools should equip students with basic proficiencies. The problem was primary students were not acquiring foundational writing skills. Foundational skills such as handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, and typing should be effortless as students leave primary grades as the focus turns…

Young children engage in multimodal written expression. The research in this study explores the spaces that were created, and the stories created by children in an after-school comic club. The club utilized the Writer's Workshop model to support the Being a Writer program that is used in the Ocean View School District (Ocean View School District…

This research article uses content analysis and descriptive analysis to examine phonics proficiency in first-grade students having difficulty learning to read, specifically examining those with and without characteristics associated with dyslexia. Writing samples from a dictation task were collected and analyzed at the beginning of the school year…

During the Armenian Genocide, the Ottoman Empire's Young Turk government forcibly transferred and assimilated thousands of Armenian children into Turkish society. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, Armenian and international bodies and individuals began to liberate the transferred children. However, they encountered…

This study aims to examine preschool literacy practices during observations in Swedish preschools with a focus on environment, read-alouds and emergent writing. The study reported on in this article is based on empirical data from 433 observations in preschools in 80 Swedish municipalities that has been analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.…

This collective case study sought to investigate the distinctive writing processes and productions of young writers within the space of a writers' workshop. Based on video-taped observations, fieldnotes, writing samples, and teacher and student interviews, a description of preschool students' writing processes began to unfold. Some might consider…

Background: It has been suggested that children's writing is dependent on transcription and executive functions. However, there is a need for more research examining the relationships among those variables in primary school children, given that most existing studies are cross-sectional and assess transcription and executive functions separately,…

Writing is a vital part of the teaching and learning process. The view of learning to write as a developmental and evolving process is well-established in professional literature, and close observation of an emergent writer as they compose text can contribute to an understanding of their writing acquisition. A multiple case study, which focused on…

Writing gives children a way to share their voices and ideas with the world. Even in early childhood, the purpose of writing is to communicate. All young children have messages to share, and writing is one tool they can use to communicate those messages. For young children, it is quite challenging to form and remember messages while also figuring…