The purpose of this study was to describe how experienced emergent writing teachers supported 4-year-olds in writing their own messages during the learning centers period of the preschool day. Data were drawn from two, year-long qualitative studies of early writing instruction. Adult participants were three researcher-teachers who worked 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…

The authors conducted an integrative review of the research literature on the writing development, writing instruction, and writing assessment of young deaf children ages 3 to 8 years (or preschool through third grade) published between 1990 and 2012. A total of 17 studies were identified that met inclusion criteria. The analysis examined research…

The instructional level is helpful when identifying an intervention for math or reading, but researchers have yet to investigate whether the instructional-level concept can be applied to early writing. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous research by examining technical features of potential instructional-level criteria…

This practical resource provides 40 research-based, classroom tested, and developmentally appropriate minilessons for kindergarten through grade 3--presented in the context of authentic writing experiences. Teachers can use these lessons to teach students how to: (1) Generate and organize ideas before writing, and then turn their prewriting ideas…

A mainstreaming project was carried out in Toronto, Canada, in which four deaf students, ages 5 through 8, were integrated into a classroom of hearing students in grades 1 and 2, for 1 hour, 5 days a week, to participate in a writing program adapting the Graves-Giacobbe process writing model outlined in Donald Graves'"Writing Teachers and…

Summarizing current research and weaving it into practical instructional strategies that teachers can immediately use with young English language learners (ELLs), this book addresses a major priority for today's primary-grade classrooms. All aspects of effective instruction for ELLs are explored: oral language development and instruction,…

To see what effects practice--frequent writing without teacher correction--would have on the writing of students in grades one and two in one small elementary school, writing samples were collected from all pupils at each grade level in October and May. Five factors were examined: general impression, length, vocabulary, spelling, and syntactic…

This collection of papers presented at the 13th European Conference on Reading brings together a vast range of knowledge, research, and perspectives about literacy and its complex processes. The book explores topics including: (1) Literacy and critical thinking; (2) Working with learners at all levels, from young children to adolescents to…