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…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine how kindergarten teachers teach writing and their beliefs about writing instruction using survey methodology. Participants in this study included 78 kindergarten teachers in the United States. Results revealed that most kindergarten teachers used a balanced approach to writing instruction,…

Theoretical models hold that written products (e.g., quality of written composition) are the outcome of the writing process (e.g., translation, transcription, revision) and skills and knowledge on which the writing process draws (e.g., language, transcription, cognitive skills). In the present study, we examined the relations among writing…

Theoretical models hold that written products (e.g., quality of written composition) are the outcome of the writing process (e.g., translation, transcription, revision) and skills and knowledge on which the writing process draws (e.g., language, transcription, cognitive skills). In the present study, we examined the relations among writing…

This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional…

The official policy documents of the Greek preschool education adopt a functional perspective of writing (i.e., writing for real communicative purposes) which signals an attempt to align the national language policy with the communicative language policy of the European Union. In this article, the consistency of this alignment is examined by…

Context: Writing is an agentive act. Despite drastic improvements over the past few decades in writing instruction and the push for sharing with authentic audiences, the majority of writing students do is still for the teacher. These practices are at odds with those who advocate for classrooms that are culturally relevant, culturally responsive,…

Young children's writing development (i.e., writing occurring in preschool and kindergarten prior to the skilled, fluent writing associated with formal schooling) is an important predictor of later literacy achievement. Current policy movements, such as the Common Core State Standards, invoke increased composing demands, yet research has often…

The purpose of this retrospective case study was to examine the implementation of peer-review practices in a doctoral dissertation proposal course. Twenty-eight doctoral candidates' perceptions of peer feedback on the dissertation writing process and themselves as academic writers were explored through our anecdotal notes from class discussions,…

As K-5 dual language programs gain popularity in the United States, language teaching, however, often still prioritizes discrete and decontextualized learning that is not built on students' interests and experiences or their multilingual and multimodal resources. This article reports on a classroom-based ethnographic case study and illustrates how…

The authors employ hip-hop music as a literacy heuristic aimed at supporting the literacy development of kindergarten and first-grade students. How do young students learn to write hip-hop lyrics? How do young students engage in hip-hop reading and writing processes? The classroom examples show that students engaged in individual and interactive…

This article narrates the authors' experience with 5-year-old Aiden, one of the senior kindergarten children in the all-day, every-other-day classroom in which the authors studied the students' writing throughout the 2015-2016 school year, from September to June. Aiden was an interesting child because he always had a "plan" for whatever…

Reading and writing are increasingly performed with digital, screen-based technologies rather than with analogue technologies such as paper and pen(cil). The current digitization is an occasion to "unpack," theoretically and conceptually, what is entailed in reading and writing as embodied, multisensory processes involving audiovisual…

Engaging young students in an authentic writing process is an important part of their literacy development. Equally important is maintaining a developmentally appropriate classroom where young students explore, create, and play. In this article, the author shares her endeavors into implementing an illustration study during writer's workshop and…

This study assessed the effect of metacognitive instruction on the spelling and word reading of Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 67 kindergarteners with SLI in a supported learning context. Children were classified into three spelling instruction groups: (a) metalinguistic instruction (ML), (b) ML…