This booklet offers practical, up-to-date information on early childhood literacy for those who interact with young children. Topics addressed by the booklet include: (1) supportive learning environments; (2) learning to talk; (3) optimizing learning; (4) supporting the literacy development of young children; and (5) fundamental principles for…

Reports the results of a field study evaluation of a virtual role-play environment, "Ghostwriter," which was designed as a preparation activity for writing stories. Examines the effects of "Ghostwriter" has on characterization in children's imaginative writing. Participants were 60 children aged between 10-12 years. Results…

Describes how a group of third graders had an opportunity to write fairy tales using process writing techniques to assist them in overcoming their anxiety and dislike for writing. Indicates that writing strategies introduced through focused mini-lessons and feedback that valued children's writing choices were critical for the positive influences…

Investigated the relationship between free choice writing in primary classrooms and gender construction. Suggests that girls are rewarded for producing gendered content, form, and structure in their writing, and are not offered opportunities to learn to write in different forms for different audiences. Thus, free choice does not appear to lead to…

Used multiple case studies to examine the writing of eight second graders in a dual curriculum school with Hebrew as an additional language. Findings revealed some letter and directional reversals, mostly conventional word boundaries, and invented spellings in both languages. Evidence suggests that learning to write in an additional language is an…

Describes the Hot Chocolate House Web site that was created for elementary school students to engage in a variety of activities centered on reading and creative writing. Students can submit their own writing or book reviews, read other writing or book reviews, share authors' letters, and find recipes for snacks. (LRW)

Considers how young children as writers perceive the needs of their audience when that audience is children of the opposite gender. Documents discussions about what girls and boys like to read and write. Illustrates and discusses stories written for six-year-old girls by boys, and stories for boys written by girls. (PA)

Examines ways primary-aged children in the United Kingdom and Finland socially construct writing while using computers. Finds children's talk to be highly task-related and to concern mostly composing, not ways in which to use the computer. Suggests that ways in which children interact and write while using computers are embedded in wider…

Introduces the special issue on children's writing which contains seven articles that offer analytic portraits of the teaching and learning of writing from prekindergarten through seventh grade. Highlights the collective themes of a social perspective on writing, of children's diverse resources, and of the links between those resources and…

Examined the effects of first-graders' writing competency when using computers compared to writing by hand. Found that students demonstrated significant differences favoring computer use over handwriting, including more words and sentences and greater writing competence, despite no differences observed in off-task behavior. (JPB)

Describes a first-grade teacher's collaboration with a university professor to combine a supportive classroom with on-the-spot conferencing and publishing to support and document growth in student writing. Discusses underlying theories of the practice and illustrates the four-step process for conferencing and publishing. Asserts that on-the-spot…

Children's drawings about reading and writing have unrealized potential for helping uncover the literacy narratives students bring to school and use to make sense of reading and writing. In this article, we highlight how one boy's drawing about literacy revealed his interpretation of his school's policy on violence as a topic of writing, which…

This paper outlines research which examined the relationship between drama and writing, detailing the method of enquiry, theoretical foundations and emergent findings. The study sought to understand the nature of the support that drama offers children as writers and to identify features of writing which regularly surfaced in drama-related writing.…

Best practice is based on knowledge--not on beliefs or guesses--about how children learn and develop. This volume contains 20 overviews of research on aspects of young children's social, emotional, cognitive, or physical development, as well as how the findings can be applied in the classroom. Originally "Research in Review" articles in NAEYC's…

This study investigated the writing of elementary and high school students who participated in an on-line conference called Elementary Books over a two-year period, from 1992-1994. During this period, exchanges between a third- and a fifth-grade class and two high school English classes in different geological regions of Virginia were analyzed to…