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…

Early writing includes both transcription skills (e.g., handwriting and spelling) and composing skills (e.g., the generation, manipulation, and translation of ideas into writing), yet early composing is not as well understood in academic research or by classroom educators. This study seeks to understand 1) how children retained or modified core…

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…

Early writing is an important early literacy skill related to later reading and writing development. Writing assessment and instruction, however, tends to focus on just part of early writing development, transcription (i.e., handwriting and spelling), whereas composing (i.e., text generation) is an essential component of early and later writing.…

The writing process approach is recognized as an effective instructional practice for engaging children in the writing process and developing emerging writing skills. The writing conference is an integral component of the writing process. One-on-one conferencing sessions create differentiated instructional spaces for teachers to respond to the…

So much has changed since 1999 when the original "Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary Classrooms" was published. The world is a different place, and our classrooms have changed. But, so much of what we learned in "Wondrous Words" holds true today. In this new reimagined edition, Katie Wood Ray revisits some of…

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…

Young, linguistically diverse learners often leverage multimodality to more fully express their ideas in writing. To better support and assess English writing development, it is vital to understand multimodality as part of their emerging writing skills. In this study, we examine how drawings and written language are used jointly in multimodal…