The author spent four years embedded in a multilingual kindergarten classroom in which children spoke six different languages and several more years observing multilingual Head Start classrooms. She shares numerous examples of young dual language learners actively figuring out the way written language works in their first and second languages.…

In six analyses using the Child Language Data Exchange System known as CHILDES, we explored whether and how parents and their 1.5- to 5-year-old children talk about writing. Parent speech might include information about the similarity between print and speech and about the difference between writing and drawing. Parents could convey similarity…

The purpose of the study was to examine student teachers' perceptions of teaching writing in kindergartens and to identify to what extent the cooperating teachers influence the student teachers' perceptions. To achieve the research aims, a 31-item questionnaire was developed by the researchers and administered to 50 student teachers and their…

This study investigated the process by which the representational activity and knowledge about drawing and letter and number writing emerge in children 21-46 months old. The results revealed that representational activities developed with age through several phases. Beginning at age 2, children produced different marks for different systems, but…

PictoPal is the name of a technology-supported intervention designed to foster the development of emergent reading and writing skills in four and five year old children. Following the theoretical underpinnings and a brief description of PictoPal, this article describes how children worked with the technology; how the intervention elicited their…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the model, lead, and test procedure, as well as a fading procedure with prompts and Direct Instruction with two preschool developmentally delayed students. These procedures were implemented to teach a class of preschoolers to write their names in preparation for their kindergarten…

For many children, the beginnings of literacy appear in activities such as pretend play, drawing, conversations about signs in their environment, and writing. In this article, the author describes children's experiences and how they express themselves through writing. With the efforts to communicate, children will write their own stories, try to…

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…

What are the most effective methods for teaching writing across grade levels and student populations? What kind of training do teachers need to put research-validated methods into practice? This unique volume combines the latest writing research with clear-cut recommendations for designing high-quality professional development efforts. Prominent…

Background: Both academic research and educational policy have focused on the diverse language resources of young schoolchildren. African American Language (AAL) in particular has a rich history of scholarship that both documents its historical evolution and sociolinguistic complexity and reveals the persistent lack of knowledge about AAL in our…

A practical guide to establish an early writing program begins in kindergarten with children dictating a story that a teacher or parent volunteer records on paper. In first grade, 30 minutes are set aside for writing. Additional ways are suggested to infuse writing activities into every subject in a child's schooling. (MLF)

By the time they reach preschool or kindergarten, young children are already writers. They don't have much experience, but they're filled with stories to tell and ideas to express--they want to show the world what they know and see. All they need is a nurturing teacher to recognize the writer at work within them. Taking an exciting, new approach…

Describes techniques for employing sentence combining to improve the beginning writing skills of elementary school students. (DD)

This article features questions and answers about "Kid Writing" (KW), the process of turning children who do not know the alphabet into fluent, proficient, and confident writers. According to the article, the questions were gathered during a live chat with the authors of "Kid Writing: A Systematic Approach to Phonics, Journals, and…

The authors examined inflectional and derivational morphological forms within narratives written by 247 3rd and 4th graders. Results indicate that children's control of morphological structures in their writing mirrors that in their speech: inflectional morphology is largely mastered by age 9 or 10, but skills with derivational morphology continue…