The Seven Stages of Children's Writing Development

In this episode of Illinois STAR NET Regions I&III (http://starnet.org/home/) podcast, one of our resource specialists discusses the seven stages of writing development in children. Come learn with us. TranscriptOh, he’s just scribbling! Just!? Scribbling is a crucial pre-cursor to developing writing skills. Let’s take a look at the stages of writing development.It begins with scribbling, making random marks on a paper, sometimes small and light, other times boldly filling a page with color.Mock handwriting imitates cursive writing and appears as a wavy line. Children may use mock writing during dramatic play when, for example, they write a grocery list or take a food order at the classroom café.These letter-like shapes are children’s first attempts at making conventional alphabet letters. You may see them in drawings, perhaps as labels.Mock letters soon become more realistic, looking more like actual letters of the alphabet. Usually the first ones that appear are those in the child’s name.The letters may be written across the page in a string, looking like a sentence. Or, if repeated, may appear to be a paragraph.Children begin to cluster conventional letters so they appear to be words. The letters in the “words” are random and do not spell an actual word.Children use phonetic spelling as they attempt to spell words based on their awareness of letters and their sounds. Words are usually written using capital letters. In the early stage, a child may write only the beginning and final letter of a word. In later stages, a middle consonant or vowel appears.A child’s first name is usually the first word spelled conventionally. Other words, like mom, dad, dog, cat are also among the first conventionally spelled words.As children progress through the various stages of writing, the stages may overlap as they experiment with writing tools. A page of mostly scribbles may display mock handwriting. A page containing a majority of mock letters may also contain conventional letters.Let’s take a couple of minutes and look at ways adults can support children’s writing through the various stages.  Provide a variety of paper of all sizes, shapes, textures, and colors and multiple writing tools, including pencils, pens, crayons, chalk, markers, in all classroom centers.Provide many opportunities for children to write.Talk to children about their writing but stop if they seem more interested in their writing than in talking about it to you.Serve as a model. Let children see you writing for a purpose as you make lists, create labels for classroom items, jot down notes or write what they dictate to you.Have plenty of print material in the classroom.Talk about print and how letters work together to make words. Point out how a group of letters makes a word and that a space means the next group of letters is a new word.Identify letters the child writes and make their sounds.Help children listen for sounds in words.Read to children. When appropriate, without disrupting the story too often, point out words and their letters: “Look, this says ‘hop.’ H-O-P make hop!”Spell words for them when they ask you to.Accept all children’s writing as important, from earliest scribbles to conventional letters and words.