Early+Years+Writers

Early Years Writers

The students interviewed were between the ages of 6 and 9, attending grade 1 or 2. Students are introduced to writing a range of different text types in the early years of education including, argument or persuassive exposition, explanation, procedure or instructions, recount and narrative. For this interview the children were asked to write or draw a recount or give an explanation.

Our analysis of our children's writing was at times limiting due to the lack of evidence however some students including Angus, D and Kim responded in full sentences. There were similarities and differences between each child, one dominant similarity being the connection between an enjoyment of writing and the outcomes of the student. Those who claimed to love writing had a higher self confidence therefore producing a greater outcome than those who didn’t. For example, Joshua described that he does not enjoy writing at all because he is simply “not good at it” and finds it very frustrating whereas Lisa loves to sing and therefore enjoys writing music for fun and recently wrote a story for her brother as a gift, demonstrating a self confidence in what she writes. Becasue Lisa demonstrated a liking towards writing she allows herself more practice and therefore room to progress.

When collating the student writing interviews it was clear to see that the standard level for self correction and educated attempts in writing were similar across the the board. Kailee re-read it to make sure that she had spelt it correctly, D successfully sounded out the word 'predator', Joshua displays plausible attempts to self-correct misspelt words and Angus attempted to spell unfamiliar words. Unfortuantely in contrast to the other children, Lisa was more fixated in her drwaings after given the option to write or draw so there wasn't much to analyse.

__**Early Writers **__

-Kailee appeared capable to use spaces between words and lines but there was little information supplied to suggest she was higher than a Category 3. -Lisa used spaces between her words occasionally but failed to do so throughout her writing.
 * Use spaces between words, but not consistently **

-D successfully sounded out the word ‘predator’ and spelt it correctly on first attempt.
 * Include more sound/letter associations in spelling **

-She (Kailee) appeared to know how to spell the words appropriate for her picture and when she wrote it, she re-read it to make sure that she has spelt it correctly. -Joshua displays plausible attempts to self-correct misspelt words in his response to a text we read together.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Can usually re-read his or her own writing **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;">-D showed inconsistency in his writing size and spacing between lines. One area Joshua has improved in his writing is distinguishing between the letters, ‘d’ and ‘b’ in his writing. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;">-I had to remind her (Kim) about the last full stop by asking, ‘What happens at the end of a sentence?’ A liberal use of capital letters throughout, but generally very good and swift work for a seven year old I thought. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;">-Angus used correct capitalisation and punctuation in his writing and also attempted to spell two unfamiliar words.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Have variable handwriting: may use more lower case letters, but still could be mixed with caps, may reverse some letters (writing b instead of d) **

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