Literacy Theories

Question 1

Read

Answer 1

• Children’s spellings are creative because they notice distinctions that adults are no longer aware of
• E.g. a child may spell ‘cruise’ as ‘crews’ - adults are most likely over-exposed to the word ‘cruise’ so are less likely to think of the spelling as irregular (in contrast to a child)

Question 2

Ferreiro

Answer 2

• Believes that children think that words must have several letters
• E.g. QWE could be a word, but QW could not
• Also states that children believe that words should have different letters and as a result, could explain why double letters are missed out in words

Question 3

Biancardi

Answer 3

• Children think that the bigger an object, the bigger the word should be
• E.g. they may include more letters in ‘whale’ than in ‘ladybird’

Question 4

Seidenberg

Answer 4

• Pattern finding is a part of finding connections between words
• E.g. a child may notice that lots of words end in ‘ed’ when we’re talking about things in the past

Question 5

Treiman

Answer 5

• The child’s own name can have an influence on their orthography
• States that quite often, the child will use a capital when there is no need because it is drilled into them that their name needs a capital

Question 6

Statistical Learning

Answer 6

• States that children find patterns in spelling from exposure to forms of writing
• Can also be linked to reading development

Question 7

Kroll - Stage 1 (writing skills)

Answer 7

• Preparatory stage
• Up to 6 years
• Motors skills acquired
• Basic spelling system is in use

Question 8

Kroll - Stage 2 (writing skills)

Answer 8

• Consolidation stage
• 6-8 years
• Written work reflects spoken language
• Writing can be colloquial
• Declarative mood dominates
• Hypotaxis
• Child struggles to end sentences
• Sentence form emerges, but often without punctuation

Question 9

Kroll - Stage 3 (writing skills)

Answer 9

• Differentiation stage
• 8-mid teens
• Differences in mode become apparent to the child - work becomes less speech-like
• An awareness of genre develops
• Structure emerges
• Grammar is more complex and accurate (including sentences)
• Punctuation is often more controlled and accurate

Question 10

Kroll - Stage 4 (writing skills)

Answer 10

• Integration stage
• mid-teens upwards
• Writing is very accurate
• Expanded vocabulary
• Spelling is more accurate
• An awareness of the audience and purpose of the writing can alter the way a piece is written
• Personal written style is developed

Question 11

Kroll - Evaluations

Answer 11

• Not all children will progress through their writing in this manner; determinist theory
• Doesn’t account for individual differences between people such as dyslexic children
• Easy for a layperson to understand and does follow the structure of the UK national curriculum
• Outdated - created in 1981 so may not hold true today

Question 12

Barclay - Stage 1 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 12

• Scribbling
• Any marks on the paper are random and are not letters or words
• Control of the pen is unsure
• The child talks through what they are doing as they are doing it

Question 13

Barclay - Stage 2 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 13

• Mock handwriting
• Lots of shapes now forming though not actually fully comprehensible
• Pseudoletters begin to form - writing skills become emergent

Question 14

Barclay - Stage 3 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 14

• Mock letters
• Letters are now formed but not as words - just random letters
• Spacing is irregular - can sometimes have huge gaps and sometimes be cursive

Question 15

Barclay - Stage 4 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 15

• Conventional letters
• Sounds are now linked to letters
• Spacing still isn’t there
• Sometimes words are reduced to the initial-position consonant e.g. ‘g’ for ‘goat’

Question 16

Barclay - Stage 5 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 16

• Invented spelling
• Phonetic spelling dominates
• Words which are familiar and simple are often spelled correctly

Question 17

Barclay - Stage 6 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 17

• Approximate spelling
• Complexity arises in sentences
• Standard spelling is now more apparent
• Writing is now quite legible

Question 18

Barclay - Stage 7 (orthography and graphology)

Answer 18

• Correct spelling
• Spelling is now more accurate than not
• Cursive font is now common

Question 19

Barclay - Evaluations

Answer 19

• Not all children will fit all of the criteria of a certain stage at the same time; determinist

Question 20

Maley (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 20

• Creative writing promotes a playful engagement with language which allows children to test out the bounds of writing in a supportive environment
• Believes that creative writing develops children lexically, grammatically and phonologically

Question 21

Craik and Lockheart (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 21

• Creative requires semantic processing which indicates an act of deep processing
• Accuracy is more about structural and phonemic processing which is indicative of shallow processing

Question 22

Dornyei (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 22

Believes that creative writing can
- Motivate students
- Allow students to experience success and autonomy
- Make tasks more enjoyable and the classroom seem less monotonous

Question 23

Crystal (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 23

• Writing can sometimes be seen as a prison
• Playing with language in a creative way might be the key to opening success within writing

Question 24

Goouch and Lambirth (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 24

Believe that there is a negative impact on a child’s self-esteem if their writing is wrong

Question 25

Heckman (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 25

• Believes that we live in an audit culture in which measuring learning and accuracy is more important than creativity
• This has been created by pressure placed on schools by the government

Question 26

Points supporting creativity (general)

Answer 26

• Being creative allows for a child to be unique and develop individuality
• Creative work allows a child to reflect on their own experiences and feelings
• There is not such thing as being ‘wrong’ in creative writing
• Creativity cannot be measured
• Creative writing courses support the idea that creativity can be learnt

Question 27

The National Curriculum (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 27

• A prescriptive set of measures which is designed to judge children on their ability to write in certain ways
• In essence, it measures a child’s accuracy as a way of judging their writing ability
• E.g. it may expect a child of X years to use a semicolon in their writing

Question 28

Rickford (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 28

• Argues that there is a necessity of having rules and that as such, creative writing should be done with rules in place
• He also thinks that children should be taught to write in dialectal colloquial and accent forms with the ultimate goal of getting children to write in Standard English

Question 29

Torrance (Accuracy vs Creativity)

Answer 29

Believes that teachers can enhance a student’s creativity through judging their level of accuracy and that correcting them leads to better writing

Question 30

Points supporting accuracy (general)

Answer 30

• Accuracy can be measured
• Specific advice and feedback can be given to aid development
• Accuracy marks out superior members of groups (gifted and talented) which enables them to maximise their success
• Accurate work often makes a better, more enjoyable read

Question 31

Rothery - Categories of writing

Answer 31

• Observations and comments - the writer will make observations and evaluative comments
• Recounts - chronological recounts of events which are subjective following a set pattern of ‘orientation-event-reorientation’
• Reports - factual descriptions in an objective manner of events or things, not usually chronological
• Narratives - stories which follow a set order of beginning-middle-end; children often find this difficult

Question 32

Brice-Heath - Ethnographic study

Answer 32

• Examined how social class and culture affected a child’s ability to make literacy progress
• Maintown (middle white class) - plentiful exposure to literacy activities like bedtime reading, interrogative mood is used to question SPAG understanding, children are encouraged to look beyond the story into wider significance
• Roadville (white working class) - parents were aware of their socio-economic status and wanted their children to perform as well as the Maintown students, children also surrounded by books but lacking interrogative mood, children often started education well, but this deteriorated as time went on
• Trackton (black working class) - oral style of storytelling is cherished and leads to a lack of books and therefore comprehension of orthography and syntax, creativity is more important than accuracy, as a result students could create a very good story but are severely behind in writing accurately

Question 33

Goodman’s principles of development

Answer 33

• Functional principle - the notion that writing can serve a purpose and has a function for the writer
• Linguistic principle - the notion that writing is a system that is organised into words and letters and has directionality
• Relational principle - in which children start to connect what they write on the page with spoken words; understands that the written alphabetic system carries meaning

Question 34

Clay’s principles of development

Answer 34

• Recurring principle - child only knows a certain number of letters so repeats them to create a messgae
• Directional principle - reading and writing from left to right and then using a return sweep to start the process again
• Generating principle - child realises that there are only a certain number of letters in the alphabet to use and that these can all be used in different ways; start to understand patterns which can be used to convey meaning
• Inventory principle - child begins to package knowledge into a list of letters and words that they know and can convey meaning with

Question 35

Kress - multimodality

Answer 35

• Found that children naturally behave multimodally
• Children use objects and mix these with toys to construct ‘worlds’ of play
• Play can be seen as part of broader literacy practice, considering cultural influences from wider media
• HOWEVER he studied his own children so findings are highly subjective, limited and could be subject to researcher bias

Question 36

Britton - Writing styles/modes

Answer 36

• Expression - first mode that resembles speech, often with first person POV (based on personal references)
• Poetic - encouraged early on as is creative; involves using rhythm, rhyme, adjectives and similes
• Transactional - secondary school, essay-style; impersonal style and tone with formal sentence structures and features that signpost ideas

Question 37

Gentry - misspelling stages

Answer 37

1. Insertion
2. Omission
3. Substitution
4. Transposition
5. Phonetic spelling
6. Over/undergeneralisations
7. Salient sounds

Question 38

Perera - Chronology in texts

Answer 38

Chronologically ordered texts - rely on verbs and temporal connectives to link ideas
Non-chronologically ordered texts - rely on links between ideas, connectives used are based on logical/causal relationships

Question 39

De Villiers and De Villiers

Answer 39

• Caregivers rarely give feedback on correctness
• Support with how parents value honesty over accuracy

Question 40

REMEMBER - spoken theorists can be used!

Answer 40

• Piaget - cognitive stages of development e.g. preoperational stage a child will more likely be egocentric in their writing
• Bruner & Vygotsky - parents and teachers acting as MKOs and scaffold the children
• Skinner - positive/negative reinforcement through comments on written work (by teachers)
• Chomsky - universal grammar e.g. SVO constructions, use of conjunctions to coordinate main clauses, virtuous errors
• Halliday - functions
• Rescorla - over/underextension