Writing

Question 1

Kroll’s Theory: Stage 1

Answer 1

Stage 1: the preparatory stage – up to 6 years:
Motor skills are acquired.
Basic spelling system is in use.

Question 2

Kroll’s Theory: Stage 2

Answer 2

Stage 2: the consolidation stage – from 6 to 8 years:
Written work reflects spoken language.
Writing can be colloquial (or at least have many colloquialisms).
Declarative mood dominates. Hypotaxis – use of conjunctions to join clauses.
Child struggles to end sentences.
Sentence form emerges, but often without punctuation.

Question 3

Kroll’s Theory: Stage 3

Answer 3

Stage 3: the differentiation stage – from 8 to mid-teens:
The differences in mode become apparent to the child – work becomes less speech-like.
An awareness of genre developments.
Structure emerges. Grammar is more complex (and accurate).
Sentences are also more complex.
Punctuation is often more controlled – it is often accurate.

Question 4

Kroll’s Theory: Stage 4

Answer 4

Stage 4: the integration stage – mid-teens upwards:
On the whole, writing is now becoming very accurate.
Vocabulary is now expanded.
Spelling is more accurate. An awareness of the audience and purpose of the writing can alter the way a piece is written.
A personal written style is developed.

Question 5

Orthography

Answer 5

Substitution (one letter swapped for another), omission (unstressed sound missed out), insertion (spurious letter added), Transposition, Grapheme cluster substitution – a combination of letters are swapped for a different set of letters.

Question 6

Read

Answer 6

Read states that children’s spellings are creative because they notice distinctions that adults are no longer aware of.
For example, a child may spell ‘cruise’ as ‘crews’, as adults, as experienced writers, may have over-exposure to the word that we no longer think of the irregular spelling of the word.

Question 7

Ferreiro

Answer 7

Ferreiro believes that children think that words must have several letters.
For example, QWE could be a word, but QW could not.
In addition, he states that children believe that words should have different letters.
As a result, you may often see double letters in words missed out.

Question 8

Biancardi

Answer 8

Biancardi believes that children think that the bigger the object, the bigger the word should be.
For example, they may include more letters in ‘whale’ than in ‘ladybird’.

Question 9

‘Statistical Learning’

Answer 9

Psychologists believe ‘statistical learning’ is key for children learning to read.
This theory essentially states that children find patterns in spelling from exposure to forms of writing.

Question 10

Seidenberg

Answer 10

The psycholinguist Seidenberg believes that pattern finding is all a part of finding connections between words.
For example, a child may notice that lots of words end in ‘ed’ when we’re talking about things in the past.

Question 11

Treiman

Answer 11

Treiman says that the child’s own name can have an influence on their orthography.
He 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 12

Whole word vs phonics approach- Phonics, Reyner

Answer 12

Reyner believes that children should be taught to write from ‘sounding out’ the word and writing down what they hear.

Question 13

Issues with phonics approach

Answer 13

However, this method does not work well for words which do not have phoneme-grapheme correspondence or homonyms (everything the same, like ‘right’ in the sense of a direction and in the sense of being correct).

Question 14

Whole word- Curtis

Answer 14

On the opposite view, Curtis believes that children should be taught to write as whole words as this is more fluent and adult-like.
Curtis says that this aids comprehension over pronunciation.

Question 15

Issues with whole word

Answer 15

However, if the child has not seen the word before, then this can make it very difficult to write, even if the word has phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

Question 16

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 1

Answer 16

Stage 1: 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 17

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 2

Answer 17

Stage 2: Mock handwriting
Lots of shapes now forming…
… though not actually fully comprehendible.
Pseudo-letters (letter-like shapes) begin to form – at this point, writing and writing skills become emergent.

Question 18

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 3

Answer 18

Stage 3: Mock letters
Letters are now formed…
… but not as words – these are just random letters.
Spacing is irregular – can sometimes have huge gaps and sometimes be cursive.

Question 19

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 4

Answer 19

Stage 4: 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 20

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 5

Answer 20

Stage 5: Invented spelling
Phonetic spelling dominates.
Words which are familiar and simple are often spelled correctly.

Question 21

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 6

Answer 21

Stage 6: Appropriate spelling
Complexity arises in sentences.
Standard spelling is now more apparent.
Writing is now quite legible.

Question 22

Barclay’s Theory: Stage 7

Answer 22

Stage 7: Correct spelling
Spelling is now more accurate than not.
Cursive font is now common.

Question 23

Creativity (vs Accuracy)

Answer 23

The creativity approach prioritises a child producing a piece of creative work which prioritises the use of the imagination over the production of an accurate piece of work.

Question 24

Alan Maley

Answer 24

Alan Maley says that creative writing promotes a playful engagement with language which allows children to test out the bounds of writing in a supportive environment.
He believes that creative writing develops children lexically, grammatically and phonologically.

Question 25

Craik and Lockhart

Answer 25

Craik and Lockhart believe that creative writing requires ‘semantic processing’ which indicates an act of ‘deep processing’, whereas accuracy is more about ‘structural’ and ‘phonemic’ processing which is indicative of ‘shallow processing’.

Question 26

Dornyei

Answer 26

Dornyei believes that creative writing can:
Offer respite from the other classroom monotony.
Allow students to experience success.
Motivate students.
Make tasks more enjoyable.
Increase autonomy.

Question 27

Crystal

Answer 27

Crystal believes that writing can sometimes be seen as a prison and that playing with language in a creative way may be the key to opening success within writing.

Question 28

Goouch and Lambirth

Answer 28

Goouch and Lambirth believe that there is a negative impact on a child’s self-esteem if their writing is wrong.

Question 29

Karmiloff-Smith

Answer 29

Karmiloff-Smith’s research places the social aspects of writing as coming first.
This could, for example, include the child writing letters, cards etc to caregivers and discussing or telling others about the work they have produced.

Question 30

Heckman

Answer 30

Heckman believes that we live in an ‘audit culture’ in which measuring learning and accuracy is more important than creativity.
Heckman believes that this has been created by pressure placed on schools by the government.

Question 31

Other key points

Answer 31

Being creative allows for a child to be unique and show individuality.
Creative work allows a child to reflect on their own experiences and feelings.
There is not such a thing as being ‘wrong’ in creative writing.
Creativity cannot be measured.
Can you ‘learn’ to be creative - or is it something more natural? The profusion of Creative Writing courses at Universities would suggest that creativity can be learnt.

Question 32

Accuracy (vs Creativity)

Answer 32

On the other end of the debate, some people argue that we should judge children on the accuracy of the work they produce.

Question 33

The National Curriculum

Answer 33

The National Curriculum is 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.
For example, it may expect a child of X years old to use a semi-colon and a colon in their writing.

Question 34

Rickford

Answer 34

Rickford 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.

Question 35

Rickford cont

Answer 35

He does, of course, suggest that the end-goal is to get children writing in Standard English.
You may be able to see this in the data when a word is misspelt due to how a child/caregiver phonologically pronounces a word.
For example, a child named ‘Luke’ may spell ‘look’ as ‘luke’ due to the Potteries-style of pronunciation.

Question 36

Torrance

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Other key points

Answer 37

Here are some other key points you may wish to make in your essay – they don’t have an attached theorist, but you can still raise them in your argument!
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 38

Rothery

Answer 38

Rothery divided types of children’s writing into 4 categories:
Observations and comments – the writer will make observations and evaluative comments.
Recounts – chronological recounts of events which are subjective. These follows a set pattern of ‘orientation-event-reorientation’.

Question 39

Rothery cont

Answer 39

Reports – factual descriptions in an objective manner of events or things – this isn’t usually chronological.
Narratives – stories. These must follow a set order – the ending cannot come before the middle of the story. Children often find this difficult.

Question 40

Brice-Heath

Answer 40

Brice-Heath’s very influential research examines how social class and culture affects a child’s ability to make literacy progress.
She studied three towns in order to investigate this:

Question 41

Brice-Heath Maintown (white middle class)

Answer 41

Plentiful exposure to literacy activities like reading at bedtime.
Interrogative mood is used to question SPaG understanding.
Children are encouraged to look beyond the story into wider significance.
For example, in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, the parent may encourage the child to be careful who they trust

Question 42

Brice-Heath: Roadville (white working class)

Answer 42

Parents were aware of their socio-economic status and wanted their children to perform as well as the Maintown students.
As with Maintown, children were surrounded by books, however, the interrogative mood was often missing or lacking.
They start education well, but this deteriorates as time goes on.

Question 43

Brice-Heath: Trackton (black working class)

Answer 43

The oral style of storytelling is cherished.
Creativity is key and much more important than accuracy.
The oral storytelling leads to a lack of books and therefore comprehension of orthography and syntax.
As a result, students could create a very good story, but are severely behind in writing accurately.