By Eileen Feldgus & Isabel Cardonick
http://kidwriting.homestead.com/
Do
you remember how excited you were when your child began to talk? You
celebrated your child’s cooing and baby talk; listened to, accepted, and
praised your child’s early attempts at speaking; and spoke to your
child so that he or she could hear the correct pronunciation of words.
In those ways you joyfully taught your child to speak.
You can
support your child’s written language development in much the same way
that you supported his or her oral language development, naturally,
meaningfully, and joyfully. You can model writing for authentic
purposes. Tell your child what you are doing and why when writing
shopping lists, letters and reminder notes. Praise your child’s early
attempts at writing. Learning to write should be as free of risk as
learning to talk.
Your child
went through several necessary states in the development of oral
language: cooing, babbling, and playing with sounds. Similarly,
written language development follows predictable stages. These are the
stages you child will probably go through as he or she becomes a
competent writer.
Level 1: Emerging/Scribble
This is the beginning level at which your child scribbles. You may not
be able to tell what the picture is about, but it’s important to praise
your child’s beginning drawing.
Level 2: Pictoral
At this level, your child begins to
draw a somewhat recognizable picture and may tell about it. He or she
may also imitate writing.
Level 3: Precommunicative
Your child may now be printing his\her
own name or an occasional know word and may be writing strings of
letterlike forms or a series of random letters. Sometimes he or she may
attempt to read the message back, but you probably can’t read it.
Level 4: Semiphonetic
At this level, your child begins to
use some letters to match sounds, often using one beginning letter to
write a word. He or she usually writes from left to right but may
reverse some letters.
Level 5: Phonetic
Now your child writes most words using
beginning and ending consonant sounds and spells some frequently used
words correctly. He or she may begin to add vowel sounds, but they are
often not the correct ones. At this level, your child may begin to
leave spaces between words. It’s getting easier to read your child’s
writing.
Level 6: Transitional
Your child is writing words the way
they sound, representing most syllables in words. He or she may
sometimes be adding an extra silent e at the end of a word or doubling
letters when they’re not needed while trying visually to remember how
spelling works. Now your child usually leaves spaces between words and
is spelling many words correctly as he or she writes more than one
sentence.
Level 7: Conventional
Your child spells most words
correctly, although he or she may use phonics-based spelling for
advanced words. Remember, we can only expect children to correctly
spell words they have already learned! Now your child is usually using
capital and lowercase letters and periods and question marks correctly.