How do kids learn to write? What stages do they go through before they become competent writers?
As we settled into our week at our cabin over New Year’s and our daughter took possession of our computer to write a book, I started wondering about this. Excited to have written a few pages, she asked me to read her book and I found that she’d written thoughts as they came to her – with little planning of the story plot or describing the characters. Granted, she’s eight and I am proud that she likes to write, but at what stage should she start thinking about developing her writing and how do we coax her into the next step without quashing her creativity?
I started researching and found that there are a number of stages kids go through. Here are the milestones kids achieve in the writing process.
Inventive Spelling
Children struggle to learn spelling in the early phases of writing, such as “tu” instead of “two” or “ples” instead of “please”. The English language is complex, littered with rules and exceptions to those rules. According to Adams et al (1998), inventive spelling does not impede a child’s progress, but rather “the use of inventive spelling, as kids construct their own spelling and gain practice with letter sounds and blends, correlates with later success in conventional spelling, word recognition and reading fluency”.
Mechanics and Intermediate Writing
In the early elementary years much time needs to be devoted to the technical requirements of writing – spelling, capitalization, punctuation and the formation of complete sentences. Children at this stage, and as demonstrated by our daughter, tend to write from an ego-centric perspective, making use of knowledge telling and adding ideas as they come to mind. The organization of their ideas and content is simply lacking.
Planning and Revising
Where young writers have difficulty knowing what and when to revise their writing, more mature writers spend an increasing amount of time planning and revising their content themselves. At this milestone, writers will gather facts, sources and organize their ideas before starting to write. Their first draft is not their last and these writers realize that writing is a dynamic process. According to Adams et al, accomplished writers focus first on the meaning and message of writing, then on correcting the mechanics of spelling, grammar and punctuation.
