Stages Of Writing Development.edited

Stages of Writing Development. Writing is not an instant process. It takes time to meet the full development stage of writing entirely. It takes young children a series of phases to develop both their writing and reading skills. The steps or stages reflect the level of a child’s literacy and conversational abilities. Every interaction that a child meets prepares the child to be an efficient writer in future. The most important fact one should never ignore is that the developmental stages of learning occur in variations according to various children. Consequently, educators have drawn several models that can aid in the development of writing.

Stages of Writing Development. In their book, Andrews and colleagues postulate that for efficient writing skills to be developed, then, sets of pre-ordained curriculum targets have to be formed to increase the likelihood for a heightened sense of development as the writer gets nurtured (Andrews, Richard, & Anna Smith, 24). For the efficient model of writing construction to be developed, then it takes the measures of looking beyond the classroom so that social literacy practices of children and young people can be analyzed for the development of command of writing as a communication tool. Writing is a mode of communication that needs to be considered alongside other patterns of speech, icons, gestures, still images, and moving images (Andrews, Richard, & Anna Smith, 28).
The various stages of writing development from the first step to the last include prephonemic stage, early phonemic stage, and Letter-Name stage as the last stage.

Prephonemic stage
The stage is also referred to as scribbling/drawing. The step marks the first writing career of a child, or in this case, a writer. MacBlain states that this stage forms the early years of a child’s education, and writing forms part of the most emphasized intellectual needs which include playing, drawing, reading, and formal mathematics (MacBlain, 17). Writing is very central, as children are customarily taught writing before being taught reading (MacBlain, 17). As mentioned before, the majority of children commence their writing by scribbling or drawing. The items they can use at this time include crayons or pencils which they grab from their fists, and this enables the kids to explore their form and space. The diagrams from the scribbles enhance the creation of the children’s record of ideas. The best tools for writing at this stage are crayons.
Early Phonemic stage
The stage is also known as the letter-like forms and shapes stage. At this phase, children start displaying their full ability to convey their meaning. Besides writing, the significance of drawing just like other arts get linked to the scientific skills. Consequently, at this step the beginning of sounds can get matched to the letter, for instance, letter “d” can be attached to the diagram of a dog. Writing also includes shapes like squares and circles. The child who is the writer will always figure something to write and enquire, “What does this say?” Regarding forms, shape or space, little orientation takes place. The best tools that the writers can use at this time include paper, crayons, and tubs of markers.
Letter name stage
As the development of a child’s writing skills proceeds, the child begins to utilize random letters. Christie, Frances, & Derewianka assert that the value of writing can be noted majorly on emergent literacy (Christie, Frances, and Derewianka, 2). At this stage, letter-sound correspondence, alphabet knowledge, and word formation including invented spelling get showcased in the child’s writing progress (Christie, Frances, and Derewianka, 8). The writing pieces are comprised of patterns of upper-case consonants, without attention to spaces between words. At the start of this stage, no lack of sound to symbol correspondence remains between words children are attempting to write and the letters they use. The late efforts may entail letters from salient words that include the writer’s name. The tool that can be used in this stage include envelopes, memo pads, a variety of paper types, pencils, and small pens which serve the writers efficiently at this stage. Letter magnets and tubs of foam letters are very important.
Conventional writing and spelling
The step marks the transitional stage. At this stage, the children can comprehensively spell words. The reliability of the children on phonics of languages can enable them to spell longer words. At this stage, the writer can efficiently apply punctuation marks. This stage is often in the adolescence stage hence it is this stage that students can use writing for storytelling (Auer et al., 207). Each progress of the student enables the writer to get more fluent and automatic. Consequently, handwriting becomes more comfortable and so does the spelling of a majority of words (Auer et al., 215).
Conclusion
About every interaction within the child’s environment prepares them to grow up as efficient writers. It is highly significant to study the various stages of writing development. Indeed, this equips the caregivers like teachers, and parents with the necessary knowhow thus providing learners with the correct writing tools and equipment.
Work Cited
Andrews, Richard, and Anna Smith. Developing writers: Teaching and learning in the digital age. McGraw-Hill Education (UK), 2011: 18-30.
Auer, Anita, Daniel Schreier, and Richard J. Watts, eds. Letter writing and language change. Cambridge University Press, 2015:15-245.
Christie, Frances, and Beverly Derewianka. School discourse: Learning to write across the years of schooling. A&C Black, 2010: 2-15.
MacBlain, Sean. How children learn. Sage, 2014: 17-25.