Writing Activities
Writing Activities
Children grow as writers . . .
01 - Oral Story Writers
What it Is: Typically the Oral Story Writer is between the ages of 3 and 4 years old. This stage is based on the spoken and imagery language, and gives young writers the opportunity to tell stories by using their oral language skills to any visual piece. These visual pieces may include a picture from a story book, a hand-drawn picture, or an array of physical items such as a toy or flower.
Why it Matters:
02 — Early Emergent Writers
What it Is: Typically the Early Emergent Writer is between the ages of 4 and 5 years old. This writing stage is characterized by ’scribbling,’ where children pretend that they are writing by physically ‘scribbling’ or hitting random keys on the keyboard. These ‘scribbles’ or random letters carry meaning to the child.
This stage also includes ’logographic’ writing of high frequency and easily recognizable words like the child’s name and text logos like LEGO, McDonald’s, and Oreo.
Why it Matters:
03 - Emergent Writers
What it Is: Typically the Emergent Writer is between the ages of 5 and 7 years old. By now, the child has gained an initial understanding of phonics, which is the correspondence between letter patterns (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). Some of the words may have the correct initial letter and a few other letters.
Why it Matters:
04 - Transitional Writers
What it Is: Typically the Transitional Writer is between the ages of 6 and 8 years old. At this stage, there is a one-to-one relationship between the letters and sounds represented in the child’s writing. For example, word like ’purple’ could be spelled ’prpl’.
Why it Matters:
05 - Fluent Writers
What it Is: Typically the Fluent Writer is between the ages of 8 and 10 years old. Around this age, the child starts to notice and learn all the irregularities in written language. It’s the longest learning phase in writing development and can extend over several years.
Why it Matters: