The purpose of this "Written Language Developmental Continuum" brochure for second through fifth grades is to provide helpful information for parents, teachers, and other adults as they work with young children to advance and refine written language (writing) competence. The brochure is intended to be a useful tool for assessing children's development along a continuum of written language growth as well as a source of information about the competencies/descriptors that children are expected to learn in second through fifth grades--the descriptors list specific behaviors that are typical of children's development at particular ages or grades. The brochure points out that writing skills develop and become more sophisticated as students use them for meaningful purposes and varied audiences. It lists the following: competencies and descriptors for second grade (7-8 years); competencies for third grade (9-10 years); competencies for fourth grade (9-10 years); and competencies for fifth grade (10-11 years). It also delineates the following writing purposes: instrumental, informative, personal, heuristic, regulatory, interactional, and aesthetic. (Contains 12 references.) (NKA)