Fans often express their love of authors or books by creating and sharing "fanfiction," a genre wherein fans write new narratives that add to beloved works or take place in existing story worlds. In this article, we describe a kindergarten teacher's efforts to enhance students' foundational literacy skills by combining author studies…

While research consistently demonstrates that young children learn best through play and social interactions, this developmental insight is not often reflected in current classroom curricula. Through action research, I examined how a play-based kindergarten environment could impact student writing and writing engagement. This article specifically…

This study aimed to investigate the roles of transcription skills and oral language abilities in predicting writing quality and productivity among Spanish-speaking kindergarten children (N = 159). Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the study examined associations between these foundational skills and writing outcomes. The model demonstrated…

In this study, we make the case for using texts children create as part of their play as a means for assessing their developing print literacy knowledge. We assessed 4- and 5-year-old children's authentic texts using categories and criteria from the "Assessing Young Children's Marks/Drawing/Print" tool, a research-based, classroom…

In the present study we examined the contributions of transcription and foundational oral language skills to written composition outcomes in a sample of kindergartners. Two hundred and eighty-two kindergarten students from 49 classrooms participated in this study. Children's writing-related skills were examined using various tasks. Latent…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the direct and indirect relations between short-term memory (STM), reading, oral language, and writing at the letter, word, and discourse levels in young, developing writers both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Method: Participants were 449 English-speaking kindergarten students (52% female)…

As a literacy educator, the author's interest in how students conceptualize writing is one that she devotes a significant amount of time and interest. Understanding how students make sense of reading and writing at an early age can assist educators in designing and implementing literacy engagements that are both high quality and effective. To…

Evidence supports a link between handwriting and aspects of literacy, including both reading and writing. Most evidence, however, pertains to children from grade one and above, once foundation skills known to support emerging literacy have been established. The purpose of this systematic review is to synthesise the extant literature concerning…

Recent research has acknowledged young children's potential to engage in data handling activities and create their own representations. However, our knowledge on children's graphical signs produced during data representations and the way they are utilized is poor. Highlighting the critical importance of signs as cultural tools for mathematical…

This article seeks to empower teachers to create a literacy environment in which children begin to identify as writers: confident, willing to take risks, engaged, excited, persistent, resilient, resourceful, and self-starting. The teaching methods provided in the article are centered around the writer's workshop model, applied in a Kindergarten…

Writing is a critical literacy skill that emerges in kindergarten. The research literature has only addressed transcription skills of kindergarteners and has failed to address text generation. The purpose of this action-research study was to investigate the effect of oral language instruction that focused on narrative text structures on…

The official policy documents of the Greek preschool education adopt a functional perspective of writing (i.e., writing for real communicative purposes) which signals an attempt to align the national language policy with the communicative language policy of the European Union. In this article, the consistency of this alignment is examined by…

Despite increasing pressure for children to learn to write at younger ages, there are many unanswered questions about composition skills in early elementary school. The goal of this research was to examine the dimensionality of composition skills in kindergarten children, thereby adding to current knowledge about the measurement of young…

Despite increasing pressure for children to learn to write at younger ages, there are many unanswered questions about composition skills in early elementary school. The goal of this research was to examine the dimensionality of composition skills in kindergarten children, thereby adding to current knowledge about the measurement of young…

The number of Chinese children living in poverty has risen steadily in Hong Kong, China. However, little is known on the longitudinal effects of family socioeconomic status (SES) on cognitive-linguistic skills, word reading and writing in children from low-SES backgrounds. This study examines differences in cognitive-linguistic skills and word…