Describes the development of a beginning writing assessment and defines the criteria used for evaluation. Provides a checklist of evaluation criteria, divided according to three developmental stages: beginning writing or readiness, transition, and composition. (AEA)

Addresses the following aspects of context: multidisciplinary perspectives and definitions of context, contextual shifts between the home and the school, contextual factors involved in the process of learning to write, and pedagogical implications for curriculum development. (CB)

Discusses beginning writing activities that teachers can use with young children. Notes that preschoolers use writing systems that include drawings, scribblings, letterlike forms, words, and invented spelling. Suggests that teachers can use functional writing projects, such as greeting cards, lists, journals, address books, and pen pals, to…

This article offers guidelines to help young children who are deaf move through six developmental stages of learning to write: (1) observing writing; (2) scribbling and drawing; (3) communicating writing to others; (4) requesting assistance in writing; (5) copying writing; and (6) beginning to write independently. (DB)

Examines the structure of 100 pieces of nonnarrative writing composed by students in grades 1, 2, and 3. Analyzes the coherence in each of the pieces and the hierarchical ordering of information. Suggests the inadequacy of the term "expressive writing" to describe the initial writing done by students in the sample. (AEW)

Presents three teachers' anecdotes concerning relinquishing control of the learning situation to the students: seeing through a child's eyes, letting a child write longer pieces with invented spelling rather than being concerned with neatness, and letting students select and interpret poetry instead of teachers doing it for them. (HTH)

Presents a model that predicts writing growth in children as a logical outcome of language acquisition. Provides a list of the kinds of language learning underway in the elementary school years and suggests that teachers may use this list to anticipate where and how such learning will influence the writing processes of children. (FL)

Describes one third grader's development as a writer as she participated in classroom writing workshops (peer and teacher feedback) and, in particular, her development as a reviser of her writing. (HTH)

Appraises the results of an exercise in which students in a composition class attempted to write detective stories. Concludes that many of their syntactic errors result from their intentions exceeding their level of writing skill. (RBW)

Examines kindergarten children's use of talk during writing to draw inferences regarding how children use speech to make sense of written language. (HOD)

Reviews a research project that investigated the roles reading and writing play in children's growing knowledge of social interactions. (FL)

Examines three Swedish research projects concerning how reading and writing are viewed in the preschool context. Finds that linguistic awareness is a precondition, stimulating linguistic awareness fosters literacy development, linguistic awareness activities are common in preschools, and attitudes have changed about when and how young children…

Disproves two assumptions about the development of written language by examining the spontaneous writing of a young child. Expounded primarily by James Britton and associates, the assumptions are (1) children's early writing is relatively undifferentiated in function, and (2) the primary starting point for young writers is writing stories. (HTH)

Argues that the process of learning to write should be recognized as a process of learning how to construct different kinds of written texts, each representing a different way of making meaning. (HOD)

Explores the transition of several children from spoken language to beginning writing. (HTH)