Writing

= **Learning To Writing** =

__**Stages of Writing**__
The writing process begins when children imitate the writing actions of adults. These type of actions would include writing lists and notes, and typing on a computer. Children also develop writing through play and this can identified as marking on a piece of paper with a pen or pencil. In the development of writing, it is evident that there are stages, however, these stages are not well defined.

__**1. Beginning Writing**__
In stage one, children use drawings as a way of communicating to get a message across. The drawing is characterized by large circular shapes or in a scribble-like manner that may form in the direction from left to right. The child is exploring and recreating writing that they have observed from the adult and their actions and the child mimics them. The child is able to identify what their scribble says.

__**2. Early Emergent Writing**__
In stage two, children come to explore symbols in the form of drawings or letters which are seen to represent words. In this stage, children reach a milestone when they are able to separate pictures from letters. For example, a teacher talks about Australian wildlife in her preschool. The children are then to respond on paper and one child draws an Echidna and represents the sounds in the word with 'E' and 'K'. Again the child is able to tell an adult what they have written from their symbols.

__3. Emergent Writing__
In stage three, children begin creating more identifiable letter-like shapes. They understand directionality with their words written from left to right and spaces begin to be seen between words. As children gain more confidence, they may begin to use sequences of letters such as those in the child's name to which they are quite familiar. Another characteristic of this stage is that letters begin to represent sounds in words. This can be seen in the example where the letters 'ppl' represent the word 'people'.

__4. Early Writing__
In stage four, Children continue to represent sounds in words and invent their own spelling of a word. By doing this, a letter may represent a syllable such as 'bcos' to represent 'because'. In this phase a child is consistently able to space their words in their writing as well as use upper and lower case letters. Also in the children's writing, they are likely to repeat sentences and phrases in order to practise and gain more confidence in developing their writing.

__5. Transitional Writing__
In stage five, children gain confidence and as a result the volume of writing increase and there is less focus on quality but rather quantity. Some children continue to write repeated sentences and phrases and invented spelling may still be apparent in some cases. However, as children continue to practice their writing, this is likely to phase out. At this stage in development, punctuation is well developed.

__6. Extended Writing__
In the final stage of writing, a child's punctuation, writing and spelling have significantly improved. Children have the ability to identify different text types and use them appropriately, depending on their audience.

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