writing+and+the+writing+process

=Writing-= = learning to write =  In beginning writing, when young, the child generally uses scribble in flowing circle-like shapes, and will then tell you what the writing says. This continues into early-emergent writing, whereupon the child can "explore the use of symbols...to represent words" (Hill, 2006, pp. 283). As the child bgins to learn the letters and which way around they go, the teacher can begin to write on a piece of paper, leaving lines underneath for the child to copy the sentence straight out. It is advisable to ask each child in the class as you roving conference, what their opinion is on a shared experience, (for instance the pancakes they made on Shrove Tuesday) and write this sentence as their guide. This means children should be more interested in being able to write something which they themselves enjoyed doing. As the class progresses, the teacher will be able to move the sentence to the board in front of the whole class. I remember, when I was in Primary School, the teacher always wrote the day and date on the board, and every day we had to write it down, maybe on the tope of our pages, i can't quite remember. This is how she wrote it: Today is Thursday the 10th of April, 2008. This was great as it was something which we had to do, but was also something handy to know, and it helped teach us spelling of harder words such as Wednesday.

According to Hill; "Writing informs reading because when young children are writing they engage in a slow analysis of what they are saying and how this is to be represented in written form. Even the careful writing of a name gives the child time to attend to the order in which the letters are placed, how the letters are placed next to each other, the idea of writing across from left to right, and the spaces between words" (which is usually 2 fingertips) (Hill, 2006, pp. 287). This is a very important observation, as all these things are needed in learning to write. Most children learn their name first, and this is wonderful because it helps them learn how to write at least some letters correctly, and the continuing learning can build off this base, especially if children have long names.