EDU 280

Stages of

Writing Development

Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)

Stage 1 Palmar-Supinate Grasp

• (1 and 1.5 year olds)

• Held with fisted hand

• Wrist slightly flexed

• Wrist slightly supinated away from mid-position

• Arm moves as a unit

Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)

Stage 2 Digital-Pronate Grasp• (2 and 3 year olds)• Held with fingers• Wrist straight• Wrist pronated• wrist slightly ulnar deviated• Forearm moves as a unit

Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)

Stage 3 Static Triposture • (3.5 and 4 year olds)• Held with crude approximation of thumb, index,

and middle fingers• Continual adjustments by other hand• Ring and little fingers only slightly flexed• Grasped proximally• No fine localized movements of digit

components• Hand moves as a unit

Stages of Pre-Writing Skill Development (Physical Domain)

Stage 4 Dynamic Tripod Posture • (4.5 and 6 year olds)• Held with precise opposition of thumb, index,

and middle fingers• Ring and little fingers flexed to form stable arch• Wrist slightly extended• Grasped distally• (Test by drawing tiny circles)

• All stages overlap and children progress and reach writing stages at many different ages.

• The development of early writing skills is another aspect of the child's emergent literacy development.

• Regardless of which stage the child is, writing development can be enhanced through being encouraged to write on a regular basis. 

• Children should never be discouraged from exploring writing by the means they are able to do, whether it be scribbling, letter strings, invented spelling, or conventional spelling.

Preliterate: Drawing

• uses drawing to stand for writing

• believes that drawings / writing is communication of a purposeful message

• read their drawings as if there were writing on them

In the drawing and picture writing stage, children begin to express their thoughts and feelings, the pictures are usually unrecognizable.

Preliterate: Scribbling

• scribbles but intends it as writing

• scribbling resembles writing

• holds and uses pencil like an adult

Scribbling• Scribbling looks like random assortment of

marks on a child's paper.

• Sometimes the marks are large, circular, and random, and resemble drawing.

• Although the marks do not resemble print, they are significant because the young writer uses them to show ideas.

Early Emergent: Letter-like forms

• shapes in writing actually resemble letters

• shapes are not actually letters

• look like poorly formed letters, but are unique creations

Letter-like forms• Letter-like forms emerge, sometimes

randomly placed, and are interspersed with numbers.

• The children can tell about their own drawings or writings.

• In this stage, spacing is rarely present.

At this stage, the child begins to draw somewhat recognizable shapes and may tell about the picture. The child may try to imitate writing, as well.

Emergent: Random-letters or letter strings

• uses letter sequences perhaps learned from his/her name

• may write the same letters in many ways

• long strings of letters in random order

Strings of Letters.

• In the strings-of-letters phase, students write some legible letters that tell us they know more about writing.

• Students are developing awareness of the sound-to-symbol relationship, although they are not matching most sounds.

• Students usually write in capital letters and have not yet begun spacing.

The Writer:

• Assigns a message to own symbols• Understands that writing and drawing are

different, e.g. points to words while reading• Is aware that print carries a message • Uses known letters or approximations of letters

to represent written language • Shows beginning awareness of directionality; i.e.

points to where print begins

Transitional: Writing via invented spelling

• creates own spelling when conventional spelling is not known

• one letter may represent an entire syllable

• words may overlay • may not use proper

spacing • as writing matures, more

words are spelled conventionally

• as writing matures, perhaps only one or two letters invented or omitted

The child begins to use some letters to match sounds, often using a beginning letter to represent the whole word. They may begin to use left to right progression, but letter reversals are still common

At age 5, Joshua uses his emerging knowledge of letters and sounds to label his drawing “Me AND MM” (Me and Mom) and tell about one of his favorite things to do: “IPLW MOM” (I play Legos with Mom).

Fluency: Conventional spelling

• usually resembles adult writing

At this level children spell most words correctly, though phonetic based spelling still comes into play when they must spell longer words. 

They begin to use punctuation marks correctly and use capital and lower case letters in the correct places.