Learning to Write

In my last posting, I discussed Pietro Boscolo’s primary school writing from chapter 19 in Charles Bazerman's text, Handbook of Research on Writing. Boscolo mentioned the three dimensions and challenges for the teaching of writing: Continuity, complexity and social activity (p. 293-4). In this post, I will discuss Boscolo’s take on the concept of emergent literacy, the debate between phonics and whole-language approach and his discussion of Berninger’s studies on early writing (p. 294-8).

Says Boscolo, “Emergent literacy is the name given to the child’s various contacts and relations with printed matter and related activities in kindergarten, and in his or her family life prior to schooling, that are the developmental precursors of formal literacy” (p. 294). In other words, children come to school with “funds of knowledge” (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) that help to prepare them for the knowledge acquisition that occurs in the classroom. Writing literacy occurs on a continuum beginning with scribbling and invented spelling efforts as a child progresses towards independent writing.

Literacy experts have been debating the phonics versus whole language approach to reading and writing for decades. The conflict stems from different philosophical approaches that entail a focus on skill acquisition for phonics instruction as opposed to a more constructivist stance from the whole language people. More recently, balanced literacy instruction has been embraced by literacy professionals (Rasinski & Padak, 2001).

Berninger et al. (2002) devised a writing study with a group of third graders who had poor “compositional fluency.” Four treatments were used: spelling, composition, spelling and composition, and control. The researcher’s findings were that successful writing occurs with several components including phonics, self-regulation, reflection, and composition practice.

Learning to write begins in the home and continues within the school classroom. As a child learns to construct language in the written form, she or he is gaining control over the useful and powerful medium of language. Teachers must reflect upon currently used effective strategies as they consider new research to enhance existing writing curriculum.