Writing child study - Employment

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word choice when he writes. He uses a wide vocabulary and not just commonly used words like words he would find on a word wall in his classroom. For an example, he used the word excited and spelled it correctly. From all my observations of his spelling, I would place him in the independent speller category on Oglan’s sliding scale. In his writing interview when asked what he does when he doesn’t know how to spell a word he says he looks at the word wall to see if it was on there. Sentence Level Something I observed from Nadjibs writing is that he neglects to use punctuation and capital letters. When we were on the revision phase of the writing process I asked him if he knew how to make a complete sentence or what the elements that make a sentence are. He told me that a sentence needs a capital letter and a period. I also noticed that he doesn’t have very strong cohesion between sentences and in result; his story lacks a meaningful whole text. An example is: The mouse go find the loin. The mouse is going to run from the owl. He also fails to include pronouns such as it, he, she, and we. This is shown from several stories he wrote with me including his story about going to the park and the story about the lion and the mouse. Whole Text Level In Nadjib’s story about his family at the park, he had two sentences at the end that didn’t make any sense to the rest of the story. These are: My Dad das exercises We play out side and play with the leves I asked him when he was all finished if there was anything in his story that he didn’t think should be in there and he said no. I also asked him if he had ever been through the writing process he told me that he hadn’t. He didn’t even know what it was. After giving him a printed version of the writing process and crossing off the steps as we went through, we got to the revising part and it said “take out unnecessary work.” When hearing this and looking at his story he decided that the last two lines of his story were unnecessary and didn’t go with the rest of it. The last thing he did to tell me he was an independent speller was used functional spellings without stopping to think about it for a long time which in result, demonstrated self-confidence and comfort while using these spellings. An example if a spelling strategy he displayed while using these functional spellings was transpositional. Oglan says traspotitional strategies are when, “Words are spelled wrong using all of the correct letters, but the letters are in the wrong order” (2000, p. 34). I included the word watches in transpositional because when he says watches, he says incorrectly as washes. So from the way he says it washis is actually spellings it exactly as it sounds. According to Oglan, the spelling as it sounds means “Students rely on the sounds they hear that are close to the actual sound” (2000, p. 34). This would explain why he spelled one, won. Simply because that’s how it sounds when you say it. Sentence Level Since he knows what elements to use to form a complete sentence but doesn’t use those elements when writing, this makes me think he doesn’t know how or when to use them. I believe this could be from a variety of different factors. One could be that he doesn’t know how to make his brain think of everything at once, or how to multitask when writing. Another thing could be that he doesn’t understand when you take a breath or break when you’re speaking, you should add a comma or period. This is a very tricky thing to grasp for beginning writers. Turbill & Bean state, “Sentences in and across paragraphs are knitted together into a meaningful whole text by the use of these ties” (2006, p. 19). My example of his sentences from the story we made from The Lion and the Mouse shows how his sentences aren’t tied together and in result, the story becomes quite confusing and loses meaning. Another thing he does when writing is fails to include pronouns. He always restates the noun instead of referring to it as a pronoun and as Turbill & Bean (2006) state, failure to do this results in losing meaning at the whole text level (p. 19). Whole Text Level First of all, I have come to the conclusion that Nadjib is a visual learner. In chapter 7 of Ray he explains a story of a student named Levi who sketched a picture at the bottom of his sheet of paper and then went on to write the poem. He says, “He was also still very reliant on his drawing to help him frame his thinking before writing. This was something we had nudged many of the children away from because we felt they were ready to let their writing lead their thinking more” (2004, p. 129). This idea also pertains to Nadjib’s way of thinking. After I gave him a printout of the writing process and had him cross off the steps as he went it began to help him see a purpose and rational behind everything we were doing. It helped motivate him to look critically at his work to see what he can change like when he decided to
I also noticed that when I have Nadjib reread his work out loud to me and when he comes across a part that is syntactically incorrect; he will pause for a fraction of a second and read not what was on the page, but how it should have read. take out the last two sentences that didn’t play into what his story was about. All in all, it helped him think about his writing on the whole text level. It also got him more familiar with the writing process as he said he had never been through it before. One of the questions Ray poses is “When she reads what she’s written does she read it so it sounds like literature?” (2004, p. 131). This question got me thinking about when reading aloud to me and Nadjib comes across a part of his writing that is syntactically incorrect, he will pause and read what he should have written. I think this is him editing his work unconsciously. He knows it’s written incorrectly but doesn’t make an effort to go and change it afterwards. He also did this before I gave him the print out of the writing process so it makes be believe it’s tied into him not seeing an end point or not seeing a need to change anything because he wasn’t seeing a clear audience. Recommendations My recommendation for helping him spell words right that he is spelling as they sound I would do lessons that concentrate on double vowels like “ea” and “ai” because he struggles with words like speak, eat, leaves, chair, and field. I know he understand the silent “e” rule because he spells words that use that rule correctly and even puts an extra “e” on the end of some words that he is hesitant on spelling like lion. In one piece of writing he uses the tranpositional spelling first, then spells it correctly, and then puts an “e” on the end. I would leave his transpositional spelling strategy alone because he is so close to spelling it right with all the correct letters but isn’t sure where they go. My assumption is confirmed by Oglan when he says, “When children spell words with all the correct letters present but in the wrong order, it indicates that the child is about to internalize the correct spelling” (2000, p. 38). Since I haven’t seen Nadjib use a pronoun at all with my time working with him it leads me to believe that he doesn’t know what they are. My recommendation would be to present a mini lesson on pronouns, what they are, and how he can use them. I think this would benefit him and strengthen his writing greatly. Nadjib knows that a capital letter and punctuation is what constitutes a sentence in English, but he struggles with knowing how and when to use them. This is very challenging to define easily for students. I think the easiest way to help him with including these in his writing would be to practice writing sentences. Single sentences and thoughts. Writing several complete thoughts that are unrelated and concentrating on using a capital letter and punctuation I think will help him understand when to include a capital letter and punctuation. Writing unrelated sentences doesn’t force him to make a connection between the sentences and that might potentially be where he gets confused. A step beyond writing unconnected sentences could be to have him write a story about a wordless picture book. The pages could in theory indicate when to use punctuation but encouraging him to make the pages and sentences into a story could help him see how to connect those sentences. For the whole text level of his writing instead of asking him if he thought there was anything in his story he didn’t think should be in there when I was trying to get him to realize that the last two sentences didn’t make sense with his story I think it would have been a lot more beneficial if I would have asked why he included those sentences. Ray claims, “We believe that being asked again and again to explain their writing teaches them to think about how and why they are writing things in certain ways” (2004, p. 132). I did actually ask him the why and how questions sometimes but I never really got an answer out of him other than “I don’t know” so I kind of shied away from it. After reading Ray, I know I was on the right path but I needed to follow through with it even though I wasn’t getting answers because he states, “…we know that at first they don’t have much to say in response, but over time they’ll come to see themselves as people who should be able to answer that question, and they’ll grab hold of their decision making more specifically” (2004, p. 132). Since he is a visual learner I should have him draw a picture and then write a story. Giving him something to look at will help him see the story in his head and I think by doing this, his stories would have better results and detail. Another option would be to use a spinoff of Steeds idea of a descriptive report. This has two benefits for him. One, it would challenge him to write something other than something he has personal experience with (which is what he basically only wants to write about) and two, it would allow him to see visually what he is writing about. Steed (2002)
Page 1 and 2: Child’s pseudonym: Nadjib Child
Page 3 and 4: Knowledge about genres and function
Page 5 and 6: Use of writing process: during writ
Page 7: Recommendations on the writer, and
Page 11 and 12: ut also be very difficult and frust
Page 13: Works Cited Bukner, A. (2005). Note

Writing child study - Employment

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