Читать книгу English in Elementary Schools - Anja Steinlen - Страница 11

Writing is a complex task which requires the coordination of fine motor skills and cognitive skills and reflects the social and cultural patterns of the writer’s time. Dyson & Freedman (1991: 58) define writing as “a process-oriented, goal-directed and problem-solving process, which involves the writer’s awareness of the composing process and the teacher’s or peer’s intervention at any time needed”. Writing relies on many of the same structures as speech within a language system, such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics, with the added dependency on a system of signs or symbols, often (as in the case of German and English) in the form of a formal alphabet.

The writing process has been characterized in several cognitive models as a complex process with several feedback loops (e.g., Grabe & Kaplan, 1996). In simple terms, the text is planned, formulated and revised several times in accordance with the writing goal. A monitor controls for language (i.e., for linguistic-stylistic means) and content. Finally, the writer’s environment affects this process, in particular with respect to the writing task, the audience and the writer’s personal requirements (e.g., Thaler, 2012). Writing thus depends to a large extent on reading skills, because the process of composing a text always involves reading and rereading of the unfolding text (e.g., Myhill & Fisher, 2010).

Other fundamentals of successful writing include a positive attitude towards writing, topic knowledge, the ability to rapidly access lexical items, knowledge of text features, writing strategies, cognitive skills, visual-spatial performance and, in addition, spelling skills and strategies (see Myhill & Fisher, 2010). During their development, children progress from the level of copying familiar structures to recognizing and reproducing text structures. With respect to the elementary school context, evaluations of writing proficiency usually rely on components such as spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and grammar (e.g., Rathvon, 2004).

There are many models which illustrate the development of L1 writing. The classical model by Hayes & Flower (1980) describes writing as consisting of three primary processes—planning, translating (i.e., the production of text), and reviewing—all operating under executive control within the constraints of the external task environment and the writer’s long term memory. Although the model has been revisited and revised over the years (Hayes, 1996, 2006), it has retained its cognitive character as well as its influence on the field. Berninger & Swanson (1994) revised the Hayes & Flower (1980) model to highlight the challenges that young or immature writers come to face during writing. According to the authors, two sub-processes at the translating level are particularly challenging for developing writers, namely transcription (e.g., handwriting and spelling) and text generation at the word, sentence and discourse level. As long as these processes (plus higher order executive processes such as planning and revising) are not automated, they compete for limited working memory resources during writing, and such competition for resources affects young writers’ products (e.g., De La Paz & McCutchen, 2016).

Since spelling has been mentioned to constitute an important part in assessing young learners’ writing, one of the many stage models for spelling development (e.g., Bear & Templeton, 1998; Gentry, 2000) is presented in the following: Peregoy & Boyle (2013: 208ff.) differentiate four developmental stages or levels, namely the prephonetic, phonetic, transitional, and conventional level. Prephonetic spelling consists of letters or letter-like forms which do not yet represent speech sounds, i.e., children do not yet understand the alphabetic principle that a letter or letter sequence represents a speech sound. Next, children move through the phonetic spelling level, which is characterized by one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. Transitional spellers then extend their knowledge beyond the phonetic aspects of spelling and begin to include conventional spellings that are not strictly phonetic and may be spelling 60 to 90% of words correctly in their writing. Finally, at the conventional spelling level, most words are spelled conventionally and correctly.