Development of Writing Skills in Children in Diverse Cultural Contexts: Contributions to Teaching and Learning

This book brings together multiple theoretical perspectives and disciplinary approaches to study the acquisition and development of written language by children as well as the implications for teaching and learning of writing practices in a variety of languages and cultural contexts. Chapters in this contributed volume present both theoretical contributions and results of research carried out with students and teachers from 11 countries (Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK and USA) who speak seven different languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, Dutch and Hebrew. By bringing together research developed in diverse cultural contexts it enriches the debates in the interdisciplinary field of writing studies by analyzing a wide range of topics at the interface between research and educational implications for the teaching and learning of writing by children. The book consists of five parts, each one addressing a specific set of topics. Part I presents studies on topics related to written language representation systems (phonological and morphological awareness) and on the relationship between grammar and the quality of texts of different genres. Part II includes studies related to compositional processes of writing texts, and the factors involved in these processes. Part III focuses on the difficulties faced by students during the acquisition and development of writing. Part IV is dedicated to chapters that discuss and compare writing practices in different social environments. Finally, chapters in part V deal with teaching and learning of writing in the school setting. Development of Writing Skills in Children in Diverse Cultural Contexts: Contributions to Teaching and Learning will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of psychology, education and linguistics, as well as to other social scientists in the broader interdisciplinary field of writingstudies.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Development, teaching and learning of writing: from word to text.- Part I. Spelling, vocabulary and grammar in written texts.- Chapter 2. Learning to spell in Brazilian Portuguese: children´s patterns of spelling errors and unconventional word segmentation.- Chapter 3. Grammar as a resource for developing metalinguistic understanding about writing.- Chapter 4. The role of grammar and vocabulary for writing instruction in school.- Part II. The composition processes of writing texts.- Chapter 5. “Who is going to read the story that I have written?” The role of the audience in textual revision made by children.- Chapter 6. The effect of low-level writing process on written narrative textual competence in kindergarten and primary school children.- Chapter 7. Grammatical choices and narrative quality in the collaborative writing of primary school students.- Chapter 8. The development of rhetorical preferences in the analytical writing of Spanish students from elementary to highereducation.- Part III. Difficulties in acquiring and developing writing skills.- Chapter 9. Morphological analysis and its impact on written language development in children with and without language disorders.- Chapter 10. Difficulties in acquiring and developing writing skills.- Part IV. Writing practices in different social environments.- Chapter 11. Nurturing writing of narrative and expository texts at the preschool level.- Chapter 12. Writing technique or writing culture? Representations of writing among children and teachers at high achievement schools in Chile.- Chapter 13. Rewriting the book: new literacy practices and their implications for teaching and evaluating writing.- Part V. Teaching and learning writing in the classroom.- Chapter 14. Teaching writing through discourse genres.- Chapter 15. Teaching of argumentative writing in Romance languages: a meta-analysis.- Chapter 16. The Chilean National Writing Plan: rationale, actions and preliminary results.- Chapter 17. Effects of research-based teacher training on writing instruction practices.- Chapter 18. Writing to understand and being understood: basic design principles for writing instruction.- Index.

About the Author :
Alina Galvão Spinillo is a Full-Professor in the Post-Graduate Program in Cognitive Psychology at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. She is also one of the leaders of the Group for Research in Psychology of Mathematics Education at the same university. She is a member of the Working Group Sociocognitive and Language Development of the National Association for Research and Post-Graduate Programs in Psychology, Brazil, and a member of the Working Group Cognitive and Linguistic Processes in Mathematics Education of the Brazilian Society of Mathematics Education. She is a level 1 researcher with the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. She has carried out studies and publications on mathematics reasoning, literacy, writing and text comprehension in elementary school children. Carmen Sotomayor is a Full-Professor in the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education at the University of Chile. She coordinates the area of ​​Language Teaching and Learning at this institution, and she trains primary education teachers at the same university. She is a member of the Chilean Association of Researchers in Education, and a member of the SIG Writing, Special Interest Group, of the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI). She is a consultant for the Ministry of Education in projects on learning standards and teacher training in Language and for UNESCO in the curricular analysis for the ERCE reading and writing tests for Latin America. She has carried out studies and publications on writing in primary school, including the use of technology for teaching writing.