My last blog post was about "Using the Developmental Writing Scale for Writing Assessment". This blog post is going to focus on how you can use it to help guide your instruction once you have used it to determine where your students' writing levels are at!
Just to repeat a little bit of information - the Developmental Writing Scale was published in 2012. The full reference is:
Sturm, J., Cali, K., Nelson, N.W., & Staskowski, M. (2012). The Developmental Writing Scale: A new progress monitoring tool for beginning writers. Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 297 – 318.
The Developmental Writing Scale has been so helpful, because it is the first writing scale we've found which has accommodations for students who are using alternative pencils. The scale has 14 levels and the scale overall gives us information about how to help a student move to the next level. So - let's have a look at how that works.
Students at this level are early emergent writers. They need good emergent literacy teaching and daily opportunities to write. When they write we need to make huge use of those adult superpowers - attributing meaning and presuming competence.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message
- Writing with the student e.g. predictable chart writing
- Writing by themselves ie individual writing where they “scribble” with the alphabet and we attribute meaning
- And the rest of good emergent literacy intervention
- Repeated shared reading of books
- WE point to text in books that we read e.g. this is where I start reading
- Use talking books that highlight text as it is read
- Incidental and explicit teaching about letters and sounds
- Independent access to books
Students at this level are emergent writers. They need good emergent literacy teaching and daily opportunities to write. When they write we need to make huge use of those adult superpowers - attributing meaning and presuming competence.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message
- Writing with the student e.g. predictable chart writing
- Writing by themselves ie individual writing where they “scribble” with the alphabet and we attribute meaning
- And the rest of good emergent literacy intervention
- Repeated shared reading of books
- WE point to text in books that we read e.g. this is where I start reading
- Use talking books that highlight text as it is read
- Incidental and explicit teaching about letters and sounds
- Independent access to books
Students at this level continue to be emergent writers. They need good emergent literacy teaching and daily opportunities to write. When they write we need to make huge use of those adult superpowers - attributing meaning and presuming competence. And to help them move to Level 4 we're going to make sure they're aware of spaces in writing.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message; make sure you model leaving spaces
- Writing with the student e.g. predictable chart writing; make sure you model leaving spaces
- Writing by themselves ie individual writing where they “scribble” with the alphabet AND the space key (if it isn't already on their keyboard) and we attribute meaning
- And the rest of good emergent literacy intervention
- Repeated shared reading of books
- WE point to text in books that we read e.g. this is where I start reading
- Use talking books that highlight text as it is read
- Incidental and explicit teaching about letters and sounds
- Independent access to books
Level 4 - Letter strings grouped in words (Sturm et al, 2012)
Students at this level continue to be emergent writers. They need good emergent literacy teaching and daily opportunities to write. When they write we need to make huge use of those adult superpowers - attributing meaning and presuming competence. And to help them move to Level 5 we're going to make sure they're that we think about words and letters when we write.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message; make sure you model using some high interest and high frequency words (like their names) and model thinking about initial sounds in words
- Writing with the student e.g. predictable chart writing; make sure they cut up their sentences themselves
- Writing by themselves ie individual writing where they “scribble” with the alphabet and the space key and we attribute meaning
- And the rest of good emergent literacy intervention
- Repeated shared reading of books
- WE point to words in books that we read
- Use talking books that highlight text word-by-word
- Incidental and explicit teaching about letters and sounds
- Introduce onset and rime
- Independent access to books
Students at this level are heading towards being early conventional writers but are usually still emergent. They mostly still need some emergent literacy teaching but we start moving towards conventional instruction. We usually want to move to using a Word Wall and start with systematic phonics instruction to help them move to Level 6 - as long as they know most of the letters in the alphabet most of the time. If they don't then we need to keep working on their alphabet knowledge.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message; make sure you use the word wall yourself and model "sounding it out" for words that aren't on the wall
- Writing with the student e.g. predictable chart writing; they should have been participating in re-reading their sentences already and you can continue this and also use this as an opportunity to talk about inner voice
- Writing by themselves ie individual writing where they “scribble” with the alphabet and the space key and we still attribute meaning and celebrate their successes
- And the rest of good emergent literacy intervention
- Repeated shared reading of books
- WE point to words in books that we read
- Use talking books that highlight text word-by-word
- Most students are ready to move onto word wall at this stage but continue with consolidating letters and sounds if needed.
- Continue onset and rime but if the student is hearing initial sounds most of the time then move onto systematic sequential phonics
- Independent access to books (and this is the time to introduce readers or books similar to readers)
Students at this level are now early conventional readers and writers. They should definitely have moved onto conventional literacy instruction - and continue to need daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message; make sure you use the word wall yourself and model "sounding it out" for words that aren't on the wall
- Independent writing; students should definitely be using a full one-page alphabet display at this stage if they haven't already move to it, such as a keyboard low tech or high tech.
- Writing mini-lessons focusing on writing "one good sentence".
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Independent access to books (and this is the time to introduce readers or books similar to readers)
- Repeated reading of books by both the student and adults (shared reading can still also be helpful at this stage)
- DO NOT point to words in books as you are reading - and don't let them do that either!
- Word wall
- Systematic sequential phonics
Level 7 Three more more different intelligible words in a list (Sturm et al, 2012)
Students at this level are early conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction - and continue to need daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message; make sure you use the word wall yourself and model "sounding it out" for words that aren't on the wall
- Independent writing; students should definitely be using a full one-page alphabet display at this stage if they haven't already move to it, such as a keyboard low tech or high tech.
- Writing mini-lessons continue to focus on writing "one good sentence".
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Continue actively working on inner voice
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension levelpeated reading of books by both the student and adults (shared reading can still also be helpful at this stage)
- DO NOT point to words in books as you are reading - and don't let them do that either!
- Word wall
- Systematic sequential phonics
Level 8 - Partial sentence of more than three words (Sturm et al, 2012)
Students at this level are early conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction - and continue to need daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing to the student e.g. morning message; make sure you use the word wall yourself and model "sounding it out" for words that aren't on the wall
- Writing mini-lessons continue to focus on writing "one good sentence".
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Continue actively working on inner voice
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension level
- Repeated reading of books by both the student and adults (shared reading can still also be helpful at this stage)
- DO NOT point to words in books as you are reading - and don't let them do that either!
- Word wall
- Systematic sequential phonics
Level 9 - One to two complete sentences (Sturm et al, 2012)
Students at this level are conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction including daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing mini-lessons focus on expanding writing with who, what, when, where and why
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Continue actively working on inner voice
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension level
- Repeated reading of books by both the student and adults (shared reading can still also be helpful at this stage)
- DO NOT point to words in books as you are reading - and don't let them do that either!
- Word wall
- Systematic sequential phonics
Students at this level are conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction including daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing mini-lessons focus on expanding writing with who, what, when, where and why
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension level
- Word wall and Making Words
Students at this level are conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction including daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing mini-lessons focus on "writing is about telling stories" and use "give me 5" as a resource for topics
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
(Sturm et al, 2012)
Students at this level are conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction including daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing mini-lessons continue to stretch student's writing focusing on topics such as spelling, reading the room, capitals and full stops, editor's checklist and author's chair
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension level
- Word wall and Making Words
Students at this level are conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction including daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing mini-lessons continue to stretch student's writing focusing on topics such as adding to a piece of writing, titles, spelling, publishing, writing a story with beginning, middle and end, ending punctuation
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension level
- Word wall and Making Words
Level 14 Three or more coherent paragraphs of at least three cohesive sentences each
(Sturm et al, 2012)
Students at this level are conventional readers and writers. They need conventional literacy instruction including daily opportunities to write for real reasons.
- DAILY opportunities to write for real reasons
- Writing mini-lessons continue to stretch student's writing focusing on topics such as writing an information piece, using visual organisers for writing
- And the rest of good conventional literacy intervention
- Comprehension instruction
- Independent access to books at or below their reading comprehension level
- Word wall and Making Words
And that's the end of the scale. Hopefully that was helpful - and "write on".
Reference
Sturm, J., Cali, K., Nelson, N.W., & Staskowski, M. (2012). The Developmental Writing Scale: A new progress monitoring tool for beginning writers. Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 297 – 318.
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