Stages in Writing Development + Traits of Writing & The Writing Process

     After birth, a baby goes through a series of changes, and each milestone is celebrated in this newborn stage. The same can be said for writing, as each new skill signifies development and growth. When learning how to write, children go through a vast amount of changes. The aim in my opinion is to scaffold students as they go through the changes and ensure that they transition into the next stage without challenges. The terminology used to describe the stage speaks for itself, emergent writing. This is where a child initiates their first efforts into writing by scribbling, drawing, copying, printing letters, inventing spelling, and message composition. Scribbling and drawing can be grouped together as the preliterate stage. In this stage children often use drawings instead of writing to illustrate what they are communicating. When asked to explain, the child may read their drawings as if there were writings or labels on them. Scribbling in my opinion is the first attempt at the child making the effort to write. The strings may mimic writing and they should be encouraged to practice holding the pencil until they are comfortable.

The next stage is the early emergent stage, where the child begins to form shapes in writing that actually resemble letters.

The emergent stage is where the child begins writing random letters that are more legible. They may make use of letter sequences, especially letters found in his/her name. 

The transitional stage involves the child inventing their own spelling. I find this stage interesting as you can see the child's thought process in their writing. Although they may not know the word's spelling, they attempt to create their own. As time progresses and more words are learned, they tend to omit a few of the extra letters. In this stage, I would encourage the child to continue writing. I remember growing up, I would always ask my older siblings, “how do you spell…?” as I was eager to complete whatever piece of writing I was working on. The same can be done for other children as I'm sure certain words would stick in their vocabulary.

This stage is also known to be broken down into three sub-stages. In this fist sub-stage, the child represents words only using the beginning sounds.


Here is an image I found online. I am assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that the first line is “I went to my grandma”. This shows that the child has an idea of what they want to write and what they are saying, however, their spelling skills are currently limited.

In the second sub-stage, the child makes use of the beginning and final consonant sounds of words. Finally, the third sub-stage entails the use of the beginning and final consonant sounds and the use of vowel sounds.

This is a breakdown of the different stages. It also includes the fluency stage that comes at the end of the developmental process. The fluent writing stage involves conventional spelling where the child is able to spell a number of high-frequency words. Their writing becomes more legible and easier to read.

We moved on to the six (plus 1) traits of writing which encourages students to learn how to write efficiently by allowing teachers and students to concentrate on one or two writing-related components at a time or by dissecting a difficult cognitive process into its six essential components. The acronym that stood out to me was V.I.P C.O.W.S.

Voice: When a writer's personality can be felt through their writing. It demonstrates the writer's interest in the subject and gives the reader the impression that a real person is speaking to them.

Ideas: The written piece's ideas make up its substance. It is crucial for students to maintain their attention while writing by choosing an idea or topic, concentrating on that idea, developing that idea, and employing details and information to advance the writing.

Presentation: The way the writing is presented is the "Plus One" quality. All writing takes into account this quality, however it is not explicitly or formally taught like the others. Here, the writer develops and organizes their work, comes up with ideas, and considers how to incorporate their individuality and voice into the work.

Conventions: The editing procedure is a writing convention. This covers capitalization, indenting, punctuation, grammar, spelling, and paragraphing. Conventions enable the reader to follow a text and get meaning from it when they are applied correctly.

Organization: The written piece's structure and presentation are referred to as its organization. It unifies the content and makes it simple for the reader to understand. The structure may be fact-based, deductive logic-based, comparison-and-contrast-based, theme-based, events-explained chronologically, or comparison-and-contrast-based.

Word Choice: Writing clearly, evoking emotions, moods, likes and dislikes, and painting a vivid image in the reader's mind all depend on word choice. Students learn that there are several ways to communicate their ideas. By using fresh and interesting terms into their work, they increase their awareness of the usage and influence of language.

Sentence Fluency: We listen for a quality called sentence fluency. It involves hearing the written language's rhythm and flow. Sentences should vary in length and structure in good writing to allow the reader to add their own expression as they read what has been written. The author writes intelligible sentences and also demonstrate how ideas link, sentences should also flow naturally.

What are your thoughts on this acronym? Is it one that you would incorporate into your class/lesson?