First Grade Student Writing Analysis

Background of Student: This student will be referred to as N. He is a typically developing student in a first
grade classroom that I work with in literacy and math on a weekly basis. N is six years old. The writing sample
utilized is a non-fiction piece created over the course of several days during the writing workshop period.

Writing Sample

(1) (2)

(3) (4)

(5) (6)
Word Placement

Each page of Ns writing includes written words that have been placed in the correct area of the paper in
an orderly manner. A variety of words have been used to create a detailed text that is understandable. Regardless
of spelling, N has written a selection a words that exhibit his developing vocabulary and lack of fear in
attempting to exhibit this expanding vocabulary in his writing. Illustrations were used to enhance the meaning
of these words.

Letter Formation

This writing piece was handwritten. There was no opportunity to examine a typed piece of writing
because the classroom teacher has yet to expose the students to such an activity. With the given evidence, I can
see that N has strong skills in letter formation. On each page of his writing, all of the letters were formed
correctly. No letters were written in reverse, or formed inaccurately. In looking closer, given that first grade
students often still mix up the d and b direction-wise, it was evident that this was not a challenge for N. The
writing could be analyzed to acknowledge that in sounding out words, he was able to properly select the use of
the d or b such as when he wrote plad or dobrdash. These skills in letter formation exhibit Ns refined
motor skills and detailed mental map that allow him to envision the letter-sound correspondences and accurately
produce them on paper.

Word Construction

Throughout the writing sample N uses proper spacing between his words. This makes it easy for the
reader to identify the words that he was writing, rather than there existing an issue associated with the blending
of multiple words. Lined paper was used that helped the student to follow this word construction process in a
more structured manner.

Word Construction: Sound Analysis

Word construction associated with phonemic processing would be related to Ns ability to encode. The
analysis exhibits a lack of knowledge of consonant and vc blends. However, the phonemes used in Ns word
construction process allows the reader to understand the terms he was attempting to write. For instance,
played was spelled plad, or very was spelled as vare. Thus, he was able to analyze the sounds of the
words that he was intending to write with a developing knowledge of their letter-sound correspondences.

Word Construction: Visual Analysis

The grapheme-phoneme connections observed in Ns writing again related to his knowledge of letter-
sound correspondences. In his initial draft, it can be determined that he felt the combinations of letters written
for a given word accurately corresponded to the correct graphemes and phonemes in a visual manner. However,
in reflecting, N mentioned to me that he noticed several of the words did not look correct. This reflects skills in
visual analysis that would have developed through previous experiences with the words that were written.
Therefore, in a future opportunity to visually analyze this text, N would be able to make the appropriate
corrections to the construction of the words in this piece of writing.

Revisions

The revising stage of writing is evident in Ns writing sample not in the area of making corrections, but
rather in adding terms to further emphasize parts of his writing. This can be seen on areas such as pages one and
two where he added vare and so muc in smaller handwriting exhibiting that these were edits that were done
upon reviewing the piece. There does not appear to be any revisions to incorrectly spelled words or punctuation,
but upon collecting this students writing sample to review, he verbally indicated that there were a lot of
mistakes because he had not yet finished revising it. Therefore, to be able to analyze his revision skills in more
detail, I would benefit from looking over this piece a second time after the writing period has allowed for him to
make additional corrections.

Sentence Composition

Ns writing piece does not contain any end marks. Therefore, there exists the challenge of being able to
develop a perspective of understanding, strengths, and challenges with using end marks and other necessary
punctuation. Regardless of this absence, the sample can be analyzed to come to the conclusion that N used a
single line on the paper for most sentences such that it begins and ends on the same line. With that being said,
meaning can still be made from this text acknowledging that each line of writing is a new sentence and point of
discussion.

Print Conventions

Given that this non-fiction piece of writing was intended to discuss an event in the past, N was capable
of using the proper tense throughout the text evident in words such as wate, plaid, had and wuse. The
sentences are composed properly with the accurate use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns as
can be seen in the sentence I had so muc fun. While N exhibits strong skills in these areas, it appears as though
knowledge of proper capitalization is lacking. Most of the sentences began with I that N consistently wrote in
upper case that is a correct choice. However, of the two sentences that did not begin in this manner, there does
not exist proper capitalization practices. For instance, N wrote it wus vare fun, where the I of it should have
been capitalized. Beyond this capitalization that is to appear in the beginning of a sentence, it is a challenge to
analyze his proper use of upper case and lower case letters within the sentences because the lined paper was not
used in a manner that this could be understood, and there were not significant differences in sizes of letters that
would lend a hand to this understanding. The letters that are formed differently depending on their capitalization
needs were evident and properly written such as a versus A, or e versus E. However, letters such as w
versus W and p versus P could not be analyzed sufficiently.

Purposeful Language

As previously mentioned, N used a variety of words in his writing that exhibited a vocabulary comprised
of nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, and so on. In looking closely at the terms selected, one could
conclude that N selected and used this language purposely in order to portray this personal situation in a certain
light. He described what was played and how these activities made him feel with purposefully chosen words.
Although more details would be beneficial, N was able to select and use language appropriately to get the point
across that he had fun.

Writing Goals

The main goal of this writing experience was for the students to practice writing a personal narrative. In
reading this writing sample, it is evident that Ns goal during planning was to write a non-fiction piece about
events that took place in his life one day. He was able to articulate this goal in his writing well by discussing a
sequence of events that included gym class while in school and then the end of the day when he went home to
his mom. Further writing goals were set as could be identified through Ns comment to me. As previously
mentioned, this included him mentioning that the writing was in the process and not yet in its final stages
because he still needed to make corrections to his spelling, punctuation, and so on. This falls within the mindset
towards developing effective writing skills.

Genre Conventions

The genre of this writing sample was a non-fiction personal narrative. There are many conventions
associated with this genre, most of which could be found in Ns writing. The piece was written in the first
person within which there was strong evidence of N thinking and writing about himself. He identified an
incident, with that primarily being the happenings during gym class one day. In the piece there is a defined
setting, characters, and ending that follow the plot of N participating in fun gym class activities and then coming
home to his mom after the school day was over. Typically the incident discussed in a personal narrative is
intended to be one from which he or she gains new insights or awareness, which is something that could not be
found in the version of the text that was used for this assignment. It would also benefit from additional concrete,
and sensory details to convey the point in a manner that makes the incident more real for the reader.

Suggestions for Instruction

With N being a typically developing student, analyses of his work shows he would benefit from a
teacher tailoring writing instruction to meet (his) needs, (while) intervening early to provide additional
assistance (Graham, Harris, & Larsen, 2001) before his habits become more challenging to correct. The main
area of instructional need is to further develop Ns phonological awareness. Although he was able to sound out
words the best to his ability to a point that the text was readable, skills are lacking in several areas that a large
portion of his grade level peers have mastered. To begin, a focus would be placed on phonemic processing,
graphemes, and grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Some letters were misused, such as the u in wus,
while other words were generally spelled correctly, but lacked a few letters such as ye missing in plad. N
should be instructed on the phonemes that match individual letters. He should also be taught the different
sounds that a single letter can make. I have worked with N on several occasions while reading and writing to
teach him that when the e is at the end of a word, it makes the other vowel say its name when sounding it out.
This is a mistake that appears frequently in his writing. While working with him, he is able to recall this
strategy, but due to the lack of reminders and consistency in regular classroom time when I am not present, this
skill has not been developed to the point that it can be observed in his writing. The sounds of y should also be
worked through given the frequency that it was lacking in words such as vare and rile. In addition to these
strategies in identifying phonemes within words, N would also benefit from attention being placed on
graphemes. This would include -ay, -ch, and others that did not necessarily appear in this writing sample
because from previous experience, N lacks knowledge of the sounds represented by groups of letters.
Beyond phonological awareness development, I acknowledged some areas associated with this texts
conventions that N can be instructed on. Knowledge of proper capitalization was not exhibited in this piece.
Therefore, instruction on the rules related to this would be beneficial in an activity that would require that N
makes corrections to identify and practice this skill. The same type of activity could also be used to guide N
through the use of end marks and other punctuation. Through scaffolding, N would master the use of periods,
question marks, and exclamation marks at the end of a sentence, as well as the use of commas and apostrophes
within a sentence. Furthermore, N worked through the writing process sufficiently. Therefore, in order to
continue this progress, a good teacher would provide feedback during the revision stage to guide self-reflections
and self-improvements. This would function as support for N carrying out the processes of planning, revising,
evaluating, and monitoring (Graham, 2013). There would need to be explicit teaching on planning, drafting, and
editing in order for there to be a positive impact on Ns writing given that research has found that this approach
results in longer, more complete, and qualitatively better stories (Lienemann, Graham, Leader-Janssen, & Reid,
2006). This could be done one-on-one initially within which the teacher should track the students writing
progress on a graph that can be shared with the child to guide further improvements (Ritchey, 2006). To follow,
N could utilize checklists throughout these processes independently, as well as collaboratively with peers once
each stage was fully grasped. He should be allowed to use erasers (Ritchey, 2006) as researchers suggest as a
good tool for encouraging the revising process. Literacy development would result for all students.
Ns skills in producing strong content could be worked on first in a word study in order to broaden his
vocabulary. The term fun was used repetitively. A vocabulary lesson would help N understand the concept of
synonyms and allow him to study those related to words that are commonly used in his speech and writing. This
could be done through the use of word maps that help students study and experiment with new terms. This
would be associated with instruction in basic text transcription skills, such as handwriting and
spelling (Lienemann, Graham, Leader-Janssen, & Reid, 2006) since the new words would be studied in a
manner that helps these skills continue to grow. Along with vocabulary instruction, N requires further guidance
on how to add details to a piece of writing in order to become more facile (Graham, 2013). The classroom
teacher consistent asks the students to add details, but their understanding of how to go about that is limited.
One option would be to instruction N on using the senses to create a more detailed piece of writing. In a week I
will be teaching such a literacy lesson that will guide the students through analyzing a piece of food and using
their senses to describe it. I would hope that this instruction would be detailed enough that N would be able to
utilize these new skills in revising this piece of writing and others.
Lastly, I would suggest that N is introduced to the 21st century tools that can be used for writing. He has
strong skills in handwriting, so use of technology would not impede upon literacy development. Rather, strides
would be made in developing stronger abilities in all of the areas that were mentioned to be worked on because
the teacher would be carefully selecting and deploying tools that improve writing performance (Graham,
Harris, & Larsen, 2001). The tools that exist now offer opportunities to students unlike any that were previously
available. When utilized properly, progress will follow. Researchers had found that students who used word
processing programs during lesson activities for over six months showed greater literacy development than what
would have been observed if they remained solely writing by hand (Graham, 2013).
Resources

What works in teaching writing [Video file]. (2013, July 10).

Graham, S., Harris, K., & Larsen, L. (2001). Prevention and Intervention of Writing Difficulties for Students
with Learning Disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/prevention-and-
intervention-writing-difficulties-students-learning-disabilities#comments

Ritchey, K. (2006). Progress-Monitoring Tools for Beginning and At-Risk Writers. Council for Exceptional
Children, 39(2), 22-26.

Graham, S., Linemann, T., Leader-Janssen, B., & Reid, R. (2006). Improving the Writing Performance of
Struggling Writers in Second Grade. The Journal of Special Education, 4(2), 66-78.