Abstract
The purpose of this work was to study the variationsin children's early writing forms in Spanish and therelationship among different writing forms,phonological awareness and the demands of the writingtasks. A group of kindergarten children was assessedin: a) the ability to match initial sounds in words,b) the ability to segment words in phonemes, c) theknowledge of sound-letter correspondences, and d) theperformance on tasks presenting different cognitivedemands: word writing and text writing. Results showthat children produced a wide range of forms in bothtasks, being the forms used for word writing moreelaborated than the forms used for text writing. Theseresults suggest that in the process of writingacquisition, children move back and forth across formsof writing. The analysis of the relationship betweenthe writing forms and phonological awareness resultedin the identification of the different mechanismschildren might be using to write, from an unanalyticapproach to print to an analytic phonologicalmechanism. The pattern of variation observed in thechildren's performance when writing words and textsseems to reflect the interplay among different typesand levels of knowledge- knowledge about print, thephonological structure of words, sound-lettercorrespondences- and the cognitive demands of thetasks.
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de Manrique, A.M.B., Signorini, A. Emergent writing forms in Spanish. Reading and Writing 10, 499–517 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008019206946
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008019206946