Quick questions on Written language development - Edexcel A-Level English Language

Kroll's model frames writing as a slow move away from speech. In the preparatory stage the child is mastering the motor skill and the alphabetic code, so content is limited. In consolidation, writing reads like transcribed speech: clauses chained with "and" or "and then", little punctuation, a narrative drift. In differentiation, the crucial step, the child begins to treat writing as a distinct mode with its own conventions, shaping a text for a reader and a purpose, using paragraphing and varied connectives.

Spelling has its own staged progression, often described after the work of J. Richard Gentry: a pre-communicative stage (letter-like marks with no sound mapping), a semi-phonetic stage (some letters mapped to sounds, often initial and final consonants, "kt" for "cat"), a phonetic stage (a letter for every sound the child hears, "becos", "sed"), a transitional stage (conventional patterns appear, including silent letters and common digraphs, even if misapplied), and finally conventional spelling. The point for analysis is that invented spelling is not failure: a phonetic spelling like "becos" shows the child confidently applying sound-to-letter rules, which is a developmental achievement on the way to convention.

Reading is approached through three competing methods, the source of the long-running "reading wars". Phonics teaches the alphabetic principle: children decode by mapping graphemes (written letters or letter-groups) to phonemes (speech sounds) and blending them, sounding words out. Synthetic phonics (building words up from individual sounds) is the dominant taught method in England. The whole-word or look-and-say approach teaches instant sight recognition of frequent words, useful for irregular high-frequency words that phonics decodes poorly ("the", "was").

A seven-year-old writes: "we wnt to the see and i swam and then we had ise cream and then we wnt home." A strong paragraph would stage this as Kroll's consolidation stage (writing reads as transcribed speech), identify the repeated coordinating connective "and then" as evidence of speech-like, chronologically chained discourse with no subordination, and frame the spellings "wnt", "see" (for "sea") and "ise" as phonetic-stage invented spellings showing systematic sound-to-letter mapping rather than carelessness. It would conclude that the sample shows a child who has the alphabetic code and narrative drive but has not yet differentiated written from spoken style.

A ten-year-old writes a persuasive letter opening: "Dear Headteacher, I am writing to ask you to consider a longer break. Firstly, children concentrate better after rest." A strong paragraph would stage this as Kroll's differentiation stage: the writing is deliberately shaped for an audience (the formal salutation and the modal "I am writing to ask") and a purpose (persuasion), uses a discourse marker ("Firstly") to organise an argument, and shows genre awareness of the letter form.

Name Kroll's four stages of writing in order and state what marks the consolidation stage. [3 marks]

Explain why an invented spelling such as "becos" should not be read as simple failure. [3 marks]

Analyse how a child's reading miscues reveal the strategies they are using. [16 marks]