Product Description A guide to young children's discovery of the writing process. The theories of current researchers such as C. Read, E. Henderson, E. Ferreiro, E. Gibson, M. Clay, J. Button, D. Graves and D. Murray are explored and applied to samples of children's writing collected over long periods of time. From the Back Cover Teachers with a sincere desire to understand each young child’s present challenges and successes as he or she develops competence in writing—and to then be able to offer appropriate instruction and support at each point in the child’s learning—can turn to this highly popular, well-respected book for practical, clear guidance. In it educators get a detailed story of children’s development of writing, from scribbles to letters; from imaginative inventions to conventional spelling; and from enthusiastic and boisterous utterances on paper to effectively structured compositions. This new edition of the book that broke new ground when the First Edition was published over 30 years ago remains the clearest, most comprehensive explanation of children’s development of writing available, now thoroughly updated and improved to include:NEW A detailed, lively discussion of the story of the English writing system NEW An overview of the development of story writing and the writing of basic exposition NEW The history of English spelling and a background in linguistics NEW An historical perspective on how we’ve come to teach writing the way we do NEW The tools and language needed to make observations about students’ work NEW A clear explanation of how speech sounds are made NEW Pointers for teaching English language learners About the Author Charles Temple, Ph.D. teaches courses in literacy, storytelling, children’s literature, and peace studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, New York. He has co-authored many editions of All Children Read, Understanding Reading Problems, Children’s Books in Children’s Hands, and also Intervening for Literacy and The Developmental Literacy Inventory, as well as a handful of books for children. Temple volunteers in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, East and West Africa, and South America as a teacher trainer and children’s book developer through the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Project and CODE Canada. He has a large and wonderful family and an aging Springer spaniel. He plays guitar and banjo. He sails, slowly, on Seneca Lake in Upstate New York, and other places, too, when he can. Dr. Ruth Nathan, formerly an elementary and middle school teacher and university instructor and researcher, is currently working as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and as the developer of a second and third grade curriculum for a bay-area start-up. Directly prior to her current position at Berkeley, she served as a school-based, language and literacy consultant, as well as an educational consultant in the private sector. You’ll find publications by Ruth in such diverse journals as Child Development, Reading Research Quarterly, and Language Arts. She’s written several books and chapters on literacy and has developed curriculum for LeapFrog SchoolHouse and Great Source/Houghton Mifflin. She’s written several columns for GRAND Magazine, a magazine for grandparents, and is the co-author of the chapter on orthographic development in the most recent edition of the Reading Research Handbook. She lives in Alamo, California, with her husband, Larry. Three grandchildren live nearby. Codruta Temple taught English and French in Romania before moving to the United States, where she earned a Ph.D. in English Education and Linguistics from Syracuse University. She now teaches ESL literacy and second language methods courses at State University of New York College at Cortland. She has co-authored the eighth edition of Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment and Instruction (Pearson), has contribu