This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy, unified, and comprehensive source of information to satisfy their interest. The goal of this book is to fill this void by reflecting on the phenomenon of writing from a developmental perspective. It contains an integrated set of chapters devoted to issues of writing: how writing develops, how it is and should be taught and how writing paths of development differ across writing genres. Specifically, the book addresses typologies of writing; pathways of the development of writing skills; stages of the development of writing; individual differences in the acquisition of writing skills; writing ability and disability; teaching writing; and the development and demonstration of expertise in writing.
Reviews
"This volume about writing is different from any book on writing I am aware about in three ways. First, most books on writing are somewhat narrowly focused on writing, as if it is a phenomenon that exists in a vacuum. The chapters in this book embed writing in the larger context of development, and in doing so, enhance the importance of the aspects of writing that are considered. Second, the breadth of the topics covered is remarkable. Third, and most important, this if the first book about writing I have had a hard time putting down. This is a must have book for writing researchers and will be useful in the classroom." - Richard Wagner, The Florida State University, USA
Contents
D.D. Preiss, E. Mambrino, E.L. Grigorenko, Preface. Part 1. The Origins of Writing. D. Schmandt-Besserat, Tokens as Precursors of Writing. A. Lock, M. Gers, The Cultural Evolution of Written Language and Its Effects: A Darwinian Process from Prehistory to The ModeD. Olson, Language, Literacy and Mind: The Literacy Hypothesis. Part 2. Writing and Human Development. J. Zins, S.R. Hooper, The Inter-Relationship of Child Development and Written Language Development. V.W. Berninger, L. Chanqouy, What Writing Is and How It Changes Across Early and Middle Childhood Development: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective. T.L. Richards, V.W. Berninger, M. Fayol, The Writing Brain of Normal Child Writers and Children with Writing Disabilities: Generating Ideas and Transcribing Them through the Orthographic Loop. Part 3. Working Memory and Expertise in Writing. R.T. Kellogg, A.P. Whiteford, The Development of Writing Expertise. T. Olive, Writing and Working Memory: A Summary of Theories and Findings. M. Fayol, J.N. Foulin, S. Maggio, B. Lété, Towards a Dynamic Approach of How Children and Adults Manage Text Production. D.L. Coker, Jr., Descriptive Writing. Part 4. The Teaching of Writing. M. Chuy, M. Scardamalia, C. Bereiter, Development of Writing through Knowledge ...