Teaching Beginning Writers

David L. Coker Jr., EdD, is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. His research focuses on writing development, early writing assessment, and effective approaches to writing instruction. A former classroom teacher, Dr. Coker is coauthor of Developing Strategic Writers through Genre Instruction and has published articles in leading journals of literacy, educational psychology, and learning disabilities. Kristen D. Ritchey, PhD, is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on assessment and intervention for elementary-age students with reading and writing disabilities. Dr. Ritchey’s recent work includes the development of screening and multi-tiered interventions for fourth- and fifth-grade students with reading disabilities, and the development of early-writing curriculum-based measures. She has published articles in several leading journals.

1. Introduction
2. How Writing Develops
3. Teaching Handwriting
4. Teaching Spelling
5. Teaching Sentence Construction
6. Genre-Specific Writing Instruction
7. Teaching Students to Write Book Reviews
8. Teaching Students to Write Narratives
9. Teaching Students to Write Descriptions
10. Supporting Students with Writing Needs
11. Conclusion: Meeting the Challenges of Early Writing Instruction
Appendix A Letter-Writing Assessment
Appendix B Sound-Spelling Assessment
Appendix C Rubrics forOpinion Texts
Appendix D Rubrics forNarrative Texts
Appendix E Rubrics for Informative/Explanatory Texts