Emergent Writing:the impact of structured peer interaction

Classroom arrangements to enhance opportunity, resources, modelling, purpose and motivation in the emergent writing of children in their first year of schooling include writing stimulus and resource areas, home bays exemplifying the uses of literacy, an 'author's chair' and displays of written products. These are frequently recommended, but rarely evaluated. This study comprises such an evaluation, and also assesses the additional impact of a form of structured peer interaction (paired writing) between a subset of the emergent writers and older children with writing delay, while controlling for time on task at writing. Pre-post assessment of independent writing products indicated significant improvement for all the emergent writers, but significantly greater gains for those also experiencing the structured peer interaction. Qualitative and observational data supported this finding. These results are discussed in relation to discontinuities in emergent writing experiences between home and school