Marie Clay's Principles and Concepts of Early Writing

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1. Sign Concept: Writing
carries a message. |
2. Message Concept: Child
realizes that the messages that she/he speaks can be written down. |
3. Copying Principle: Some
letters, words, and word groups must be imitated or copied in a slow and
laborious way to establish the first units of printing behavior. |
4. Flexibility Principle:
Children create a variety of new symbols by repositioning or decorating
the standard forms which enables them to explore the limits within which
each letter form may be varied and still retain its identity. |
5. Inventory Principle:
Children organize or take stock of their own learning by making lists of
what they know. |
6. Recurring Principle:
Writing will be repeated to help establish habitual response patterns
and to produce pleasant feelings of competence. |
7. Generating Principle: The
learner will extend his/her writing repertoire by combining or arranging
elements in an inventive fashion. |
8. Directional Principle:
Development of the patterns of left to right and top to bottom is
required. |
9. Reversing the Directional
Pattern: Mirror writing suggests the need to learn more about body space
in relation to the book pages. |
10. Contrastive Principle:
Contrasts can be made between units at several levels - shapes,
meanings, sounds, and word patterns. |
11. Space Concept: A space is
needed to signal the end of one word and another. |
12. Page and Book
Arrangement: The child will often use up left-over spaces with his/her
left-over utterances ignoring directional principles. |
13. Abbreviation Principle:
Child comprehends that words are constructed out of letters that stand
for fuller forms. |