A classroom investigation of the growth of metacognitive awareness in kindergarten children through the writing process

This digest found in

Early years
English
Thinking skills

What was the aim and the design of this study?

The purpose of the study was:

to investigate the metacognitive awareness and growth of children learning to write during their kindergarten year; and
to explore the growth in children’s writing in an environment that was encouraging them to think about their thinking and writing strategies.

The study was conducted in an environment that surrounded children with books, language, and print and followed the progress of 16 students (10 girls, 6 boys, all aged five plus) attending kindergarten five mornings a week in a small US school. The curriculum included a daily half hour ‘writers’ workshop’ which was the focus of the research. Twice a month for six consecutive months the teacher/researcher interviewed the children as they finished writing, asking questions designed to help them reflect on their thinking and strategies they used in their writing. This was supported by anecdotal records, and observations. Individual writing folders were used to complete a checklist of writing strategies for each child.

The children’s writing work involved both dictation and individual creative writing, and progressed from drawing at the start of the school year to the addition of letters and words. By the end of the study some children had progressed to writing short words, while others had started to write sentences and simple stories.

The key parts of this research were the interview questions which the children were asked each time to encourage them to think about their own thought processes:

What were you thinking about while you were writing?
Why do you think you thought about that?
How do you think that idea came into your mind?
How did you decide what to write about?
How did you figure out how to write down what you wanted to say?
How do you think your writing went today? Are you happy with it? Would you do anything differently next time?

The first four questions required progressively higher degrees of metacognition for the children to answer. The fifth asked for awareness of their own writing strategies and the sixth, self evaluation of their own writing. In total 182 responses to these questions were documented over the study.

Data collection was by:

audio and video interviews conducted twice-monthly with each child during writing time; and
anecdotal records of observations during writing time and other assessments made of each child including maintaining a folder of writing and a monthly checklist of writing strategies.

The children’s responses were analysed by:

appropriateness of response;
how many times the response included the words “thinking”, “thought” and “mind”; and
the number of words in and quality of the children’s responses.

Additionally the children’s individual writing folders and writing strategies checklists were reviewed.

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Research Home Themes \| Find digests \| About the digests resources glossary researchers contact TRIPS Introduction What is metacognition and how does it fit into in early literacy? What the study found What was the aim and the design of this study? What are the implications of the study? Where can I find out more? Send us your feedback Collated digests To view/remove/add notes and save your collated digests click here Get Word Reader A classroom investigation of the growth of metacognitive awareness in kindergarten children through the writing process This digest found in Early years English Thinking skills Send to a friend Word doc 50KB Printer friendly Collate for later What was the aim and the design of this study? The purpose of the study was: to investigate the metacognitive awareness and growth of children learning to write during their kindergarten year; and to explore the growth in children’s writing in an environment that was encouraging them to think about their thinking and writing strategies. The study was conducted in an environment that surrounded children with books, language, and print and followed the progress of 16 students (10 girls, 6 boys, all aged five plus) attending kindergarten five mornings a week in a small US school. The curriculum included a daily half hour ‘writers’ workshop’ which was the focus of the research. Twice a month for six consecutive months the teacher/researcher interviewed the children as they finished writing, asking questions designed to help them reflect on their thinking and strategies they used in their writing. This was supported by anecdotal records, and observations. Individual writing folders were used to complete a checklist of writing strategies for each child. The children’s writing work involved both dictation and individual creative writing, and progressed from drawing at the start of the school year to the addition of letters and words. By the end of the study some children had progressed to writing short words, while others had started to write sentences and simple stories. The key parts of this research were the interview questions which the children were asked each time to encourage them to think about their own thought processes: What were you thinking about while you were writing? Why do you think you thought about that? How do you think that idea came into your mind? How did you decide what to write about? How did you figure out how to write down what you wanted to say? How do you think your writing went today? Are you happy with it? Would you do anything differently next time? The first four questions required progressively higher degrees of metacognition for the children to answer. The fifth asked for awareness of their own writing strategies and the sixth, self evaluation of their own writing. In total 182 responses to these questions were documented over the study. Data collection was by: audio and video interviews conducted twice-monthly with each child during writing time; and anecdotal records of observations during writing time and other assessments made of each child including maintaining a folder of writing and a monthly checklist of writing strategies. The children’s responses were analysed by: appropriateness of response; how many times the response included the words “thinking”, “thought” and “mind”; and the number of words in and quality of the children’s responses. Additionally the children’s individual writing folders and writing strategies checklists were reviewed.