Oun day my mum bought me o some books. And I falte glad

Here the first sentence presents an observation, the second an evaluative comment

Sometimes in longer pieces observation and comment are interspersed

it was a good day at the zoo I liked the ZOO. It was good and fun I had alot of fun I liked the polar-bear and i liked the Hippopotarnus. They are big and fat I liked the pretty birds and i had a good day

I bot a dog for my cusen

Rothery and her colleagues observed that teachers consistently rated texts containing observation only less highly than those with added comment

This is usually a chronologically organised sequence of events. In more mature examples there may be an orientation at the beginning (usually about travelling to or visting a place of interest) and a reorientation at the end. Its schematic representation is therefore:

Orientation/Event/Reorientation

The recount is more like a narrative genre than observation/comment. Recounts and narratives are both temporally sequenced; in recounts, however, events proceed smoothly, while in narrative we are kept in some state of uncertainty reguarding the outcome of the story.

This gives a factual objective description of events of objects. Reports by more mature writers have the schematic structure: General classification/description. Reports differ from recounts in that there is no chronological sequence of events:

The bat is a nocturnal animalm it lives in the dark There are long niosed bats and mouse eared bats also lettuce winged bats Bats hunt st nittg they sleep in the day and are very shy

This is distimct from a recount because of the inclusion of events that constitute a problem or complication of some kind. This complication has to be resolved for better or worse. The narratives begins with an orientation which usually gives a temporal or spatial setting for the events to follow. This is followed by complication and resolution. At the end there may be a coda which states the point of telling the story. Often the orientation in early narratives introduces the main character.

THE LONELY STRAY DOG

Once there was a dog named Whiskers He got run over because he ran in front of a car. He was very sick after. He had to be ruched to hospital by

Ambulence and fast. At the end he ended up dieing  isn't the sad'

In more 'mature' narratives, complication and resolution can occur more than once. The schematic structure for narrative can be represented as follows:

Orentation/Complication/Resolution/Coda

In their research Rothery and her colleagues found no true narratives (in terms of a distinctive schematic structure) by very young writers. They feel this genre is more likely to be taken up in the third year of schooling

• Pre-letter writing
• Random writing on page - letters, symbols, numbers
• May use repetition of familiar letters - such as the letters in child's name
• Uses left-to-right directionality
• Uses random sight words

• Leaves random spaces in writing
• Uses few unknown words in the correct place - i.e. names
• Shows letter-sound correspondence - uses initial consonants and partial mapping of word (2 or 3 letters)
• Reads back accuratley at conference

• Total mapping of letter-sound correspondence
• Vowels are omited when not heard
• Writes quickly
• Spaces words correctly
• Letters are assigned strictly on the basis of sound br=bar or prt=party

• Vowels appear in every syllable
• Silent "e" pattern becomes fixed
• Inflectional endings like "s", "ing" are used
• Common letter sequences are used (ay, ee, ow)
• Child moves toward visual spelling
• May include all, but reverse some, letters (from=form)