Pen+Pal+Writing

During a 4 month time span I had a 1st grade student who is an English Language Learner as a pen pal. We wrote to each other on a weekly basis. During that time I was able to see the students writing develop and change. I also learned alot about my pen pal too. She loves to be with her friends and family as well as play outside. She almost always drew pictures to go along with her letters expressing what she was talking about. Below is a link to my writing observations made and some teaching points for that student.
 * My Pen Pal**

__Writing Observations__

My pen pal was at the Transitional Stage of writing development. She uses inventive spelling when correct spelling is unknown, word spacing varies, phrase and sentence writing is developing. Although she often draws pictures to go with her letters it is not the main source of understanding her message so she is not at the preliterate/ prephonemic stage.
 * Writing Stages**

Preliterate/ Prephonemic - drawing and scribbling Early Emergent/ Early Phonemic - letter like forms Emergent/ Letter-Name - random letters and letter strings Transitional - writing via inventive spelling and phrases Fluency/ Conventional - correctly spelled words and resembles adult writing

__Samples with explainations__ [] []