Transitional and Intermediate Writers

Transitional and Intermediate Writers

1. Transitional

   • Students become more fluent writers and can spell many words automatically
   • Teacher makes sure that vocabulary growth is happening.
   • Requires a higher degree of abstract thinking.
   • Students begin to learn the meanings behind the spelling patterns, thus being able to use more complex words in their writing.
   • Can begin writing some high-frequency words if consistently working with them during all aspects of literacy.
   • When teaching ELL's in the transitional stage, teachers need to know something about the student's native language to guide comparisons and understand the student's difficulties to aide in their writing.
   • Students are able to write with ease and at greater speed.
   • Students have more time to work on ideas and written expression.
   • Background knowledge creates opportunities for complex story lines or informational pieces.
   • Students in the transitional stage are using but confusing vowel patterns.

2. Intermediate

   • Students produce more confident, fluent writing, and can work on longer pieces.
   • Student's own reading becomes the source of new vocabulary that they can begin using in their writing. Teachers still need to teach specific vocabulary for content writing.
   • While learning compound words, students are learning to combine in different ways, syllables, and the spellings of many high-frequency, high-utility words enriching their writing.
   • Students in this stage can spell most single-syllable and high-frequency words, allowing them to focus attention on the meaning they are trying to convey instead of spelling words.
   • ELL's in the intermediate stage will need extra support on vocabulary development for many words before being able to use them in their writing.
   • Audience awareness is developing in this stage, and you can hear "voice" in their writing.
   • Students can be expected to revise and edit their written pieces.
   • Students in the intermediate stage are using but confusing some complex patterns, accented and unaccented syllables, and affixes