Vol. 9(20), pp.

991-1001, 23 October, 2014

DOI: 10.5897/ERR2014.1836
Article Number: C327AC648094
ISSN 1990-3839
Copyright 2014
Author(s) retain the copyright of this article
http://www.academicjournals.org/ERR

Educational Research and Reviews

Full Length Research Paper

The effect of supporting questions on childrens

emerging writing skills
Neslihan Bay
Department of Early Childhood Education, College of Education, Meselik Campus Eskisehir Osmangazi University, 211
Odunpazari, Eskisehir, Turkey.
Received 5 May, 2014; Accepted 29 September, 2014

This study investigated the effect of supporting questions for the emergence of childrens writing skills.
For this study, five year-old children in a classroom were observed face-to-face in two implementations.
This study used a coding system related to emerging writing skills and supporting questions that were
intended to support the emergence of the childrens writing skills. Writing samples were collected two
times from the children. First, children freely wrote on their paper. After one week, a second set of
writing samples was collected from each child who was asked supporting questions. 18 childrens
writing samples were coded two times according to these writing skills. Children showed writing skills
on their paper, such as drawings, scribblings and letter writings. They also showed more writing skills in
the second sample. The findings of this study showed the effect of supporting questions on childrens
writing products; these children spent more time on writing and showed more writing skills with
supporting questions.
Key words: Supporting questions, writing skills, preschool.

INTRODUCTION
The current study addresses the relation of supporting
questions and emergent writing skills, and basic idea that
childrens writing skills increase with supporting
questions. An important part of the current study is that if
children are supported with questions about planning,
explaining, and evaluating for their emerging writing
skills, they expend more effort on emerging writing skills
and spend more time writing. Childrens early knowledge
about writing, plays a vital role for later literacy success
(Puranik and Lonigan, 2011; Fogo, 2008; Welsch et al.,

2003). Increasing childrens writing knowledge includes

print and alphabet knowledge as a concept (Justice and
Ezell, 2001; Welsch et al., 2003). Children learn
communication by putting words on their paper, and their
writing progresses from scribbling to letter writing, word
writing and conventional writing (Buxton, 2011; Puranik
and Lonigan, 2011; Falconer, 2010; Fogo, 2008; Bennett
et al., 2005; Welsch et al., 2003; Haney, 2002; Leong,
1998). Before writing letter skills, children show scribbles
that resemble letters, such as linear, vertical, and circular

E-mail: bayneslihan@gmail.com Tel: +90 222 239 37 50/1622.

Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License 4.0 International License

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Educ. Res. Rev.

lines in their writing (Sulzby, 1989).

Clay (1975), examined the writing samples of children
four to seven years old, and she found that children
followed the progress in their early writing skills, such as
sign concepts and message concepts. Justice et al.
(2006) examined how children learn to identify letters,
and they found that children identify letters with their
experience. Letter awareness begins to improve with
childrens own names, and the first learning of letters by
children usually is in their first name letters (Bakst and
Essa, 1990; Sulzby, 1989). Research has found that the
strongest correlation is between name writing and
alphabet knowledge (Molfese et al., 2006; Haney, 2003;
Welsch et al., 2003). Therefore, supporting childrens
name writing skills help children progress from scribbling
to conventional writing (Hayes, 1990; Welsch et al.,
2003). This study evaluated the writing stages of
children, such as drawing, scribbling, letter writing, own
name writing, word writing, and number writing. Children
need to be encouraged to show performance of writing
stages (Welsch et al., 2003).Early guidance for children
provides their motivation to write, and when children are
exposed to writing, they begin to understand many
different signs and print (Buxton, 2011; Fogo, 2008).
The focus in this study was to support the emergence
of the writing skills of children with supporting questions.
An important way of support is asking questions, which is
important in terms of revealing the ideas of children (Gall,
1984; Morgan and Saxton, 1991; Ozden, 1999;
MacNaughton and Williams, 2004; Cheminaist, 2008;
Zucker et al., 2010; Taspnar, 2009; Youngju Lee,
2010;). Thinking begins to form the moment a question is
asked on a subject (zden, 1999). Research has shown
that teachers ask few questions, and they use lower
quality questions (Gall, 1970; Wragg and Brown, 2001;
Storey, 2004; Bay and Alisinanoglu, 2013). Wasik et al.
(2006) trained teachers to ask high quality questions. As
a result of their study, they found that asking high quality
questions enabled children to develop language skills,
and children expressed their ideas and feelings more
during storybook contexts. Between reading and writing
skills, there is a strong relationship. First, children read
their names, and then they can produce noticeable
writing. When children try to write their names and some
words, such as mom, dog and cat, they comprehend the
meaning of writing in relation to oral language
(Bloodgood, 1999). Research has showed that teachers
question asking skill has a significant impact on childrens
language development (Rivera et al., 2005). Despite
these studies, little is known about the effect of questions
on emerging writing skills.
When teacher ask questions related to childrens
writing, children improve their writing topics and they can
write more like scribbles, mock letters and letters, so their
writing emerges with questions (Peyton et al., 1988).
Therefore, childrens early knowledge about writing plays

a vital role for later literacy success (Puranik and

Lonigan, 2011). Preschool teachers should provide
multiple opportunities and support with classroom
activities for encouraging childrens emergent writing
skills (Fogo, 2008). For effective learning, it is very
important for children to decide what they want to write
about before they begin to write. When teachers ask
questions about childrens writing, such as, What do you
think about your writing? children can begin to think
about what and how they will write. Then, children can
plan, explain, and evaluate their own writing by giving
their responses to such teacher questions. Also,
childrens writing improves with supporting questions.
When teachers ask supporting questions such as How
did you plan your writing? children focus on writing more
than just letters or words. Also, teachers can scaffold
childrens ideas while they write, and teachers can
encourage thinking about what children can write (Fisher
et al., 2010). During the scaffolding writing process,
children use drawings which have lines to represent
words, in order to convey messages. When teachers talk,
they help children remember more than when children
simply write alone. In particular, teachers questions help
students think about concepts to help them better
understand the meaning of words, and children can
concentrate on writing their messages. In this way,
children can perform at the highest level of the zone of
proximal development for their emergent writing (Kozilin
et al., 2003; Leong, 1998).
This study is designed to show that asking supporting
questions affects childrens writing skills. This study also
emphasizes the importance of planning, explaining, and
evaluating writing by asking questions that support the
writing of children.

Propose of the study

This study shows the effect of teacher questions on
childrens writing, and how these ways of supporting
children can develop their writing such as using more
lines, letter, or words. Also, children focus their message
with their responses to their writing planning, explaining
and evaluating. Therefore, children spend more time
writing and use more of their writing skills when they
receive supporting questions. The purpose of this study
is to investigate the effect of supporting questions
emerging writing skills in a preschool class. This study
also seeks to understand how they show their writing
ability when we ask questions about writing to children.
The specific research questions to be examined include:
1. What is the effect of supporting questions in spending
time in childrens writing?
2. When preschool teachers ask supporting questions,
how do children show their emerging writing skills, such

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Table 1. Properties of Children

Number of Children

Years of preschool attendance

One year
Two years
2
16

Gender of children
Girls
Boys
10
8

Participants were 10 girls and eight boys; 16 children attended two years and two children attended one
year of preschool.

as letter writing or word writing?

Coding system

The findings of this study will contribute to encouraging

childrens writing abilities. They also will help us understand how children can spend more time in writing by
using supporting questions to improve their writing.

This study showed how supporting childrens emergent literacy with

questions affects the childrens writing samples. Supporting
questions provided children with the opportunity to think about their
writing, and motivated the children to work on their writing. Children
focused more with the questions. This study used eight supporting
questions (Appendix), developed according to three investigators,
for children to show their writing development skills.

METHODOLOGY
Experimental and qualitative strategies were used to explore the
role of supporting questions in emergent literacy in this study.
Qualitative data, such as observations, enabled description and
analysis of how children show emergent themes (Patton, 1990).
Qualitative comments were noted (why, whom, and what they
wrote, the use of scribble, drawing, writing) and all writing samples
were evaluated to see the effect of supporting questions on
childrens writing.

(ON) Own name writing (Did the children write their own name?)
(ONL) Own first and last name written together
(L)
Letter writing (How many letters did child write totally on
their paper?)
One letter (1), two letters (2), ..
(W)
Word writing (How many words did the children write?)
One word (1), two words (2), ..
(P)
Picture drawing
(S)
Scribbling (such as linear, vertical, horizontal, and circular)
(N)
Number writing
One number (1), two numbers (2), ..

Participants
Many children begin to write through conventional writing in their
early years (Bakst and Essa, 1990). Therefore, in this study,
participants were from an inclusive preschool class, with an
average age of 5 and 6 years old. The classroom was a public
school full day classroom in an Eskisehir city. This school serves a
middle socioeconomic status (SES) population. The class consisted
of 18 students and one teacher. (Table 1)

Inter-rater reliability
The writing samples were coded by the two researchers and they
were double-checked independently. To provide uniformity in
coding, 25% (n=9) of the writing samples were chosen to
assess inter-rater reliability. Inter-rater reliability was calculated for
each coding feature. The reliability of coding the writing samples
was 87%.

Data Collection
In this study, data collection was conducted in two parts. First, I did
face-to-face and one-to-one writing activities with the each child in
order to collect writing samples without supporting questions in the
teachers room in the preschool. I said You can write a letter for
your family and I gave a pencil and paper to each child. Writing
samples were collected from each child, and I used a stopwatch for
identifying the amount of time each child took to write. Second,
after one week, I collected writing samples again with the same
children in the teachers room. Similarly, after I gave them a pencil
and paper, I said, You can a write letter. This time, while the
children were writing their letter, I asked questions about planning,
explaining, and evaluating their writing.

Data Analyses
The first writing samples were collected within one day, during the
childrens available times. The second writing samples were
collected the following week from the same children. These data
were coded with coding system by two coders.

FINDINGS
In the first implementation, I observed that the children
directly begin to write. Before starting their writing, they
thought very little about their writing. In the second
implementation, the children gave answers and they
decided to write about who, what and how. They chose
family members for writing their message to, such as
mother, father, brother, or sister. After their decision to
whom to write their messages, usually the children said,
I dont know how I can write. In Turkey, The Early
Childhood Education Program does not have any object
for teaching writing, such as letters or words. Children
have the same drawings or picture making activities for
improving their small muscles and finger muscles, and
teachers teach only print awareness in early childhood
education. They learn writing formally in the first grades,
so they hesitate how and what to write. Supporting

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Figure 1. Suedasthe first and the second writing samples

Figure 2. Idils first and second writing samples

questions fostered childrens writing, and these questions

reveal their emergent writing. The children in this study
tried to write some letters and did scribbling. Some
children preferred to make writing and pictures together.
When I asked what they wrote in their paper, the children
held their paper in both hands, and they read their letters.
Usually, they read love messages to their families in their
letters. (Figure 1)
For example, when I gave Sueda paper to write, she
said to me, I dont know writing Then, I asked
supporting questions and she began to write some
letters. When I asked, Can you read your writing? she
said to me I dont know writing. She then read her letter,
and she said some love message to her mother. Also,
she decided whether her letter was finished and she
evaluated her writing (Figure 2). Another example was

when I asked, Are you finishing your writing?, and Idil

said, I know, stop, I found, and she wrote again some
letters for her father. All of the children looked at their
letters, and each child said, I liked my writing. This
conversation shows that she realized what she supposed
do,and strived more writing. Figure 2, proved the positive
effects of supporting questions. (Table 2) Looking at
Table 2, children spent more time writing their product,
when I asked supporting questions. Especially, Idil, Alper,
Irem, and Burak spent more than twice the time. Only
Deren decreased spending time in the second writing
(4.32 to 4.12), and she did not want to write; before
writing, she said, I do not know writing. (Figure 3)
Deren drew a picture like Irem and Kerem in the first
sample, but she wrote her name and she drew a clock,
including numbers, in the second. After thinking, Deren

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Table 2. Coding Writing Samples

Childrens
Name
Idil

Participation times in first

writing (minute)
1.31

Participation times
in second writing
4.22

Elif
Nehir

2.50
2.34

5.12
4.13

Emre
Alper
Emir
Sueda
Deren
Mert
Halil
Zumra
Kerem

3.42
.15
2.31
4.26
4.32
2.35
5.40
2.22
5.26

6.20
4.33
5.38
6.53
4.12
5.12
8.46
4.35
10.38

First Writing
samples
(P), (S),
(L, 4),
(P), (S)
(ONL),
(L, 11)
(P,) (L, 3)
(S)
(P), (L, 2), (N,1)
(P)
(P)
(P), (L, 6)
(P)
(P), (ON)
(P)

Second supporting
writing samples
(S), (ON), (L, 14)

Pelin
Irem

6.35
1.21

8.56
4.09

(P)
(P)

Burak
Umut

1.25
4.03

5.36
5.14

(S)
(P), (S),(ON)

(P), (S), (ON), (L, 5)

(S), (ON)
(ON), (L, 9)
(ON), (L, 11)
(ON), (N, 10)
(L, 12)
(P), (ON), (L,12) (W,1)
(P), (ON), (L,4), (N,5)
(P), (S), (ONL), (L,5),
(N,26)
(ON), (L, 147)
(P),(ONL),
(L, 14)
(L, 9)
(P), (S),(ON)

Yasemin

3.10

3.50

(P), (ON),

(P), (S), (ONL)

Ecrin

2.45

3.25

(P), (ON), (L,

2), (W,1)

(L, 12), (W,1)

(P), (S), (ONL), (L, 5),

(ONL), (L, 6)

Figure 3.Derens first and second writing samples

read her paper, and she said, Mom, I will come soon in
her message. The children showed more writing skills in
the second writing samples, outside of Umut. For
example, in the first writing sample, even though Halil,
Kerem, Irem, Sueda, and Deren only made a picture,
their writing skills emerged in the second, such as letter
writing, and each child wrote their own name with
supporting questions. (Figure 4) Halil showed more
writing skills in the second writing samples. He wrote his

own name, one word, and 12 letters. I observed that he

was more motivated and strived for writing as
conventional. He read his letter and he said, I go to the
travel with my dad and we stop in front of tree and we
see dog on the road. (Figure 5a) Kerem made a picture
only as in the first writing sample. When I asked
supporting questions about his second sample, he wrote
his own first and last name. He also wrote five letters and
26 numbers that resembled to writing. He understood the

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Educ. Res. Rev.

Figure 4. Halils first and second writing samples

Figure 5a. Kerems first and second writing samples

Figure 5b. Irems first and second writing samples

difference between drawing and writing, based on my

questions. (Figure 5b)
Irem similarly, only drew a picture of her own and her
mom in the first writing sample. In the second, she wrote

her own name and 14 letters. She explained her thinking

with a picture in the first sample. She started to think with
questions about how, she can write, and she used the
words for explaining her thinking in the second session.

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Figure 6a.Pelins the first and the second writing samples

Figure 6b.Alpers the first and the second writing sample

She said, I love mom. You are very special for me.
(Figure 6a) There is significant difference between the
first and second writing samples of Pelin, and the
supporting questions clearly affected her writing. She
showed more writing skills, and she wrote 147 letters on
her page in the second writing sample. Likewise, Burak
and Alper only made scribbling, and Elif also made
pictures and scribbling in the first sample, but they
showed more writing in the second writing samples.
(Figure 7) In the first sample, Burak only scribbled.
However, He wrote several letters in the second sample.
These writing samples exposed his emerging writing
skills and the changes of his thought. In other words,
supporting questions directed him into the thought of

writing in the second sample. Also, he spent more time

on writing with supporting questions (1.25 to 5.36 min.),
because he thought of writing letters more.
Similarly, Alper showed more writing skills in the
second. He wrote his own name and shapes like letters
and he spent more time on writing in the second sample
(.15 to 4.33 min.) Looking at Elifs samples, first she drew
a picture, but she wrote her own name and some letters
and she explained the relations between oral language
and the writing in her picture in the second sample and
also she gave information about comprehending writing
functions (Figure 6b).
Elifs writing samples showed that she was considering
writing skills in the second sample (Figure 8). She started

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Figure 7. Buraks the first and the second writing samples

Figure 8. Elifs the first and the second writing samples

Table 3.Differences in the Emergent Writing of Children in the Two Implementations

Writing
Samples
Fist
Second

ON
n
4
11

%
22.2
61.1

n
1
5

ONL
%
5.5
27.8

L
n
6
14

to separate the difference between writing and drawing,

so she wrote her names and several letters. The childre
showed different writing skills in their samples.
Considering the first and the second samples, only the
rate of drawing a picture decreased in the second while
other writing skills increased by crucial proportions.
(Table 3) When supporting questions to the children were
used in the second writing samples, they showed their
emergent writing skills. 61.1% (n=11) of the children
wrote their names on their paper, and 27.8% (n=5) of the
children wrote their first and last name together, so
88.9% (n=16) of the children totally wrote their names.
While 33.3% (n=6) of the children wrote letters in the first
samples, 77.8% (n=14) of the children wrote letter in the

W
%
33.3
77.8

n
1
2

%
5.5
11.1

P
n
15
8

%
83.3
44.4

S
n
5
7

%
27.8
38.9

N
n
1
3

%
5.5
16.7

second. For children who focused a writing because of

the questions in the second, they drew picture less (n=8).
In Turkey, early childhood education programs do not
have direct goals for teaching writing. Children learn
reading and writing skills formally in the first grade, so
children only learn some letters and words through
environmental interactions. When I asked supporting
questions about their writing planning, explaining, and
evaluating, they began to reason and they struggled with
their emerging writing, so supporting questions were
watershed for their understanding the differences in
writing. Thus, this study supported childrens emergent
writing, and children showed their developmental writing
stages.

Bay

DISCUSSION
The first research question for this study was what the
effect of supporting questions is in raising the time
children spend in writing. Another research question was
how the children show their emerging writing skills, such
as letter writing or word writing when preschool teachers
ask supporting questions. In this study, I implemented
support aimed at increasing childrens awareness of their
own writing skills and emerging their writing skills. The
aim of this study was to investigate the effect of support
questions on childrens emerging writing skills, and their
thoughts about the meaning of writing by means of the
support questions. Data were collected during first and
second writing samples, to show childrens ability to
explore writing skills when planning, explaining, and
evaluating their writing. Overall, the descriptive analyses
reveal that when children asked more questions, they
used more writing than pictures, and they spent more
time within the writing product in the second writing
samples. Also, in the second writing samples the children
appeared to focus more on their writing skills and to get
more motivated. With the first research question, I
addressed the effect of supporting questions on the time
children spend time in writing. Outside of one child, each
child spent more time during their second writing product,
compared to their first writing samples.
In support of this view, Falconer (2010) has shown that
asking questions helps children find objects and use
writing tools, so children keep writing a long time. In
response to the second research question, the findings
show the effect of supporting questions on childrens
emerging writing. In the second writing samples, children
showed more writing skills, such as writing their own
name, and their letter writing improved over their first
writing samples. Also, when I asked questions about their
writing, the difference between writing and drawing
emerged in their writing skills, such as letter writing
(n=16). This method allowed childrens writing skills to
emerge and they showed frequently the importance of
practice in stages of writing. After reviewing several
studies, King (2012) implemented writing a workshop in
preschool. This implementation had conference time, and
during this time she asked questions for thinking about
writing topics or the planning of children. Children talked
obviously about their writing. The study was showed that
children began to understand writing meanings, and they
added more things in their paper. Similarly, this study
was implemented to ask children direct questions about
their writing organization, and children showed more
writing stages.
Levin and Bus (2003), analyzed childrens writing and
drawing for exploring the differentiation of writing and
drawing by the children. Thus, they used drawing and
writing tasks, and they used questions for understanding
their product as writing or drawing. These questions
intentionally encouraged them to think about the meaning

999

of writing; and the children improved in their ability to

classify their writing and their drawing in their study.
Buxton (2011), examined gender differences in writing
skills, and she collected work samples from children. She
used some questions for children to organize their
writing; thus, children understood the writing process
better. Hall et al. (2013), implemented an interactive
writing program during the 13 weeks in preschool. This
program included some strategies related to this study,
such as discussion negotiation about writing topics and
talking about letters or sounds. They found a significant
difference between interactive writing and the control
group, and the children who received interactive writing
developed alphabet knowledge skills. Rowe (2008),
investigated the participation of children and teachers at
a preschool writing center, and she observed the
teachers over nine months, in all the observations,
teachers talked very little, and they used five talk
strategies for understanding the writing meaning of
children. Only 10.5% of the teachers used questions for
descriptions of the writing message of children, such as
What did you write? Finally, she found that the use of
talk and questions has a powerful influence in childrens
emerging writing skills, by providing them motivation and
guidance, so children can recognize their own writing
, and it also encourage participation in writing events.
Emergent writing consists of a developmental sequence
that includes picture drawing, scribbling, random letterlike shapes, as well as writing a conventional letter
(Kaderavek and Justice, 2004; Welsch et al., 2003).
Supporting children in their attempts to use writing, is a
crucial role in their writing development. Thus, children
should be supported to use a variety of emergent writing
strategies and the production of developmental stages in
order to increase their responsibility for a range of writing
tasks (Kaderavek and Justice, 2004). When Table 3 was
examined, the children in their second writing samples
showed how their writing skills were emerging. It is not
surprising that the children showed more writing skills
with supporting questions. Supporting questions were
shown to be a valid indicator of childrens emergent
writing performance. Considering the first and the second
writing samples, the relationship between supporting
questions and writing performance was shown by a
positive correlation. Teachers should use questions as a
strategy in their writing activities for supporting the writing
products of children, using more writing concepts with
children, and tracking childrens progress over time.
Finally, using supporting questions should be presented
to teachers within the emergent literacy approach.

CONCLUSION
In this study, writing samples were collected two times
and first time children wrote freely. In the second implementation, supporting questions were asked for they show

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Educ. Res. Rev.

their emergent writing skills. The children were observed

to strive more in their writing in the second implementation. Even though 15 children drew a picture without
supporting questions, in the second implementation only
8 children drew a picture with other writing skills, such as
letter writing. Mostly, children were content to write letters
(14), their own first or first and last names together (16),
when supporting questions were asked. Looking at the
first and second writing samples, the relation between the
supporting questions and their writing performance
showed positive correlation. Children were observed to
be more motivated and they struggled to show
conventional writing in the second implementation.
Limitation and future direction
This study has several limitations that warrant consideration. First, the most critical limitation is that my
examination of the writing samples was conducted for
identifying the effect of questions on 18 children by
experimental implementation, so the participants in this
study were a narrow sample. Future research needs to
examine the effect of questions on childrens emerging
writing in the different ways than just the experimental. A
second limitation is that this study used eight supporting
questions, developed according to three investigators, for
planning, explaining, and evaluating writing. Supporting
questions should be improved, and questions should be
added for more effect on writing skills in future research.
Finally, this study examined the effect of supporting
questions on five and six year old childrens writing skills
in preschool. Using supporting questions should also be
researched for different aged classrooms and in other
countries.
Conflict of Interests
The author has not declared any conflict of interests.
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Appendix
This study asked following supporting questions:
1. What do you want to write about?
2. Who are you writing for you?/ Who is it?
3. Can you show how you write?
4. What did you write in your paper?
5. What else do you want to write?/ Do you want to write
anything else?
6. Are you finish your writing?
7. Can you read your writing?
8. What do you think about your writing?/Did you like it?

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