The Beginnings of Writing

In The Beginnings of Writing, the authors give the clearest, most comprehensive source on young children’s development of writing, illustrating every concept with student artifacts. From scribbles and invented spelling to composition, this book also presents the most careful attention to children’s development available, illuminating what they are trying to do as they write. Using this highly popular, well-respected book as a guide, teachers gain a practical, clear understanding of each child’s present challenges and successes as (s)he develops competence in writing and develop the skills needed to offer appropriate instruction and support at each point in the child’s learning.

Charles Temple, Ph.D. teaches courses in literacy, storytelling, children’s literature, and peace studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, New York. He has co-authored many editions of All Children Read, Understanding Reading Problems, Children’s Books in Children’s Hands, and also Intervening for Literacy and The Developmental Literacy Inventory, as well as a handful of books for children. Temple volunteers in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, East and West Africa, and South America as a teacher trainer and children’s book developer through the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Project and CODE Canada.  He has a large and wonderful family and an aging Springer spaniel. He plays guitar and banjo. He sails, slowly, on Seneca Lake in Upstate New York, and other places, too, when he can.

Dr. Ruth Nathan, formerly an elementary and middle school teacher and university instructor and researcher, is currently working as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and as the developer of a second and third grade curriculum for a bay-area start-up. Directly prior to her current position at Berkeley, she served as a school-based, language and literacy consultant, as well as an educational consultant in the private sector. You’ll find publications by Ruth in such diverse journals as Child Development, Reading Research Quarterly, and Language Arts.  She’s written several books and chapters on literacy and has developed curriculum for LeapFrog SchoolHouse and Great Source/Houghton Mifflin. She’s written several columns for GRAND Magazine, a magazine for grandparents, and is the co-author of the chapter on orthographic development in the most recent edition of the Reading Research Handbook. She lives in Alamo, California, with her husband, Larry.  Three grandchildren live nearby.

Codruta Temple taught English and French in Romania before moving to the United States, where she earned a Ph.D. in English Education and Linguistics from Syracuse University. She now teaches ESL literacy and second language methods courses at State University of New York College at Cortland. She has co-authored the eighth edition of Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment and Instruction (Pearson), has contributed a chapter to the edited text Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction (Guilford), and has presented several papers on content area literacy at NCTE and AERA national conventions over the past six years. She lives in Geneva, New York, with her husband, son, and dog, and travels whenever she can to California, Texas, Illinois, the Netherlands, and Romania, to see her other six children, her grandson, her mother, and her grandmother.