Storytelling and spelling : what is happening when parents support their young children's writing at home?

Parental support is a key factor in the early development of children’s literacy, especially during the early years phase. As part of literacy, writing is regarded by educationists and employers as a crucial foundational academic skill. Despite its importance and complexity, the guidance accessed by parents may be minimal and ineffective, especially once children are in Year 1 (UK) of primary school. The purpose of this study was to conduct an in-depth exploration of how parents perceive the process of supporting their young children, aged between 5.5 and 8 years, within the home context in their learning of writing. Narrative-oriented interviews within an interpretivist paradigm (NOIIP) were adopted to keep parents’ experiences as the central focus. The fusion method of narrative-oriented interviews (NOI) incorporated elements of narrative inquiry, structured interviews and episodic interviews to investigate the participants’ recountings and reflections about supporting writing. The research involved a cohort of eight parents with nine children who were attending primary school between Reception and Year 3 in England—one 5-year-old, four 6-year-olds, one 7-year-old, and two 8-year-old children. The sampling criteria included both parents whose children are experiencing major difficulties in writing acquisition and those who are not. Parents’ accounts in 90-minute interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data was analysed within a frame informed by a sociocultural underpinning. A two-stage process employed Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) to produce within-theme and across-theme findings. The study provides findings in relation to how parents make sense of their attempts to support their child’s writing, how they go about supporting writing and how they experience accessing any guidance within the home-school interface. The study offers insights for the professional education sphere, especially that concerned with the early primary school phase of education, as well as parents, parenting groups and associated professionals.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ed.D

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Oxford Brookes University

Author dc:creator

• Donovan, Maureen

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Wright, Susannah
• Wild, Mary

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.24384/zxsx-av29

OAI record oai:identifier

https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=uketd_dc&identifier=tle%3Ac2f9dd5c-adcd-46b4-840d-407a53fbfff5%3Ad6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca%3A1