The effect of supporting questions on childrens emerging writing skills

This study investigated the effect of supporting questions for the emergence of children’s 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 children’s 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 children’s 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 children’s writing products; these children spent more time on writing and showed more writing skills with supporting questions.   Key words: Supporting questions, writing skills, preschool.