ABSTRACT
Chapter 4, The Young Writer's Assets, presents three important assets of the young writer that are the foundation of the development of writing proficiency: background knowledge, vocabulary, and thinking skills. Each asset is discussed in turn, in terms of the components of the asset and how it can be cultivated and featured in all aspects of writing and reading, beginning with the foundation of spoken language. Parents are encouraged to recognize the role of background knowledge as the basis of what a child can write about, and the role parents can play in expanding a child's background knowledge. Similarly, vocabulary is foundational to writing in terms of the ability to express ideas with precision. Vocabulary expansion is a means to reinforce background knowledge in long-term memory and to further increase the child's expressive language skills. In the section on Thinking Like a Writer, parents are shown the specific thinking skills that are promoted by writing. All three assets are referenced again in Part 2, The Emergent Reader. Sample activities that can be used to reinforce the Young Writer's Assets include forms of functional writing, the Quick-Write, and experimenting with different forms of writing based on a suggested selection of Wordless Picture Books.
