Contextuele Afhankelijkheid Bij Beginnende Schrijvers

Compared with speaking, writing can be considered to be relatively context independent with regards to both process and product. Young children appear to have problems creating, without interactional support, a discourse that can function as a meaningful whole for a non-present reader. As a result their writing can be contextual dependent in some sense. In this article contextual dependency is discussed on a theoretical level and by illustrating it by means of an example of a seven year old writer. Possible relations between contextual dependency and both cognitive development and individual differences in oral language are considered, and some empirical data are presented that show how frequent and in which ways the texts of beginning writers can be context dependent. From this study it can be concluded that the textuality of young childrens' written products should be defined from the perspective of the child and considering the context in which they were written.