Indiana State Benchmarks for Writing

Writing Assessments and Classifications for early writing and Kindergarten benchmarks

Principles and concepts of writing extracted: (all recognizable in emergent writing)

1.       Recurring principle: writing uses the same shapes again and again

2.       Generative principle: writing consists of limited number of letters from which you can generate a limitless amount of writing

3.       Sign concept: print stands for something besides itself, but does not look like the object it stands for

4.       Flexibility principle: the same letter form may be written in different ways, but the direction the letter faces is the same.

5.       Page-arrangement principle: English is usually written in lines of print from left to right and top to bottom

Level	Purpose	Mechanics
1	Draws unidentifiable picture Student unable to respond to a prompt “I can’t do it”  “I don’t know” Draws picture but cannot communicate message	Uses unidentifiable marks Scribbling
2 (pre-school benchmark)	Draws identifiable pictures Message supported by prompt Can answer “what’s this?” “who’s that?”	Writes letter-like forms Uses random letter strings Writing is linear
3	Draws picture and dictates one idea Picture matches dictated words Student initiates dialogue about picture/writing	Writes letter/letters for beginning sounds Copies letters or common words
4	Writing conveys one idea (can be label or incomplete sentence) Writing is used to convey message Drawing matched print Drawing contains details	Capitalizes “I” when used Writes letters phonetically for most beginning and end sounds
5 (Kindergarten benchmark)	Writes one sentence Uses adjectives to explain ideas Details in writing match illustrations	At least one sentence begins with a capital letter Writes a letter for most short vowel sounds and consonant Spells simple words phonetically Sentence contains noun and verb Separates words with spaces most time