Samenvatting

Writing is an essential skill in (primary) education. Through writing children learn to communicate, express their selves and describe information. In addition to this, it is also an important way to learn new knowledge. The program ‘Success for All’ challenges children to start reading and writing sentences from the beginning of primary school. In this study there will be given an answer to the following question: "How proceeds the writing development by third class children in writing sentences?”. To answer this question it is examined if there is an increase in the clarity of the message that the students try to communicate. Secondly is examined if there is an increase in the length of the written sentences during a school year. The hypotheses are that there is an increase in clarity of the messages (captured in the written sentences) as well as the length of the written sentences. The program Success for All is conducted amongst third-graders of a primary school in Groningen. This group consists of 16 pupils. For this study their writing assignments are used and analyzed. The sentences these children wrote around autumn, Christmas and spring are analyzed using a coding scheme. Consequently, those sentences were statistically compared with a Friedman test and a Wilcoxon signed ranks test. This to see if there is a difference in the clarity and the length of the written sentences over time. The results showed a significant increase in clarity of the messages throughout the year, conforming the first hypothesis. Considering the length of the sentences, the longest were, remarkably, written around Christmas, instead of around spring. Therefore, the second hypothesis is not confirmed by the results. In conclusion, third-graders are able to clearly communicate thoughts in written sentences.