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Writing can be viewed as a recursive process involving both cognitive and metacognitive processes. Task, environment, individual cognition and affective processes all impact on producing written text. Recent research on the development of metacognition in young children has highlighted social constructivist and socio-cultural factors. Metacognition is seen as facilitated through collaborative tasks and through talk. This study investigated the peer construction of metacognition in 5–7-year-old children engaged on collaborative writing tasks. Six year 1 and year 2 classes were involved in the project (n = 172). 25 h of video observation data, teacher and researcher reflections and structured field notes were analysed qualitatively using ATLAS ti software. The written texts produced in these sessions were analysed using a qualitative content analysis, looking specifically for evidence of the process of text construction and metacognition. The findings provide evidence of young children's ability to engage in metacognitive talk and to use metacognition intentionally in the co-construction of written texts. The relationships between children and their talk partners mediated the effect of pre-determined ability in literacy. Teachers’ direct questioning aimed at reflection on the writing process did not always support metacognitive dialogues. Drawing on recent models of metacognition and writing the paper highlights the role of social factors in developing metacognition and illustrates the ways in which young children negotiate task demands during shared writing tasks.

The importance of metacognition for learning in most school curriculum areas is now recognised. Empirical studies have provided evidence of the role of metacognition in learning mathematics (Carr and Biddlecomb, 1998, Desoete et al., 2001, Hurme et al., 2006, Mevarech and Fridkin, 2006 and Panaoura and Philippou, 2007); in science (Georghiades, 2000, Georghiades, 2004, Hennessey, 1999, Larkin, 2006, Rickey and Stacy, 2000 and Thomas, 2003); and in literacy (Perry et al., 2003, Williams, 2000 and Yarrow and Topping, 2001). These few examples give only a brief snapshot of the vast amount of work in each of these fields. Some of the earliest studies of metacognition were carried out in the area of literacy, particularly in reading (Baker and Brown, 1984, Forrest-Pressley and Waller, 1984, Garner, 1988, Myers and Paris, 1978 and Palinscar and Brown, 1984), although fewer early studies focussed on metacognition and writing (Griffith & Ruan, 2005). Whilst early models of writing acknowledged the role of a cognitive monitor to oversee the processes of planning, translating and reviewing (Hayes & Flower, 1980), it might be argued that it is later models (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987 and Kellogg, 1994), which have highlighted the metacognitive elements of writing and led to more research in this area. Later models have also placed less emphasis on describing the features of text and turned their attention to the processes of writing, particularly in the acknowledgement of the fundamental nature of writing as a socially, historically and culturally situated activity (Nystrand, 1989). In the classroom this has been actualised in the move towards collaborative and group work in classroom writing tasks (Topping et al., 2000 and Yarrow and Topping, 2001) and in the investigation of the self-regulatory features of young writers (Perry, 1998). We might compare this move in the field of writing to a similar development in the field of metacognition research. Early models of metacognition which emerged from developmental and cognitive psychological traditions (Brown, 1987, Flavell, 1979 and Kluwe, 1987) focussed largely on either identifying elements of metacognition or on the ways in which individuals self-regulate and monitor cognition, rather than on how metacognition might be socially constructed or mediated. Whilst the cognitive and information processing models of metacognition may have dominated the field, parallel work on theory of mind research (Chandler and Helm, 1984, Wellman, 1985 and Wertsch, 1978); and self-regulated learning (Perry, 1998, Pintrich, 1995, Post et al., 2006 and Zimmerman and Reisenberg, 1997) have always acknowledged the role of social interactions as mediators of perspective taking and highlighted the role of social relationships in facilitating the development of higher order thinking. This work paved the way for classroom based studies of how children develop metacognition through interacting in collaborative learning situations. Most often studies of children's metacognition in educational settings and metacognition in the context of writing have focussed on children of 7 years upwards. However, there have been studies of younger children displaying metacognitive awareness and these are growing in number providing a base of evidence of the types of metacognition young children can demonstrate (Hockaday, 1984, Jacobs, 2004, Larkin, 2006, Pappas et al., 2003, Pramling, 1988 and Whitebread et al., 2007). As yet, few studies have concentrated on metacognition and learning to write in the early years of elementary education, with one or two notable exceptions (Jones, 2003 and Perry et al., 2003). This paper seeks to add to knowledge of how metacognition is socially constructed and socially mediated by young children learning to write. The study presented reports the qualitative analysis of observational data and reflections gathered during a 2-year project Talk to Text: Using Talk to Support Writing, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Based on a social constructivist view of learning, the project sought to explore the relationship between classroom talk and writing in the early stages of children's schooling. Whilst research into children's talk in the classroom has provided evidence of the role of talk in learning ( Fisher and Larkin, 2008, Garrod and Clark, 1993, Meloth and Deering, 1994, Mercer et al., 1999 and Myhill et al., 2005), little empirical research has been undertaken to explore how talk influences writing. The three principal strands of Talk to Text addressed three areas reflecting both cognitive and social perspectives on learning. • Process talk to support idea generation and communicative intent. • Presentational talk to support text generation and linguistic choices. • Reflective talk to develop metacognitive knowledge and communicative awareness. This paper focusses on the third of these: Reflective talk to develop metacognition.