Purpose to investigate the children writing and the relationship with the level of maternal education. Methods the children’s mothers were interviewed with a view to ascertaining their level of education, and other cultural aspects. Then, writing the children were assessed according to the Observation Guide for Spelling Zorzi (1998), composed of dictated words, sentences and texts, as well as textual productions, using the narrative genre, from pre-established themes . We evaluated 30 children, all enrolled in third grade of elementary education at a public school in Recife. The data were tabulated in a spreadsheet statistical analysis software SPSS. Result it was observed that 20% of children have not yet reached the level of development of alphabetic writing, which is an important aspect, considering that in the third grade, kids should be consolidating functional reading and writing. Significant correlations were found between maternal education and the acquisition of the narrative scheme of stories, as well as between maternal education and reading habits of mothers. An analysis of spelling errors revealed that children were committing the same types of errors have already been observed in other populations, only with a higher frequency. Children who produced more structured narratives that were made more errors in spelling, which proves that the spelling error is inherent in the acquisition process of writing and does not preclude the production of texts. Conclusion the learning of writing is influenced by social factors such as maternal education. These aspects need to be considered in the evaluation and diagnosis of speech therapy, as well as in educational practices offered by the school.