PICTURE IT! PUBLISH IT! READ IT! PARENTS AND CHILDREN WRITING TOGETHER

Stages of Writing Development How children learn to write

Children begin to write when they are ready some at three years old some when they start school Children learn about writing like they learn about everything else by seeing print by watching other people write by trying to write

Name Writing Learning to write the way adults write takes time. Children start by using what they know. Nicholas used several different ways over the period of a year to write his name: a picture of himself

scribble writing Whenever children don’t know how to write something they may use both drawing and scribbling.

Six months later, Nicholas was writing his name using actual letters from his name, but not all of them.

Soon, Nicholas was writing his name like this: Often children will make a mistake, recognize it, and start over.

Later, Nicholas wrote his name using all the letters placed in the correct order. As Nicholas continued to write his name, he gained control over his letter forms. However…

…one day he said, “I’m going to write my name a different way …one day he said, “I’m going to write my name a different way.” He wrote his name like this Like most young children, Nicholas didn’t know yet that the order of letters in a word make a difference.

Young children experiment with many ways of doing things. By experimenting with writing, children discover how writing works. At this stage, experimenting is more important than ‘correctness’.

Young children often write letters backwards or upside down. They also think that you can write either from right to left or from left to right.

Gradually children learn: Letters in words go in a certain order. Letters aren’t written backwards or upside down. Writing in English goes from left to right.

Writing Messages In addition to writing their names, children like to write messages. Like name writing, children use what they know to produce a written message. Sometimes children write a series of letters across a page.

When Nicholas was in preschool he wrote: This is what he read: Dear Daddy, I found your sweater and I put it on the chair. Now you can wear it when you want.

Sometimes children notice something about how writing works and invent their own form until they learn how to do it correctly. Nicholas uses lines to separate some letters. He knows words are set off from one another and he makes up a way to show this.

Sometimes children include drawings in their messages Sometimes children include drawings in their messages. This may be because they have a “big” story idea and don’t feel they can get it down fast enough. From this we know that they understand writing and drawing are different.

As children grow older, they become aware of different writing forms and may combine them. At the end of Grade Primary, Nicholas used several writing forms to write a letter and envelope…

He wrote: Dear Mommy, I am not feeling well. On the envelope Nicholas wrote Mommy and the address in a combination of scribbles and numbers and letters.

By grade one, most children enjoy writing stories and messages. They: are more skilled at forming letters spell familiar words correctly make up spelling for words they don’t know how to spell

As children read books and see people writing, they gradually learn to follow correct rules of writing. All of these examples tell us several things about how children learn to write…

Young children like to make written messages. Young children can make written messages. Young children write in their own way. Young children make fewer mistakes as they practice writing.

Gradually, with support and encouragement, children’s writing develops closer and closer to standard.

For more information about PICTURE IT! PUBLISH IT! READ IT! Contact Dr. Jane Baskwill (902) 457-6189 jane.baskwill@msvu.ca Dr. Mary Jane Harkins (902) 457-6595 maryjane.harkins@msvu.ca Faculty of Education Mount Saint Vincent University 166 Bedford Highway, Halifax, NS B3M 2J6 Produced with the support from the Canadian Council on Learning, Knowledge Development Grant, 2007