I have worked for many years in developing teachers of writing: through my work with the Curriculum Study Commission, the National and Northern Virginia Writing Projects, and George Mason Universities Graduate Programs. This is an updated talk on working with preschool children on writing. Special thanks to Janina Lao Admana my daughter's preschool teacher who helped with this presentation.

1. Teaching Children
to Write from the Start: Ability,
Culture, Meaning and Mechanics
March 2, 2013
Dr. Paul Rogers
Janina Lao Admana

5. An Overview
• An interactive conversation
– You are the experts on the children at your school
• Some background about writing and writing
development
• Talking about some practices or strategies
you’re using in your classroom around writing

6. Activity

7. Why focus on writing?
• Writing is a key element of
academic success.
• Writing is a powerful learning
too that supports both
understanding and
remembering.
• Writing is a key ability for full
participation in the 21st century.

8. 2 out of 3 U.S. students fail
to meet grade level demands
in writing.

9. When does writing
begin?

10. • After children learn to read?
• When they begin to write words
conventionally?

11. A Different Perspective
• Literacy development begins long before
formal schooling
• Children learn about reading and writing
simultaneously in their everyday
experiences

12. Learning to write is about cognitive
development and social
participation

13. Children engage in writing to
explore the characteristics of
writing materials
the cognitive development

14. Children write to engage
in positive interactions
with adults and to form
relationships with peers
the social participation

15. What motivates children to learn
to walk and talk? To learn
anything?

17. By what mechanisms
do children learn to
walk and talk? Do
children learn
anything?

19. Focus on Engagement

20. Travel and Transportation

21. Signs at the airport

22. Traveling
• Postcard writing (picture)

23. The Basic Skills
• Spelling and punctuation
• Thinking, memory, and language
a(speaking), plus fine motor skills

24. Children’s handwriting develops
sequentially “through stages of
drawing, scribbling, the making of
letterlike forms, moving to well-
learned units, invented spelling,
and conventional orthography”
(Boscolo, 2008)

25. Scribbling

26. Drawing

27. Random
Letters

28. Invented
spelling

29. Conventional
Spelling

30. Writing before schooling can best be
described as exploration …
But … there’s more

31. • What hypotheses do children develop
about writing prior to entering school?
(bringing down to earth)

35. Identify the background knowledge
that all children possess … learning
revolves around the child’s mind
not the teachers.

42. Not convention but intention

43. In school
children learn what they are taught.
So focus on the multiple purposes for
writing like …

47. Authentic Purposes (Brainstrom)

48. Authentic Purposes
• Telling what I’ve learned (reports)
• Describing an experience (travel writing)
• Keeping notes (journaling)
• Comparing ideas (reviews)
• Conducting research (creating knowledge)
• Analyzing problems (making the world a better
place)
• Sharing happiness and wisdom (fictional
narratives)
• Introducing an important person (profiles)

50. Create an
environment for
writing

51. Examples of writing centers

53. Ideas for your writing center
• clipboards
• alphabet stamps
• sandpaper/felt letters
• stencils
• chalkboards
• dry erase cards
• name cards
• variety of writing utensils
(pencils, crayons, pens,
markers, chalk)
• paper
• tape, stapler, paper clips,
hole puncher (for
bookmaking)
• notebooks/journals

54. Portfolios
• Picture of Penguin binders and examples of
work inside

55. Portfolios
• Excellent way to document each individual
child’s progress
• Informal assessment tool
• Showcase child’s work giving value, creating
permanence
• Can be used together alongside progress
reports during parent-teacher conferences
• Home-school connection

56. Integrating writing with art

59. Linking reading and writing

61. What happened in “Click Clack
Moo Cows That Type”?

66. • Sand
• Salt or sugar trays (or
on the light table)
• Playdough
• Fingerpaint
• Write letters in
chalk, erase using a
paintbrush/cotton
swab/finger
• Ziploc bags:
pudding, hair
gel, paint
• Goop
• Colored snow
• Shaving cream
Ways to write

67. Do-It-Yourself Letter Tracing Cards

68. Strategies
• Write every day
• Revisit and reread
• Share the writing as a group
• Letter tracing
• Name writing

69. Name Writing
• A window into children’s emergent writing
• The child’s name is often the first word they
begin to write
• The child first learns to recognize letters in
their name, especially the first letter (own
name advantage)

70. Name writing tends to progress in
the following manner:
• (a) scribble; (b) linear scribble; (c) separate
symbols, with letter-like forms; (d) name
written with correct letters and
mockletters/symbols; (e) name generally
correct, with some letters reversed or
omitted; and (f ) name written correctly

72. Use Name Writing with Self-
Portraits
Look for lots of little transitions

73. Strategies
• Focus on what’s RIGHT!
• It is the act of writing that needs
encouragement
• Write with your students

74. Strategies
• Extrinsic rewards??
• Using mentor texts
– Supplied by both teacher and child
• Share what You write
• Celebrate writing
• Writing floats on a sea of talk

76. Evaluation
• Respond to completion
• Respond to pride of authorship
• Encourage students to try out ideas

77. Freedom of Choice
• Varying the amounts and types of input
– Experiment
– Let’s spend the next few minutes writing anything
we want

78. What are the most important
elements of of written language
that children need to learn?

79. Conventions or mechanics

80. Conventions and mechanics

81. Thank you for your attention