Writing Children's Words

If you spend time in our preschool classrooms, you may notice teachers writing down children's words on their artwork, in the form of stories, or up on flip-charts.  This is an intentional activity that teachers engage in with their students, and in fact is required by Indiana's quality rating system, Paths to Quality.

But why do teachers do this with children who mostly can't read the words the teachers are writing?  What do children get out of it?

Children aren't born with any understanding of written language.  Children's brains are hard-wired to learn oral language and they can do so simply by being talked to and being surrounded by and included in back-and-forth conversations with parents, caregivers and teachers. The written word is a different story, however.  Unless we have specific and effective interactions with children about written letters and words, those mysterious squiggles and their meanings may remain mysterious to children. 

Very often, when we think of teaching children about written language, we first think of teaching them letters, letter names and their associated sounds.  Before we do, though, there are a number of other foundational concepts children have to understand.  First, children need to learn that written language is simply a coding of oral language.  One of the easiest ways for children to gain this knowledge is for adults to "code" children's oral language by writing it down for them to see.  In this way they understand that when they say, "I'm a rhinoceros balancing 4 balls on my head," it can be written down as a sentence, which is made of up words, which are made up of letters, which have a variety of sounds.  They might also notice that those sentences have funny marks we call punctuation. 

Eventually, through repetition, children come to understand that words and sentences are written from left to right, include a combination of specific shapes we call letters (which they begin to recognize) and depending on how we interact with them during the experience of writing, they begin to recognize that certain letters are used for certain words they know ("Hey! That letter starts my name!"), connect the letters sounds with the letters, and learn all of it in a way that is meaningful and interesting to them.

But most importantly, they learn that writing is another way that they can meaningfully communicate their ideas!

How can you help at home?  When your child is drawing or telling you a story you can simply ask them, "Would you like me to write down your ideas?" If your child is talking about things she'd like to get at the grocery store you can suggest that you make a list together.  It's ok to make a big deal of sounding out the words as you write them down or ask your older preschooler for some help figuring out what letter starts the word "Muh, muh, milk" for your list.  Above all, keep it light and fun and enjoyable for you both. 

Pretty soon, you'll be writing books together!