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The students in the Beluga Classroom have been doing more and more writing lately! I think there are three reasons this is so. First, preschoolers LOVE to copy one another (and yet often tattle loudly if they are being copied…but that’s a topic for another day)! Anyway, once one child started making “books”, they all wanted to make books – which is WONDERFUL!!  The second reason they are “writing” more is that Miss Cassy rearranged the classroom a bit so that the writing center materials were all together and more accessible to the children. But I believe the third (and most important) reason the children are making books and writing more is that their brains are making the connections and developing the skills necessary for the complex process of writing.

Emergent literacy is the term educators use to define a broad set of reading, writing, and other language skills as they are developing in a young child.  We know that while children follow a general pattern of development in learning to walk, they each follow their own individual timeline to do so. Similarly, children also follow general patterns of development in learning to read and write, with their own timeline.  Every year I have many hopeful parents who ask me if their child will learn to read and write in preschool, and my answer is often, “Probably not, but they will be ready to take off in kindergarten!”  This has no reflection on with the quality of our program here at PNA, nor even my skill as a teacher.  In fact, I rather like to think that it’s the opposite.  Just as you would not want your child in a school/care setting which would try to make a child walk before she is developmentally ready; likewise, you also would not want someone trying to make a child read or write before he or she has developed physically and cognitively in certain ways.  It would be extremely frustrating and counterproductive for everyone involved, particularly the child!

The process of writing involves so much more than putting pencil to paper.  Writing requires development in multiple domains.  Physically it requires gross motor control in several areas, especially core strength and postural control, so that a child may sit up without slouching and write without fatigue.  Development of fine motor control is necessary for writing, and that is more than just forming the letters more or less correctly.  It also requires strong, dexterous hands and fingers which can form a tripod grip and write without getting tired, as well as the eye-hand coordination to from the letters and stay on the lines along with writing the letters neatly and at the appropriate size). Other physical demands for writing which are based on brain development include the ability to cross the midline of the body, bilateral hand control, and significant eye-hand coordination.

A child’s cognitive developmental factors in to these last skills, as well as many others. The ability to cross the midline of the body has to do with how well the left and right hemispheres of the brain communicate with each other.  For instance, if you imagine a vertical line which divided the body into right and left halves, can either hand/arm/leg/foot cross that midline and perform tasks on the opposite side of the body?  What does this have to do with writing? More than you would imagine! It allows a child to cross the body and write on the opposite side of the paper without having to awkwardly twist the torso.  It also allows a child to develop a dominant hand and assistive hand as well as bilateral hand coordination. For more information on this topic see “Writing with Both Hands-What you Need to Know” from a wonderful website called The OT Toolbox (https://www.theottoolbox.com/writing-with-both-hands-what-you-need).

All these skills, which are developing at different rates in different children, operate within the framework for emergent writing which consists of three areas:  Conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and generative knowledge.

Conceptual knowledge of writing is gained by children as they become aware of print in their surroundings, which is often referred to as environmental print.  Additionally, children who are read to learn that the markings on the pages of the storybook tell the story. Through these kinds of experiences children begin to understand the concept that print conveys meaning – and any parent can tell you that children soon learn that the letters on the red sign tells you to stop, and that the letters under the golden arches say “McDonalds”! Their knowledge that writing is a form of communication grows as they observe adults in their lives using print to write letters and emails, make grocery lists and read for pleasure.

Foundational to procedural knowledge is alphabetic knowledge; that is, learning the alphabetic code. This means a child learns to recognize the shapes of both upper- and lower-case letters and each of their associated sounds. A great deal of time in preschool is spent in helping build procedural knowledge of writing, because this is a big and multifaceted task for the brain, and it usually happens gradually. Procedural knowledge also includes the mechanics of writing, such as directionality of print, capital letters at the beginning of names and sentences, spaces between words, etc., however the task of learning the alphabet is generally what most preschoolers focus on. However, we are fortunate at PNA to have small enough class sizes that whether children are struggling to learn the alphabet or are already on the cusp of reading and writing, we can meet them where they’re at and help them progress.

Generative knowledge describes children’s abilities to write phrases and sentences that convey meaning, and enables a child is able to begin turning their own thoughts into writing. This interesting process will be the topic of a future blog.

It goes without saying that there is significant overlap in these categories, and it takes much time and repetition to solidify literacy concepts in a child’s brain.  While it is fundamentally true that learning to read a write simply can’t be forced, it is also true that a quality program with lots of play-based learning activities can provide an environment of enrichment where both late-bloomers and fast-starters can flourish and grow in their excitement for learning.