Did
you know even babies and toddlers, are in the process of becoming readers and
writers? Through the support of those around them they will progress from
emergent understandings and skills to conventional reading and writing.
If
you’ve ever seen a baby help turn pages of a favorite book or clap hands in
rhythm to a song, you’ve witnessed the early stages of emergent literacy.
Children who are read to regularly begin early on to enjoy the sound of a
familiar story, take in accompanying illustrations and engage in ways they
can—to join in the fun.
What is emergent writing?
Emergent
writing is actually part of the broader term, emergent literacy which is a child’s
knowledge of reading and writing skills before they actually learn to read and
write words.
A
New Zealand researcher named Marie Clay introduced this concept in 1966 to
describe the path children take as they learn to master sounds and letters and
grasp meaning when they’re formed into words.
There
are important components to emergent literacy—the parts that come together over
a period of time to build the skills and understandings necessary to read and
write. They are:
Print motivation
Children
exposed to books learn to enjoy reading times, pretending to write and
activities such as going to the library. Enthusiastic parents can foster this
motivation.
Vocabulary
Children
learn that words name things from the names of family members to the word for
everything in their surroundings. The richer the child’s vocabulary, the sooner
they progress in reading and writing skills.
Print Awareness
Children
gain understanding of parts of a book and how a book works. For example they
learn that each book has a cover, a title and there are words inside.
Eventually print awareness grows to the recognition of letters, spaces and that
strings of letters form words.
Narrative Skills
Children
love stories, both those they hear and those they tell themselves. The more they
engage in story language, the sooner they want to read and write themselves.
Letter Recognition
Most
children learn the alphabet at an early age. From that foundation they go on to
recognize both capital and lower case letters. Later they learn the sound (s)
each letter makes.
Phonological
(sound) Awareness
Children
become aware of sounds in language. They enjoy recognizing rhyming words, and
find patterns in the letters of a word. They enjoy clapping syllables or
singing along to familiar songs.
It Starts with Squiggles
Children
begin to understand that spoken language is made up of sounds and that those
sounds are represented by letters. This is a huge leap for them and it happens
over time with lots of experiences with pencil and paper. Day by day they’re
discovering how writing works. They’ll say, “How do I write cat?”
Their
writing begins with squiggles on paper that represent something real in their
world. They’ll make a scribble and say, “This is Mom.” Over time their
scribbles become more and more discernible. Here are the stages children move
through as they become more and more skilled in writing.
READ MORE: Pre-writing skills for homeschoolers and other young kids
Drawing and Scribbling
Children
begin to understand that messages are conveyed with pencil and paper. They move
the pencil to make marks and assign them meaning.
Letter and Letter-like Forms
Children
are learning the alphabet via books, labels, written messages in their environment
and via songs, rhymes and other exposure gleaned from everyday life. Now they
try to reproduce those letters. They’ll try circles for o’s and block shapes
for e’s. They’ll begin to know that writing moves from left to right in a
straight line.
Beginning sounds (and other, most
noticeable sounds)
Children
understand that letters make words and that words have meaning. They may write
in all capitals or venture into lower case. They want to know how to spell
important words and usually focus on the first sound in a word.
Beginning and Ending Sounds
Children
now try both the beginning and the end of a word, spelling cat “ct.” They may
also hear a dominant sound such as b in the middle of rabbit, spelling it
“rbt.”
Invented Spellings
Now
the child is cruising in the writing world. The vowel sounds, which are so
tricky and unpredictable, may be misspelled, but the writing is both legible
and understandable because it approximates conventional spelling.
Conventional Spellings
Through
much trial and error, study and by reading many books, we finally arrive at the
conventional spellings of the English language. Many adult writers still make
spelling errors as English has so many exceptions to its rules.
Children move through the stages at varying
speeds and sometimes hover back and forth between two of them. There is no
rush. The focus should be on writing as a tool for communication, not “right or
wrong.”
Authentic Writing
Learning to
read and write is a complex task, but the wonder is children are thrilled to
learn this skill. The trick is to keep a balance of drill and practice kinds of
lessons with a higher proportion of authentic writing tasks. Filling in a
worksheet on the letter ‘b’ is far less productive than actually writing about
a ball or balloon.
Authentic
writing tasks ensure children will be more engaged because it seems real to
them. They might write a letter to Grandma, make a grocery shopping list, or
write a sentence about their favorite super hero. Copying from an entire
handwriting book is not as beneficial as one authentic writing experience.
So
read books every day, sing together, talk about everything, make writing
materials readily available and before you know it, your little writer will
emerge.
Jan Pierce, M.Ed., is a retired teacher
and reading specialist. She specializes in parenting, education and family life
pieces. She is the author of “Homegrown Readers” and “Homegrown Family Fun:
Unplugged” available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Find Jan at www.janpierce.net.