Written Language Development of Young Children Living in Northern Rural and Indigenous Canadian Communities

• In Event: 31.092 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Three - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 31.092-6 - Critical Issues in Writing With Young Children

Abstract

We describe patterns in the written language development of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children as identified through our analysis of their verbal and graphic responses to two tasks administered at the beginning of the school year. Data were collected from children ages 3-7 living in nine northern rural and Indigenous Canadian communities and include videos of the children engaged in the tasks, their graphical representations, and administrator notes. Our analysis suggests that with age, the children gradually shift from drawing things to drawing speech and writing words and sentences. We recommend that teachers look beyond patterns in the children’s forms of representation to recognize the multiple ways they represent the content and complexity of their graphic messages.

Authors

• Nicola Friedrich, University of Toronto

• Christine Portier, OISE/University of Toronto

• Shelley Stagg Peterson, OISE/University of Toronto