Early Writing Instructional Experiences and Preschool Children's Early Writing Development

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Abstract

Preschoolers build foundational literacy knowledge by engaging in writing. However, many preschools provide few writing experiences for children. This paper presents a rich description of preschool teachers’ early writing interactions, noting how teachers model, coauthor, and scaffold young children’s writing in ways that support their early writing development. Writing interactions primarily focused on handwriting and spelling supports. Fewer interactions supported children’s idea development (i.e., composing) or writing concepts knowledge. Instructional behaviors focused on modeling writing processes, providing instructions, scaffolds focused on making the task easier for the child, and supports that challenged children as they wrote. Results demonstrate the importance of teachers’ writing practices to children’s development of print (transcription) and meaning (composing) based writing development across the preschool year.

Authors

• Gary E. Bingham, Georgia State University

• Hope K. Gerde, Texas A&M University

• Ryan Bowles, Michigan State University