How do Early Childhood Teachers Learn about Children’s Writing Skills and What do they Know?

• In Event: 2-130 - Early Writing Assessment and Intervention

Integrative Statement

Purpose: Current initiatives emphasize using literacy data to inform early childhood (EC) instruction (Lonigan et al., 2011); yet little is known about EC teachers’ data practices. This is particularly important in the context of writing where EC teachers provide less than optimal writing instruction and report needing additional training (Bingham, Quinn, & Gerde, 2017; Gerde, Bingham, & Pendergast, 2015). We collected data building from previous qualitative findings concerning EC teachers’ literacy data practices (Authors, 2016, 2017) to focus specifically on how teachers learned about children’s writing (both name writing and other emergent writing) from data and what they knew about writing from data.

Method: EC teachers (N=101; 90% female) from a variety of EC settings completed an online survey. They averaged 11 years of teaching experience and educational levels ranged from a high school diploma to a master’s degree. The survey included both closed- and open-response items and required approximately 30 min to complete. Data were examined using descriptive statistics and thematic analyses and analyzed in tandem following mixed-methods procedures (Creswell, 2013).

Results: Teachers gathered data on name writing most often via documented observations (84% of teachers), followed by informal noticing (78%), and then standardized assessments (49%). For gathering data about emergent writing, teachers depended more on informal noticing (75%), followed by documented observations (69%), and then standardized assessments (26%). Almost all teachers (94%) reported that they gather writing data with the purpose of knowing about individual children in contrast to understanding the skills of the entire class generally.
Teachers reported knowing “a lot” about children’s name writing averaging a 4.53 (SD=.85) on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being highest). They reported knowing significantly less about emergent writing, averaging 4.02 (SD=.968), although they still knew a fair amount about emergent writing. When asked in an open-response question what they knew about children’s name writing from data, the majority of teachers provided a description regarding how their children performed. For example, “Most of the students I teach can write their first and last name and hold a pencil correctly,” or “…15 of the children can write their names while the others are able to write some letters in their names.” A third of the teachers also described a learning trajectory, (e.g., “They have to have control of the pencil first.” Or “Name writing emerges over time. Some students learn this task quicker than others. Emergent writing corresponds with knowledge about print”) and half reported ways they support writing (e.g., “Name writing is an activity we encourage children to practice every day and is part of the classroom routine.”) suggesting an understanding of emergent writing processes.

Conclusions: EC teachers reported knowing a great deal about children’s writing. It seems that teachers’ gather data on name writing differently than on emergent writing and feel more confident in their knowledge of name writing. Open-comment data suggest that at least half of teachers use strategies to support writing as a developmental process.

Authors

• Rachel Erin Schachter, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Shayne B Piasta, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author