By Nancy Olsen-Harbich, MA
Early in the preschool years, children begin to show an interest in what printed words “say”, and often express an interest in creating words on paper so that they can “say “ things in writing too. Although parents of preschoolers are bombarded with messages to read to children early and often, significantly less is said about how to support your children as they express an interest in writing. Of course, what you talk and read about becomes the raw material for future writing – rich oral language experiences lead children to want to write, and give them something to communicate about. Read, talk, and write together to create a foundation for literacy.
All writers begin as scribblers – encourage your children to use writing tools, and explore how they work and what they can do with them by having an interesting assortment of writing tools on hand – pencils, chalk, crayons, paintbrushes, markers, etc and paper. Early scribbles contain lines, shapes, dots, and loops that make up our alphabet, and “just scribbling” is actually good practice for future alphabet users. Many young preschoolers will approach a parent with a paper full of scribbles and ask them to “read” it. Express enthusiasm for this process and ask your child to tell you what the writing says.
Include your young children in the writing you do in everyday life so that they see it as a valuable way to communicate. Point out that you write down the items for the grocery list so that you can remember what to get at the store, and that writing on the bank slip tells the teller what to do with your money. Emailing Grandma about vacation plans or sending her a thank-you note is a way of “talking” on paper or the computer. By “taking dictation” from your preschooler – adding his request for grape juice boxes to the list, or a sentence or two about what he likes to do at nursery school this year in the note for Grandma, or writing a short story to go with his picture for him – you send the message that his thoughts and “words” are valuable and can be communicated to others in writing.
As your children learn to write the letters that make up their names, they will often incorporate these letters into their artwork and look for the letters in their world. (“Look, Mommy, that says my name” as you and Peter pass a pizza place in the car). Encourage this interest in exploring letters by finding them in the environment. “There is a “P” in the stop sign too, at the end. Do you see the “p” on the menu for pasta at the restaurant? “ Have magnetic letters to play with on the refrigerator, rubber stamps of letters to create words with, and lots of materials to use in making books, signs, and greetings cards such as a hole punch, ribbon, tape, envelopes, and different kinds of paper. Let children use their fingers to make letters in shaving cream on a tray, to write them on your back while you guess, to “write” in the sand at the beach.
Encourage your children to use writing in their play. Waitresses at a pretend restaurant can write down the order, explorers of all kinds can make maps, builders can create a list of materials to get at the store or signs to go on the buildings of their pretend town. Print is powerful to young children when it has a purpose. Help them create it and they will want to create it themselves. Offer to write out words that they can copy, and point out places where they can “get” words they know from pictures (labeled picture books and picture dictionaries, food boxes that have the picture and the print word for what’s contained in the box or can).
Along with creating enthusiasm for writing and helping children embrace it as a useful and creative activity worth doing, parents must remember that at its most basic level, writing is a physical activity that takes development of motor skills as well as thinking skills. Preschool children need to develop the muscles of the upper arm and shoulder (easel painting, climbing, throwing) as well as the small muscles of the hands (squishing dough, manipulating Legos, making paper clip chains) in order to have the strength and coordination needed to write letters. Armed with enthusiasm for communicating through writing, an understanding of its purpose, and muscles that are ready to do it, your child will be ready for more formal instruction in the mechanics of writing in “real” school in the future. For now, encourage inventive spelling and experimenting in playful ways with writing.
Nancy Olsen-Harbich is Program Director and a Human Development Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County’s Family Health and Wellness Program. She can be reached at 631-727-7850 ext. 332 or at no18@cornell.edu.