Early Literacy in Preschool and Kindergarten

¶ … Teaching writing to young children

Learning how to write is an important tool in encouraging young children to get excited about reading. A 2010 experimental study in the Journal of Educational Research (Jones, Reutzel & Fargo 2010) compared two common techniques used in kindergarten classrooms to help young readers learn to write: interactive writing and the writing workshop method. "As children write, they analyze thought and meaning, experiment with words and form, and learn concepts of directionality, sequencing, and spacing" (Jones, Reutzel & Fargo 2010). Previous studies indicated that even the very youngest readers could benefit from writing instruction, given the way that writing can help them analyze words letter by letter and that "letter-sound correspondence cannot be learned outside the written system" (Jones, Reutzel & Fargo 2010). The benefits of writing instructions at the kindergarten level exist "even after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and IQ effects" (Jones, Reutzel & Fargo 2010).

The interactive writing technique, as its name suggests, is the act of writing as a group. The topic is mutually decided upon and the teacher and students work together to collectively write a group sentence, paragraph, or even a short story. "Teacher guidance focuses student attention on applying letter-sound correspondence, segmenting and blending, letter identification and formation, and high frequency word recognition" (Jones, Reutzel & Fargo 2010). The act of writing interactively is used to reinforce a variety of grammatical concepts yet also to inspire creative writing.

In the writing workshop format, "each student writes on a self-selected topic, negotiating the text with a focus on sharing personal experiences in a meaningful way. Students assume ownership of their writing and work at their own pace. Students are often encouraged to use invented spellings. Mistakes are not corrected and, in fact, serve as an indicator of student knowledge and progress" (Jones, Reutzel & Fargo 2010). This activity is not directive like interactive writing, although there is an aspect of student 'sharing' inherent to the process. Interactive writing is fundamentally skills based, while writing workshops are process-based and focus more upon students 'owning' the writing process. Learning sequencing is different -- in interactive writing, students learn phonetics first, breaking down words into smaller units, while writing workshops encourage students to learn words in a larger context by using the whole language approach or 'top-down' processing. The role of the teacher is highly directive in interactive learning while with writing workshops, the teacher acts as a facilitator.

The study compared 151 kindergarten students in two different, but demographically consistent school districts, one of which used an interactive writing program, the other of which used a writing workshop program. At the end of the study, the students were tested on such basic concepts as phonological awareness, knowledge of the alphabet, and word reading. No statistically significant differences emerged between the two groups of learners. Both groups showed significant growth over the 16-week study, underlining the necessity of incorporating writing into the kindergarten curriculum, regardless of the methodology used.