The Write Start (2 page)

Child development is much like the house that emerges from the hole. Higher-level skills (like writing) need to be built on a strong foundation of basic skills. Lay the groundwork, and development can progress unencumbered. Proceed without proper support, however, and what follows will be shaky, at best.

Armed with this insight, it became my personal mission to catch kids
before
they fell. My goal was to spread the word to parents about writing development, starting with the foundational skills and working my way up. I led workshops, wrote handouts and newsletters, and provided parent consultations. As I now had children of my own, I was able to road test activities at home. Becoming a parent afforded me the additional insight that if something isn’t easy to incorporate into the daily routine, it won’t get done. So I learned how to serve up some writing readiness at mealtimes, pack it into car trips, tuck it into the bedtime routine, and wrap it up in holiday rituals. Because I am conscious of the developmental importance of writing, adding it to the daily grind has become second nature to me. And like most parents, I am juggling
a lot
. So I assure you, if I can do it with very little fuss, I know that you can too.

The Write Idea

So when does writing start and why? From the first time your baby swipes carrot puree across the high chair tray, then catches your eye as if to say, “Look what I did!” to scribbling, drawing, making squiggles, symbols, and letters, inventing spellings and words, noting numbers, creating tally marks, diagrams, you name it, your child is writing. Writing is making marks that have meaning. Since children are naturally creative, they will come up with all sorts of inventive ways to communicate or document their thoughts by using whatever marks they are able to make. All are valid, and all should be valued.

Learning to write is a milestone of childhood, one that ranks right up there with baby’s first smile, first steps, and first words. What these momentous events have in common is self-expression. Each of these events propels a child from passive to active, from thinking to doing. Writing is thought in action. It is one of the fundamental ways a child communicates to the world, “Hey! This is what’s on my mind.” When you reinforce all your children’s attempts at writing—even those scribbles and squiggles—you help them learn that they can communicate effectively using this fascinating medium.

Children, like all humans, have an inherent need to express themselves. They are innately interested in finding the means and methods to record and communicate their ideas. From their first crude marks onward, their writings reflect this uniquely human desire to say “I am here” and “This is my story.”

And, although helping your children to achieve the writing skills that enable them to share their thoughts, feelings, and desires is a hugely worthwhile task on its own, the benefits of raising a writer go way beyond that. Writing allows us to do so much more than express ourselves—it’s an essential tool we use every day for a variety of practical (and productive) reasons.

Strong writing skills are inextricably linked with children’s lifelong learning, literacy, and academic and employment success. More than ever, in this “age of information,” children need to take ownership of all the knowledge surrounding them. And writing remains the very best way to do that.

The Link to Learning

Thinking and learning are not one and the same. Thinking is a passive pursuit; learning is active. In order for learning to occur, there has to be an active expression of thought. Writing is self-expression at its most active. It is the tool by which we communicate what we have understood. Through the process of writing, children integrate knowledge and make it their own. This is the very definition of learning.

The Link to Literacy

Good writers make great readers. Why? Because practicing letter formation when writing reinforces speedy letter recognition when reading. Writing also reinforces important left-to-right and top-to-bottom concepts inherent to reading. Most of all, writing gives children a tool to build words and stories from the sounds they already know. This emerging ability to write down their thoughts lays the foundation for children’s desire to read the thoughts and ideas of others.

You may be surprised to learn that, for developing children, writing often precedes reading. How can this be? Because writing, like spoken language, is self-generated. Once children are able to link sounds to letters, they are ready to write their own thoughts and then read them back to themselves. And children who are able to read their own writing are well-equipped to read the writing of others. Better yet, children who learn to read their own writing first expend less effort decoding when reading, which frees up more of their attentional resources to focus on meaning.

The Link to Academic Success

Good writers also make great students. The speed and ease of children’s writing can have a major impact on their overall academic success. Time and again it has been found that children who are able to write quickly and automatically outperform their peers across the curriculum.

The ability to write well is consistently related to academic success, both in research and in reality. And by “good writing” we don’t mean perfect copybook penmanship either. Effective writing should be legible—both to the writer and the reader. But, even more important, effective writing should be efficient. Efficient writing flows quickly and easily from the hand of the writer. It is natural, almost effortless. Efficient writers’ pencils are able to keep up with their thoughts. A pencil that moves freely and easily is a vehicle for self-expression, communication, and learning. And, apparently, an efficient pencil can write a child’s ticket to academic success.

Efficient writers have an edge on their peers when it comes to note taking, homework, and studying for tests. This holds true in every subject young students encounter across the board. Whether in a science, math, history, or language class, students need to be able to record, relay, and review information quickly and easily through writing in order to learn. And when it comes to testing, it is not surprising that students who write faster consistently achieve higher grades on written exams.

Efficient writers have another less obvious advantage over their classmates: a greater ability to pay attention. Since efficient writers don’t have to focus their attention on the mechanics of writing, they are able to focus on what really matters—meaning. Making meaningful connections is what academic learning is all about. Students who write with ease are able to devote all of their attentional resources to the meaning of the written words. This attention is the basis for comprehension.

It doesn’t end there. Efficient writers surpass their peers in productivity in school as well. Simply stated, the better children are at writing, the more they will write. And the more they write, the better they will get at writing. As their writing improves, their learning is enhanced, as is their performance across the curriculum. Not to mention their confidence and self-esteem, the immeasurable fringe benefits of academic success.

The Link to Higher Education

When most high schoolers and their parents begin contemplating college, they shudder at the thought of the ubiquitous college essay. High school guidance counselors begin planting the seeds early on, assuring everyone that a knockout essay can open many doors for a student. As it turns out, the college essay is just the first of many writing challenges in store for college students.

The writing on the ivy walls is clear: good writing is the cornerstone of higher education. Solid writing skills provide a strong foundation for students who aspire to succeed in college. And a love of writing learned early on will certainly make it easier for children to choose the path that leads to a university education.

College courses take writing to a whole new level. No longer content to simply have students write about what they are thinking, college professors encourage their students to write about
why
they are thinking what they’re thinking. Most college-level writing centers on a thesis, a focusing statement about what students are thinking, followed by evidence that supports their claim and defends it against challengers. Whew. Tough stuff. But not for children who have been writing their minds for so long that they are well prepared to rise to the occasion.

The Link to Technology

With over 90 percent of American children using computers on a daily basis, parents and children alike are understandably excited by all that technology has to offer. And in this technologically advanced millennium, there is no question that the computer has become a quintessential tool for communication. As schools and homes dedicate more resources, both time and money, to technology, writing by hand is falling by the wayside. But the question remains, does modern technology make writing by hand a thing of the past?

Neglecting old-school writing education in favor of its high-tech counterpart is a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences. For young children, a significant developmental opportunity will be missed if a computer is their primary tool for writing. Complex neurological processes occur as our brains guide the movement of our fingers across the page. The process of writing by hand strengthens mind and body connections that underlie attention, coordination, and learning. The movements inherent to writing exercise the brain in ways that a keyboard cannot.

Additionally, children don’t even begin to develop effective keyboarding skills until around the third grade. Up until then, children’s typing abilities are not efficient enough to keep up with the flow of their ideas. Obviously, waiting until the third grade to learn to write would be another missed opportunity.

A final reason why neglecting writing instruction is detrimental may be the one most compelling to techno-enthusiasts. Computer-savvy individuals are well aware that technology is constantly evolving. Who knows what computing of the future will be like? Already, pen-based computing—in which a pen-like stylus, with the aid of advanced handwriting recognition software, interfaces with a computer—is finding its way into the hands of students and teachers, as well as businesses and industries, across the country. As it turns out, writing may be the new keyboarding.

The Link to Career Success

In the workplace, writing skills are considered a commodity. Written communication is still the most efficient way to reach the greatest number of people. Employers are looking to hire candidates who can compose effective memos, letters, proposals, newsletters, and reports. Strong writing skills are therefore vital to business and professional success.

Between employee and employer, good writing skills communicate clear and purposeful thinking. Businesses in most industries screen job applicants for writing skills, and often don’t hire candidates without them. Although it’s way too early for kids to start worrying about who will sign their first paycheck, it’s never too early to get down to business when it comes to writing. Just think about how children’s thank-you notes to Grandma and family newsletters are great practice for their future business correspondence and corporate reports.

The bottom line? Little kids with big aspirations can practically write their own résumé for success by honing their writing skills right from the start.

The Write Way

In order to help guide your children in the “write” direction, it helps to know exactly where you’re going. Use this book to build your own foundation, as the parent of a young writer. The first part opens by reflecting on the importance of writing, developmentally speaking. It goes on to highlight the developmental stages related to writing readiness, the best ways to help children build their foundational skills, ideas for equipping children for writing success, and creative ways to encourage and inspire young writers at home. Read through this first part, incorporating whatever information and advice applies to your children (taking into consideration the developmental stages they are at right now) and your particular daily routine. These chapters will provide you with the bare essentials—all the advice and information you need to get your children ready to write.

The second part features fifty-two classic writing activities. Slip one of these projects into your children’s writing repertoire when and where it seems to fit, adapting it to their developmental level with the help of the suggested variations. Before long you will find that they will have gained the skills they need to accomplish any writing task that comes their way, and the satisfaction that accompanies the ability to call oneself a writer.

I hope you will find there are a few different ways to use this book. If you are picking it up as the parent of a scribbler, you can use it as a road map to help you guide your child along the path to writing. If your child is already starting to write letters and words, you will find it to be a handy resource to refer to as you support your child’s newfound skills. If you are the parent of a reluctant writer, the information in this book is exactly what you need to retrace your child’s steps, so to speak. Older children, revisiting their learn-to-write days as they make the transition to cursive, will benefit from reviewing the book’s advice and activities as they practice writing in a new style. And if you have multiple children of different ages, you will find that the activity variations in this book are ideal for when your kids are all sitting around the kitchen table—writing thank-you notes, shopping lists, pen-pal letters, or make-believe stories—and you want to figure out how to modify the activity to meet all your kids’ needs, no matter their different ages and stages. My hope is that this is a book that will stay on your bookshelf a long time, growing with you and your children—your handbook for helping your family’s story unfold.