By age 2, children begin to understand that marks they make can convey meaning, and explore ideas through drawings, as well as intentional scribbles and letter-like forms they come to distinguish from drawing as “writing” (e.g., a tight scribble beneath a drawing is the caption according to the child). Toddlers grip crayons with their fists as they try out writing tools. By 12–15 months, children typically master the pincer grasp (i.e., coordination of the thumb and index finger to hold an object), a skill required to later hold a pencil. Over the course of their first year, they become increasingly adept at grasping objects as they hone stronger hand and finger muscles, and hand-eye coordination. Babies are born with a grasping reflex, but do not intentionally reach for objects until around 4 months. Composing is challenging enough for older children and adults, so just imagine the hard work it takes to develop these skills while learning the writing mechanics and spelling conventions! Through practice, however, handwriting and spelling become more automatic, allowing children to focus on composing which demands higher-level cognitive skills (Graham, 2010).Īs with reading, writing development involves a complex process that begins at birth.
Handwriting, spelling, and composition develop together to help young children connect the oral and written worlds (Schickedanz & Casbergue, 2009). It also involves meaning-making processes, such as learning the functions of writing, and composition (Berninger et al., 2002 Hall et al., 2015 Strachan, Duke, & Teale, 2013), or “translating ideas into text with purpose” (Quinn & Rohloff, 2023). Writing is more than transcription (handwriting and spelling). We write via handwriting or type to fill out medical forms, for work assignments, to communicate with loved ones, to express feelings, and to convey a sense of identity (Engel, 2016 U.S. Writing is critical for daily life in Euro-Western societies. Are we doing all we can to effectively convey and model what it means to foster early writing and why it’s so important? What Is Early Writing and Why Is It Important? If my colleague, who is embedded in the public library world, is unsure about what it looks like to support early writing, she is likely not alone. Despite being familiar with ECRR2, however, she is unsure exactly how to nurture emergent writing. A library colleague and mother of a preschooler, recently remarked that she feels confident about how to promote her son’s early literacy development through talking, singing, reading, and playing.
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