Guest Author - Jeanette Norman

With this center, you must remember the stages of writing development that children go through. The first stage is scribbling. My now 3 ½ year old daughter loved to fill pages and pages of scribbling. Commend children for trying.

The second stage is attempting to make letters. This is when the scribble starts resembling letters. During this stage, a child may get frustrated because they know what they are trying to write but it just isn’t forming what they are intending.

Then there is the breakthrough stage of actual word formation yet. Many times the letters used are the ones in the child’s name. This is because this is such an important word to children and is usually the first word a child will be able to read.

Most children will not write legible words until close to starting kindergarten. Providing tracing sheets and cards with words on them for children to copy will help at any writing stage.

Children will love “reading” their writing to you. Take time everyday to go to the writing center and engage the children in talking about their writing efforts.

If you need to write something, say notes to parents or other teachers, sit in the writing center to do this. I used to sit in the writing center when writing out next week’s lesson plan. This is showing the children the importance of writing and its uses.