5 Reasons Why Writing Helps Early Reading via Psychology Today

5 Reasons Why Writing Helps Early Reading

Writing is one of the best ways to teach beginners how to read.

Psychology Today: 9.15.2013 by Richard Gentry and Steve Peha

5 Reasons Why Writing Helps Early Reading

What’s the best way to teach reading to beginners in preschool, kindergarten, first grade or home school and how can we do it better? Both research and practice are offering a novel idea: Teach kids to read by writing.

Early writing is of great benefit for learning to read. Yet this methodology seems not to be used to its best advantage. While it might seem novel it also has a powerful precedent: Maria Montessori (1870-1952) observed that children as young as two years of age were interested in tracing sandpaper letters and that many learned to write before reading.

Even though learning to read English with its complex and “opaque” spelling system is harder than learning to read Montessori’s native Italian, both research and practice reveal that many English speaking 3- to 6-year-olds write first and read later.

Here are five reasons why you want to show your beginning reader how to pick up a pencil or crayon and write.

1. Early writing helps children crack the reading code.

Because our language is a sound-symbol system, attempting to write the sounds kids hear is great phonics practice. It also combines segmenting and blending, the two fundamental early reading skills, in one purposeful activity.

Writing is great phonics practice because it requires kids to apply the Alphabetic Principle, the central concept of printed language: “Words are made of sounds that are written with letters.” To write a word, kids have to “hear” it. Then they have to associate the sound they hear with a letter symbol.

2. The first words kids read are often the first ones they write; early writing builds reading confidence.

The first words and sentences kids can read are often the first words and sentences they write. Writing gives them early and much needed confidence with literacy.

Writing first helps kids get the meaning connection because they are conveying their own thoughts. Often, the first words kids write will use unconventional spelling and even unconventional drawing of some letters. However, if we ask kids to read what they have written, and especially if we point to each “word” as kids read along, they can often remember their ideas and read them back.

═════════►

Here are 5 things you can do to promote early writing:

★ Give kids writing tools and encourage them to use them. The smaller the hand, the bigger the tool. For very small kids, sidewalk chalk is great. But as soon as kids can grip a fat pen or pencil, teach them how to hold it correctly.

★ Have kids watch you when you write, especially when you write simple things like lists. Kids not only want to please adults, they want to be adults or “big kids”. Seeing that you write will naturally make them feel that writing is a “big kid” thing. Remember, that when you read silently, kids may not know you are reading. But when they see you write, they know exactly what you’re doing. READ MORE >>