I am particularly passionate about writing through play, so much so that my dissertation for my MEd is on playful writing and how it can promote children’s voice and develop their love and identity as a writer. Writing allows children to communicate their interests, ideas and thoughts with others and allows them to express themselves in print. Writing and play go hand in hand as they are both ways children socialise and interact with others.

 

I have had the privilege of visiting many different settings over the past few months and have seen lots of great writing through play opportunities woven throughout the indoor and outdoor spaces. Many settings are already providing lots of mark making opportunities and experiences for children to use writing resources and materials in authentic and purposeful ways.

 

Writing is one of the trickiest things a child will learn to do. The physical act of writing is only one aspect of the process. Children need to able to generate ideas, draw on a bank of vocabulary, understand the many different forms and purposes of writing as well as have the fine and gross motor skills required to hold a pencil.

 

Before children even put pen to paper it is our job to help them develop the skills, characteristics, and attitudes to become a successful writer:

 

• They need to develop fine and gross motor skills; hand-eye coordination; visual memory; alphabetic knowledge; and an understanding of the concept of print.
• They need a well-developed expressive language; an understanding of purpose and audience; an ability to generate and structure ideas; a bank of vocabulary to draw upon; one- to- one correspondence between words and print; and knowledge of the features of different forms of writing (e.g. stories, lists, letters, cards).
• Children also need opportunities to develop confidence, resilience, perseverance, creativity, and motivation to help them through the difficult process of becoming a successful writer.
• Children need certain executive cognitive functions such as the ability to stay focused on a task and the cognitive flexibility to be able to shift between all the processes involved in writing.

 

 

Luckily our Early Years environments already provide many play experiences that develop all these skills. In addition to providing mark

making opportunities there are lots of things you do every day that are helping children develop all the necessary skills:

 

• Lots of talk to develop vocabulary
• Songs, rhymes, dancing
• A literacy rich environment – books, storytelling, environmental print
• Scribing children’s stories/drawings for them (helicopter stories).
• Arts and crafts to develop creativity, imagination, fine motor skills,
• Imaginative/dramatic play – acting out stories and experiencing how writing materials are used in real life
• Puzzles and games – to develop perseverance, problem solving and fine motor skills
• Risky play – climbing, jumping, balancing to develop gross motor skills
• Sewing/weaving – to develop fine motor skills, planning and creativity
• Block play – drawing plans and blueprints and it also helps to develop symbolic play which is a skill needed for writing as the letters symbolise their thoughts in print.

And many many more…

We want to develop young writers who carry their love and confidence as a writer throughout their lives and we can do that by having less of a focus on letter formation and more focus on all the other skills required.

Play is the perfect context to nurture the cognitive, physical, social and emotional skills children need to develop as confident writers. So, keep on doing what you’re doing 😊.

Frances x