Children's Development of Emergent Writing

Six examples of children's emergent writing are described by Elizabeth Sulzby, professor of education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Excerpted from the video Emergent Literacy: Kindergartners Write and Read (University of Michigan & North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1988).

"In this first sample, Shalonda used three forms of writing, drawing, wavy scribble, and letter-like scribble. She reread by looking occasionally at the scribble and recited a written monologue. Lindsay used five forms of writing. She used drawing, wavy scribble, letter-like scribble, random letters, and patterned letters. She also read a written monologue and looked occasionally at the print.

"Germain wrote a two page story in which he used patterned letter strings arranged in a column. He reread a story about the letter people he had been studying in his classroom, giving one sentence or more as pointed to each of the letters in each of the units. This was an amazing production to hear Germain read this, and he read this as a written monologue. Germain wrote a second story, and this allows us to see his system in more detail. This time he's using patterned letters, but they're actually name elements from the name Billy. Each unit is different. Germain used the same rereading system, a written monologue, pointing to each unit and saying a sentence or more to each one of the letters. We see that each unit is different. He's used column display for space, but he's also underlined, which is another indication of space. His attention to print is total.

"Billy used four forms of writing. He used drawing. He used wavy scribble, and random letters, which he marked out. However, his fourth form of writing, we coded as other. This was when Billy told us he was writing Siamese, which he was practicing. When we asked him what he was practicing, he said, "how to make the raised dots, so that people who cannot see can read by feeling the dots," and he called that Siamese. He read this as an oral monologue and only occasionally looked at the print.

"In Rebecca's two page story, we see a drawing and we see a valentine with the words I love you. When Rebecca was talking about her story, she said she did not write, she only drew pictures, yet later she describe I love you as writing. This is an ambiguity that many five year olds show between whether or not drawing can be a form of writing. Rebecca looked at her picture occasionally and pointed to items and described them. He form of rereading was labeling and describing."