A Unique Child: Practice in pictures - real-life activities

Ava (two-and-a-half) and her mother are having breakfast. They are talking about what they need at the shops. Ava wants to write her own list and uses the pen to confidently make marks on the paper. She gives it back to Mum to finish off, telling her to 'write you' and then 'write Mummy and Ava'.

She wants to know which word says Mummy and asks, 'Where you put you?' Mum shows her and, when asked, Ava is able to point to her own name. When they go to the shops, Ava is able to find for herself the cereal she chose to put on the list.

GOOD PRACTICE

1. Although she is still quite young, Ava already knows a lot about writing and its purpose.

She is able to grasp the pen and make it work well enough to produce deliberate marks on the paper. She understands what a list is for and makes confident choices about items to put on it. She knows about words and how they stand for things - that 'Mummy' and 'Ava' are different words and don't look the same. She is already beginning to recognise her own name. She confidently 'behaves as a writer' while also making good use of a grown-up to demonstrate what she knows she can't do yet.

2. Ava has obviously had lots of experience of meaningful writing. She will have seen her mother use writing for lots of different purposes, and here Mum is sharing the activity with Ava in a relaxed and natural way.

Daily events like this are the best way for children to observe and take part in early literacy experiences. Sometimes parents aren't aware of this and think that writing is a task that can only be done properly in formal ways. Good partnership with parents involves raising their awareness of the value of all the 'ordinary' activities and experiences they provide in the home.

Help parents in their understanding by providing examples and reassuring them that what they do naturally is just as important as activities in school or nursery.

This is particularly important for those parents who may be anxious about their own literacy skills. They perhaps don't recognise the value in their everyday reading (magazines, TV guides, newspapers, packaging) and writing, when they are signing their name, writing birthday cards, making lists or texting messages.

3. The same is true when children are away from their home and family. Sharing in real writing activities with practitioners has so much more value than isolated formal writing tasks.

Think about all the different kinds of writing activity that children see you engage in and consider ways to involve them naturally in what you are doing. Writing lists is an obvious one. Remember to take the time to talk about what you are doing and why the list will help you.

Share your lists with the children and ask them to think of things you might have forgotten. Post your lists up where the children can help you check things off as you do them. Writing observations is another daily event that children quickly get used to seeing you do. Make sure you leave sticky notes around for them to make their own observations.

4. Ava's writing activity was also linked to going shopping with her mother. Ordinary real-life events such as these are just as important when the child is cared for outside the home.

Going shopping is something that practitioners need to provide opportunities for on a regular basis. Children will draw on this in their pretend play and naturally incorporate writing if this was part of the original experience. Make sure role-play areas have plenty of writing materials that children can use for their own purposes.

Provide easy ways for children to transport writing materials to any part of the setting. Use baskets, bags, clipboards and small kitchen vegetable trolleys - they make tidying up easier too.

5. Ava was able to make the link between her list and the box of cereal she was looking for in the supermarket. The opportunity to explore print in the environment is a really important part of early literacy experience.

Bring real-life print into the early years environment in natural, unforced ways and encourage children to interact with it. But take time to see the world through a child's eyes - you might notice two things.

First of all, there are the little things that as adults we may no longer notice, such as the lettering on our clothes and the shapes in structures or furniture. But open your eyes to all this and you may start to experience the sensory overload that our modern-day environment can become to a small child. We need to be careful that we don't bombard children with unnecessary and irrelevant print, as in pointless labelling and instructional notices or in meaningless copywriting tasks.

In many European countries, children are not expected to engage in any formal reading or writing until after the age of seven. Think about the labels, notices and print that you display in your setting, and ask what is really relevant to young children.

Get down on the floor and see what you notice. Try to experience the meaning that the child finds in their environment. Relish their joy in making new connections - 'there's writing on your shoes' - and also recognise their need for aesthetically calm and soothing spaces.

6. Ava's experience is natural and unforced and she initiates writing activity at a level that is meaningful to her. The mother's role in this is to respond and share that interest.

She can do this because she is tuned in to Ava's development and her enthusiasms. The interaction is just as important as the writing activity - probably more so, as it builds Ava's confidence and enjoyment of writing so that she will be keen to repeat the experience again and again in other contexts.

As practitioners, we have a responsibility to get to know our children well so that we can tune in to them in the same way, being ready to make the most of their interest and to connect with their previous experiences.

Tuning in and knowing our children well also means that we are less likely to use developmentally inappropriate tasks and activities with them. It is our responsibility to match our knowledge of child development with well-informed understanding of the literacy process, to make sure that children's natural curiosity and enthusiasm for communicating is not damaged by inappropriate tasks and early formality.

If our children are to become eager, confident, accomplished writers at a later stage, they need us to safeguard their most important early literacy experiences.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Film notes to Siren's 'Supporting Early Literacy' by Jennie Lindon

Further information

The stills are taken from Siren Films' 'Supporting Early Literacy'. For more information, visit Siren Films at www.sirenfilms.co.uk or call 0191 232 7900

Links to the EYFS guidance
- UC 1.1 Child Development
- PR 2.3 Supporting Learning
- L&D 4.1 Play and Exploration
- L&D 4.2 Active Learning