That's My Letter!: What Preschoolers' Name Writing Representations Tell Us about Emergent Literacy Knowledge

Abstract

This study explored the extent to which preschool children's name writing representations reflected their more general emergent literacy knowledge in print and phonological awareness. As part of a preschool literacy screening program, 3,546 4-year-old children were administered a name writing task and additional indices of emergent literacy. Children were placed into four groups based on the level of their name-writing representations. The four groups were compared for performance on alphabet knowledge, concept of word, print knowledge, rhyme awareness, and beginning sound awareness tasks. The four name-writing groups significantly differed from one another on each of these dependent measures. Additionally, a regression analysis showed the linear combination of the five emergent literacy indices to significantly predict level of name writing representation, accounting for 36% of the variance in outcome. Print-related skills (alphabet knowledge, print concepts), in addition to age, accounted for 34% of this variance. While findings suggest that name writing representations can differentiate children in both phonological and print awareness, name writing representations appear to predominantly reflect print-related knowledge.