Two-year-old and three-year-old children’s writing: the contradictions of children’s and adults’ conceptualisations

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper reports the findings of in-depth qualitative research to investigate two-year-old and three-year-old children’s writing. It focuses on nine families whose children attended the same early years pre-school setting. The research developed a clear understanding of what children of this age understand about the functions and purpose of writing; and joint understanding amongst parents and early years practitioners of how the children’s emergent writing might be supported both in their home and early years setting. Data sets included a series of classroom observations, examples of children’s writing, and interview transcripts with children’s parents and early years practitioners. Findings showed that most adults did not perceive that the children could write, a perception that was rooted in the conceptualisation of writing as necessarily formed of conventional text, and a skill to be developed and taught at a later age. In direct contrast to this, the participant children were engaging in their own discourse of writing to record and share meaningful text. It is argued that if young children perceive themselves to be writing, a responsive writing pedagogy can only be effective if the development ofwriting in the early years is reframed.