Writing with markers and crayons

Notice the dress-up clothing. These girls are drawing and writing as part of their pretend play.

One of the five year olds seemed reluctant to write at first when we all sat down for a writing time at the table. She answered my questions confidently, but referred to her writing only in terms of letter formation and did not seem very secure in her ability to write the alphabet. As the other children started writing and drawing and answering my questions, she observed and thought for a while, and then suddenly her demeanor brightened as she piped up, “Oh – I can write too. I’m a good writer, actually, because I can write numbers.” She started to draw and as I asked her about what she was drawing, she began to add details to her picture and tell me more about her family and their house that she was drawing. The more she talked, the more she drew, and the more she drew, the more details she thought of to tell me about and to add onto her picture. Before long, this reluctant writer had drawn several pages of pictures.