Learning to Read & Write: Considering the Process
Will my child be able to read and write? Literacy is a basic element in education and also one of the biggest points of concern for many young parents. We live in a world surrounded by messages that tell us “the sooner the better”. Yet when it comes to learning to read and write, shouldn’t we strive for students to gain a life long love for these activities?
WSRF faculty member, Patti Connolly, was recently featured in Renewal, a Journal for Waldorf Education highlighting her work with Janet Langley around the process of learning to write in the early grades.
In the article, Connolly & Langley note: “Kid Writing, based on recent discoveries in neuroscience, is an effective tool for literacy instruction because it supports the brain development necessary for learning to read and write. Reading and writing are not innate human skills like understanding and speaking our mother tongue. Reading and writing require the linking of certain areas of our brains — originally tasked with interpreting and communicating through spoken words and images — so that we can decode the alphabet and the text it creates.”
What is “Kid Writing”?
Kid Writing is an approach to literacy that draws on the student’s beginning knowledge of letters and sounds and allows them to begin writing, forming collections of letters that resemble words and sentences that act as stepping stones in the literacy process. According to the article, “teachers who use Kid Writing typically report that it is one of their student’s favorite things to do! This is understandable since Kid Writing allows children to share their own thoughts on a selected topic or on the story their teacher told.”
The authors go on to note: “ Unlike copying text that the teacher has written on the chalkboard, which is basically handwriting practice, Kid Writing involves the child’s will and creativity. In doing so, she engages and connects the three areas of the left hemisphere of the brain needed for learning to read and spell. Kid Writing helps create what is called the ‘letter-to-sound decoding route’, the essential neural superhighway connecting these three regions.”
Ready to learn more? You can read the full article, including a detailed description of this process by Connolly and Langley linked here.
In diving into this approach to literacy, we can’t help but wonder, how might the student experience change if children are more engaged in the creation of words and sentences? What happens when a love of learning is sparked so early in their journey?
