Anneke Both-de Vries
It's All in the Name
Early Writing: From Imitating Print to Phonetic Writing


 


16,5 x 24 cm
110 pag.
€ 18,50
ISBN 978 90 5170 817 2
2006


Children as young as three years old succeed in imitating adult writing. About a hundred years ago, Alexander Luria's case studies suggested that to denote meaning 6-years-olds' scribbles include figurative devices such as color or number: a black scribble for 'smoke' and four small strokes to represent four little chicks. In our literate society, children as young as four years old use symbols such as letters and numbers. Writing begins with emotionally charged words: the child's own name or mama. Letters from those words influence how children write unknown words.
They compose letter strings (randomly ordered symbols) with letters from these names. Surprisingly name letters also give the initial impetus to phonetic spelling. When children begin to invent partly correct spelling, they start with representing the first letter of their proper name phonetically.

Contents

Chapter 1: Early writing: Grasping the concept
Chapter 2: Early writing: Similarities between writing and drawing
Chapter 3: Is writing of young children recognizable for experts?
Chapter 4: Writing starts with own name writing: From scribbling to conventional spelling in Israeli and Dutch children
Chapter 5: Name writing: A first step to phonetic writing?
Chapter 6: Are name letters apart from the first among the first letters to be used phonetically?
Chapter 7: General discussion
Chapter 8: Exploring everyday practices

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