Building a Bridge: Writing and Reading Connections in Early Childhood

Abstract

Reading and writing are essential components of literacy. Children's initial preschool experiences with literacy set important foundations for later school success. Instruction that can create a bridge between reading and writing to support children's developing understandings in both these areas of literacy has powerful implications for their literacy growth. This teaching and learning in action guide explores meaningful connections between reading and writing by examining the way in which one prekindergarten teacher supports children's reading–writing skills across various components of written language (i.e., sounds, letters, words, sentences, and content) and within various instructional contexts (centers, small groups, large group/read‐aloud). This article shares research‐based approaches in the context of specific examples in which the focal teacher fosters meaningful reading and writing connections using two key read‐alouds as starting points. How do we make reading–writing connections in preschool across contexts and learning experiences to support children's literacy in meaningful, engaging, and developmentally appropriate ways and make connections visible to children? What high‐quality reading and writing experiences influence preschoolers' engagement in activities? What ways are reading and writing addressed in your classroom across various instructional contexts (i.e., whole group, small group, centers)?

Writing as a Path to the Alphabetic Principle: How Preschoolers Learn that their Own Writing Represents Speech

“…As noted by Senechal et al (2023), important next steps should include correlational studies of the relation between SPL in early childhood writing and other important literacy skills. Because children's foundational understandings of SPL are seen as central to both reading and writing in alphabetic languages (Read, 2009), future research should explore this reading-writing connection (Quinn & Traga Philippakos, 2023). In the future, intervention research should also be designed to directly explore the impact of adult materialization practices as supports for children's learning about writing as a representational system.…”