Nordic preschool student teachers’ views on early writing in preschool

Abstract

This study investigates preschool student teachers' views on how early writing should be supported in preschool. The sample consists of 66 preschool student teachers from Finland, Norway, and Sweden, who participated in the study by responding to open-ended questions on a written questionnaire. Results show that the respondents' answers were underpinned by holistic views on children's learning; they value children's own initiative as a decisive learning factor. Further, the responses underscore the importance of a writing-inviting environment and the preschool teachers acting as role models. The respondents rarely offered explicit theoretical reasons and arguments for why they would encourage early writing. Based on the findings, it appears critical to discuss within the profession the issue why early writing should be encouraged.

Early childhood teachers’ writing beliefs and practices

“…In contrast to this perspective, research also identifies that teachers believe that young children find writing to be interesting (Gerde et al, 2019b) and that they identify young children as writers early on (Hall et al, 2019;Magnusson et al, 2022). For example, Hall et al (2019) found that early educators had more positive beliefs about preschoolers' writing abilities than parents, demonstrating an understanding of writing development that was not typical of other adults.…”

“…Perhaps this is why we observe ample opportunities for children to write their name with a range of materials, opportunities for tracing and copying letters, and experiences for exercising fine motor skills available at writing centers (Gerde et al, 2015). This readiness perspective is not unusual among early childhood educators and may be how those beliefs and ideas are manifested for early writing through the provision of writing materials and activities (Gerde et al, 2019b;Magnusson et al, 2022).…”

“…The complexity of early writing development for young children may be taken for granted by adults who have long automated developmental systems that take years to fully develop, which may lead to developmentally inappropriate writing instruction (Puranik and Lonigan, 2014;Bingham et al, 2017). While initial work in the US examining early educators' beliefs and writing practices identified limited relation between beliefs and reported or observed practices (Gerde et al, 2019b), in a study of preservice preschool educators from Norway, Sweden, and Finland, Magnusson et al (2022) found that preschool teachers endorsed play based approaches for supporting children's writing, which was also reflected in their self-reported practices, particularly when discussing ways to make writing environments interesting and 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1236652 engaging for children. However, they also found that teacher's selfreported writing mediation practices lacked details and concrete examples.…”

“…Given previous research suggesting the importance of teacher knowledge to their early writing beliefs and practices (Hindman and Wasik, 2008;Magnusson et al, 2022) teachers were asked to define early writing development. This open-ended response took up approximately a half-page of the survey at the beginning, allowing teachers ample space to write their responses.…”