Your question made me think back to an experience in a preschool classroom about 10 years ago. I will use the story of my experience to answer your question.
I was working with a teacher in a preschool for very low-income children, for which I provided curriculum development and instructional strategy support. On the first day I visited, I observed the teacher implement an activity about materials that do or do not absorb water well, which was part of a unit of study on Wind and Water. The teacher had prepared the activity for a small group of five children, following closely the plan I had provided, which called for providing two trays of a variety of materials, in the middle of the table, for several children to share. These two trays included both materials that absorbed water and those that repelled it (e.g., small pieces of sponges, paper towels, aluminum foil, construction paper, terry cloth, and lamination film, as well as small plastic and wooden blocks, large metal washers, some small plastic saucers from the dramatic play set, and some metal lids from frozen fruit juice containers and house play pot and pans).
Each child was also given a work tray, a plastic eyedropper, and a small dish of water. There were also some whole sponges of the smaller kind on the table, for use in wiping up spills, and a roll of paper towels intended for the same purpose.
Children were given general directions to test the items from the two trays in the middle of the table, to see if they absorbed water or repelled it, by putting small drops of water from their eyedropper on each item they selected for their own work tray.
The teacher was enthusiastic about the experience and expressed curiosity herself about which materials would absorb water, and which ones wouldn’t, and also provided a quick demonstration of how to use an eyedropper, but without following this up with guided practice.
Once these preliminaries were over, the children were told to go ahead and “experiment and have fun.”
Within minutes, children were grabbing several items at a time to test with their eyedroppers, and they were having a lot of difficulty working an eyedropper. Before long, a child simply picked up his small bowl of water and dumped it into his tray. Other children quickly followed suit. Soon, there was a bit of quarreling over the plastic dishes, because one child wanted them all on her tray to “wash.” One child spotted the back-up pitcher of water, intended for refilling the small bowls of water, if depleted from filling eyedroppers to test the items, and he poured some in his now empty dish, and offered to pour some into the dishes of the other children.
Within a few minutes, the “science” activity had turned into a dramatic play activity, with children “washing” dishes and other items in the water now in the work trays, or “washing” the tables with the sponges they found sitting on the table.
Before the small group time was up, the teacher stopped the children, saying that they had created a “big mess” because they weren’t following directions, and that they’d need to stop now. She used a plastic tub to gather up the soaked paper towel pieces and other items, and began to take each child’s tray, in turn, to dump its water into a bucket she had on hand.
The children were laughing and talking loudly, having a great time, as long as they could, while resisting requests to “stop and settle down.”
The teacher was very upset, of course, and said, “These children are just not ready for experiences like these. They like to play all the time. They don’t care which materials absorb water or repel it. That’s not what preschoolers care about.”
I could certainly see that this group of children didn’t seem interested in finding out about these properties of materials, but I had used the very same activity in a setting with higher income children, and it had worked splendidly. They did seem to care. I said this to the teacher, but also indicated that this approach to exploring these concepts certainly was not working with her children.
Another small group of children from her class was scheduled to participate in the same activity the next day, and I was scheduled for a three-day visit to the preschool. I offered to take materials with me to my hotel that evening, and prepare an activity with the same goals for the next day, but with a different approach. I also offered to guide the activity the next day, rather than put the teacher on the spot again. She agreed to this plan.
That evening, I spent an hour or two thinking about the situation, and then started planning and preparing materials. I wanted to incorporate play in the activity, but in a way that would focus children on the science concepts I hoped they would learn. I also decided that I needed to control children’s access to materials this time, that I could not just put out a lot of materials and hope that they would regulate their own use of them, in relation to the science goals. I decided to use a method that might be called “watch me first and then you do it.” I also decided not to use items, such as dishes and metal lids from pots and pans from the dramatic play area, because it might be hard for the children to set aside their previous play schemes in this new situation.
I also substituted small plastic bottles of water, with twist tops, for the small dishes of water, and got rid of the eyedroppers, which the children did not know how to use. (Had I had time, I would have devoted an entire small group session to just playing around with eyedroppers, to give children a chance to develop skill in using them, but I didn’t have that much time.
I knew the school had a good supply of the small plastic twist top bottles, and I planned to arrive at school early enough the next morning to fill 4-5 bottles for each child, with each bottle having only a small amount of water (i.e., about ¼ full) in it. That way, even if a child emptied the bottle on one “test run,” the children’s trays would not have a lot of water on them.
I also planned to work the use of the small sponges into the activities, by having children use these to clean their trays and the table around it, if they spilled water. Thus, cleaning up with the sponge, which children liked to do, would occur multiple times. I also planned to wipe the children’s work trays and table surface dry using paper towels, after they had used them to wipe up most of the spilled water drops.
I also cut materials (e.g., AL foil, terry cloth, paper towels, construction paper) into quite small pieces (1-1/2 inch square), not in larger pieces (3” X 3”) as had been used the day before.
The next day, with a new group of four children, I explained that I was going to be their teacher, and that I would do something first, and then give them the same materials to do what I had done, in their own tray. “But first,” I explained, “I need to teach you how to use these little twist top bottles.” I used mine first, turning it upside down over my tray, and squeezing, and commenting that water was not coming out, because the cap was closed. It then turned it right-side up and twisted it open, talking to explain my actions, as I did this, and then I turned it upside down over my tray and squeezed it, to show that water would come out, full stream.
I said I was going to close the twist top just a little bit, because I wanted to squeeze out drops, not a stream, of water. I adjusted the top and turned it over again, squeezing a little less hard this time, and also for a briefer period of time. Drops came out, as I had wanted, and the children noticed. I commented that it was “hard to get just single drops,” and that I wasn’t sure the children would be able to get their bottles to do that. Several children commented, “I can,” or “I know I can.”
I gave the children a bottle of water and their work trays to try working their bottle tops, asking them first to twist theirs open until it would not turn anymore. “You should get a stream of water when you turn it upside down, I told them.” And, sure enough, this is what happened when they tried. I then told them to turn their bottles right side up and twist the top until it was closed a little bit, but not completely, and then see if they could make drops come out. A few children had closed their bottle caps completely and couldn’t get any water out, and had to adjust their cap accordingly. Others got drops right away, and learned to squeeze less hard and more briefly to get just one drop at a time, which I said was incredibly hard to do, and maybe not possible for them. Everyone worked until they were able to do this, and insisted I look as they demonstrated.
Once the bottle use practice had ended, I gave each child a sponge in exchange for the water bottle, and said they now needed to wipe up the water in their tray, because the next thing they would do in their tray, when I gave it back to them, required a dry tray to start. The children used the sponges to wipe the water in their trays, and handed them to me. I used a paper towel to absorb some water streaks and a few drops, and then told the children it was their turn to watch me do something in my tray.
I used several of the small colored blocks to build a small building in my tray, and then placed a piece of lamination film over it, to serve as its roof. I placed a small plastic figure inside “my house.” “What I want to do,” I explained, “is protect my house from the rain, like a roof protects us in our own houses, so the person living in my house here does not get wet. I think the lamination film will not soak up water which would then drip into my house, but I’m going to test it out to see if it works.” After building my house, I took my water bottle, opened the top a bit, and starting creating “raindrops” on my lamination film “roof.” The drops rolled down the sides of the lamination film and into the tray. “I think my roof is working,” I said, “but I’m going to make it rain harder now, to see if my roof still works.” I adjust the twist top to allow more water to come out at once, and created rain again, sometimes even a stream of it. The water continued to run down the sides of the lamination film.
I then gave children their trays, and blocks, a person, and a lamination film “roof.” I held onto the water bottles while they built their houses, and helped a couple of the children build a house with sides that stood up. Once the houses were built, I suggested that the children make it rain lightly at first with their bottles, just as I had, and then adjust their bottle to make it rain heavier after that.
I distributed the bottles, and children tested their roofs, as I had tested mine, and were pleased that the person inside their house was not wet.
I then collected the water bottles (and set these aside, because they were empty), and held out a tub to each child in turn, asking the child to put her blocks, roof, and person in it. Then, I passed out sponges again, for children to use to soak up the water now in their trays, and I helped children squeeze their sponges out over a wide, open pan, so that it would soak up more water. (These sponges were already somewhat wet from the earlier bottle practice clean up.)
Then, I collected the children’s trays, wiping them dry again with paper towels, as I told children that I would do another experiment next, and they would get to do it do, after my demonstration.
Next, I placed just one colored plastic chip, the size of a poker chip, on my tray. I said that I wanted to drop just one drop of water on it. I did that, and then said, “Oh, that’s a bit small. I’m going to put another drop right on top of it, to make a bigger drop of water.” I did that and decided it was big enough. I then said, “I think the plastic chip does not absorb water, because the drop is just sitting there on top of it. If the plastic absorbed water, the water would go into the plastic chip, and the drop would disappear. I then said that I had something very special to use to dry the plastic chip, and that I had made enough for each of them to have one of these to dry the drop on their plastic chip, when it was their turn to do what I was doing. I showed them the short “stick” I’d made by rolling a piece of paper towel tightly, and securing it with a small rubber band about 1/3 of an inch at each end. I then put one end down to touch the top of the drop of water and held it there. The drop disappeared as the water wicked up my paper towel stick.
“That’s magic!” a child exclaimed. “It’s just what happens when you use a material that’s absorbent,” I explained. “That’s why we use paper towels to dry our hands, and why I’m going to use my paper towel stick to dry up a couple of little water smears in my tray.”
Next, of course, the children got their turn to make a large drop, starting with a small one if they could, and adding another drop or two to it. A few children squeezed out too much water, which then caused water to run off their plastic chip onto their tray. We had to wipe it up and wipe the chip, to start over, because, as I explained, “You don’t want too much water on the chip or in the tray, because, this time, you want to see if you can use just one paper towel stick to dry up all the water that is on the chip and in your tray.” I used no comments, such as, “Now I asked you not to squeeze out too much water. This time, I will give you another chance, but please pay attention to what you are doing this time.” Instead, throughout, the “authority” for how we proceeded was situated in the experiments themselves, and “What we want to find out.”
I then collected trays and bottles again, before starting the next experiment.
For this activity, I told the children that I was going to test several different materials this time, and I showed the items and named them, as I set them on my tray: “A little piece of AL foil, a small piece of red construction paper, a small piece of terry cloth, and a small piece of sponge.”
I then explained that I was going to put just a drop or two of water on each item, and then watch what happens, which they could do with me. As we first started to watch, we commented that the drop of water disappeared quickly into the pieces of sponge and terry cloth, but stayed on top of the AL foil and the piece of colored construction paper. I said that the AL foil and construction paper seemed to repel water—did not absorb it--, while the terry cloth and sponge were highly absorbent. I also said I was going to keep the items on my tray for a while, because I wanted to see if anything changed, but would give the children their own items to test, while I waited to see what happened with the water drops on top of my AL foil and construction paper.
I passed trays out to the children, and then gave them the four items to put on their trays, and then gave children their squeeze bottles. I waited until they had put a drop of water on each item, before I said, “Oh, I think something is happening with the drop on my red construction paper. The water seems to be soaking into it. I wonder if that will happen with your red construction paper too?”
And, of course it did, which is why I had included it!
The redesigned activity worked splendidly! And, yes, I think you could call it a “directed” activity. But this is what this group of children needed. Children become interested in something other than the common use of familiar objects, and in doing something with these materials other than use them in their usual dramatic play. But if you expect children to learn to do that, and to like doing it, you must start where they are, and gradually release control to them, as their engagement with the world begins to include interest in qualities of object, and how they affect an object’s use and reaction, not just the typical uses of objects with which they are familiar and sometimes play.
You are correct that children’s home “cultures” affect their engagement with the world. These variations are related, in part, to the occupations and roles of the child’s parents in the larger society. Some parents have a great deal of decision-making in their jobs, and are managed with a “light hand,” because their jobs require them to think and make decisions. Parents in these situations usually treat their children as decision-makers and problem-solvers, because they imagine their children growing up and having jobs similar to their own. But other parents have no decision-making power or control in their jobs. They spend the whole day taking orders, and suppressing their own thoughts about how to do their jobs, because they are not the one who makes decisions. These parents often take this model of their own lives to their relationships with their children. They also earn lower wages and have many stresses in their lives, which also makes them parent with a “heavier hand,” sometimes.
When the home culture does not allow engagements of the kind that we know are important for a child’s acquisition of knowledge important to succeeding not only in school, but in many jobs in later life, then we must figure out how to start where the child is, while moving the child beyond that. This requires that we not as ideologues or “true believers” in some “right and best” way to teach. Of course, there are some basically better ways to teach, but we must adapt approaches to the children, while keeping in mind their limitations, and trying, over time, to get closer to approaches that might be more ideal for what we want to accomplish. For example, the amount of control I used in this activity would be reduced, over time, or might vary across time, depending on the specific activity and materials involved.

I had learned by this time that different children must be approached in different ways, and that it was important to maintain the same goals for learning, but to alter the approach to meeting the goal. It was a lot of work, but it made teaching for me much more interesting, and the feelings of failure and of not doing enough, must less frequent.

Thanks for your question, and good luck!

Children should have developed a good oral vocabulary by the time they are 5 or 6, but it’s hard to indicate the number of words they should know. It’s also more important, we think, that the goal is helping young children acquire as many as word meanings as possible, through engagement with a rich curriculum. Superficial labeling and identification of items are not terribly beneficial to a child’s later reading comprehension. Knowing a word well enough that a child can tell about it is the level to aim for with a lot of words. Words should be learned in relation to learning related concepts, not as labels that are devoid of deeper meaning.

Children also need to develop syntactic skill (i.e., the production of complex sentences) and other overall language skill, such as listening comprehension, not only for basic oral directions and conversation participation, but also for understanding good stories and informational texts that are read to them.

If you read a variety of good books; provide a rich, content-based curriculum; and talk with children throughout the school day, children should develop the language they need to succeed in school. Don’t be afraid to expose children to higher-level vocabulary, making sure to provide child-friendly explanations. Children can/should learn some sophisticated words. Don’t simplify words or replace harder words with easier words in stories you read. Instead, explain words, as you read a book, especially if understanding some word is key to understanding the story or informational text. Children need exposure and support for learning a range of vocabulary, and, with both from teachers, they will acquire the vocabulary.

Of course, it is helpful and important to ask parents to help support vocabulary too. A lending library in your classroom and encouraging parents to get books at a local library can help children a lot. Also encourage parents to discuss any drawings that children bring home with them from school. You might also provide parents with a list of interesting activities that you do at school, and suggest that they ask their children to tell them about these.

Parents can also be encouraged to have conversations with children throughout the day, to explain things and to talk about shared activities ( (e.g., grocery store trips, playing at the park, doing chores, riding the bus, etc.). Rich oral language happens when a thoughtful adult engages with children. There are rich opportunities in things that happen everyday, and these can be mined for supporting language and thinking. Parents need to know how much everyday talk (or talk about routine experiences) helps.

There are many discussions in So Much More… about language development. Perhaps the ideas and suggestions we’ve provided in the book will be of help to you.

Language development during the early years is extremely important, and will affect children for a lifetime. You are wise to consider focusing on language with your 5- and 6-year-olds, not to the exclusion of literacy skills, of course, but as a very strong focus, along with literacy skills development.

Good luck and thanks for your question.

Our view is that preschoolers, both 3- and 4-year-olds, should be exposed to alphabet letters, and that this should be done in a wide variety of ways, across multiple contexts. To answer your question, “No, there is no research base for a 'letter of the week' approach, even though it is a common practice and several formal commercial programs are based on it.” We had several reasons for not recommending this approach in So Much More than The ABCs. We list the most important ones here.
First, one letter at a time approaches do not give children the opportunity to compare and contrast one letter with others, which is a great aid in learning to distinguish one thing from another, when the items involved share many features and differ by only a small one. Because all alphabet letters are made using a relatively small set of features (e.g., short and long horizontal and vertical lines; diagonal lines; closed and open curved lines), no letter has any features that are not shared by at least a few other letters, and some letters have several features in common.
Consider E and F, which share all features except one short, horizontal line at the base of the vertical line. H and A also share features. Each has three line segments, one of which is a short horizontal line across its middle. Because a box-like A, made when the two longer lines are positioned more vertically than diagonally, is “legal” (i.e., perceived and judged to be an A in some fonts), the main feature that always distinguishes A from H is a closed versus an open top. For example, if a child is familiar with A, but not with H, the child might think there is no problem in leaving the top of an A open, rather than completely closed. This child would also refer to open-topped A’s as “A” not “H.”
We included an example in the new book of a child who did just this when writing A in her name (SARA). We described her frustration with a teacher who complimented her on making both A’s and H’s, when, in her mind, all of the letters she wrote were A’s, even though some had openings in the top and some were completely closed. (See the Box on p.94 for a full description of this interesting and instructive example.)
Second, we dislike approaches that introduce one letter at a time (i.e., one per week, usually) because they create barriers to using children’s names as the basis for activities designed to help children learn letter names. Because 14-15 different letters might be involved in such name-based activities, teachers steer clear of using activities based on children’s names, thinking exposure to so many letters, all at once, at the beginning of a preschool year, will confuse and bewilder the children. (Note: Out of 20 children in a group, some would have names that begin with the same letter. Thus, the number of unique letters found in the first position in the children’s names would range from 12-16.)
Because children’s names, and the names of their family members and friends, are of high interest to preschoolers, a decision not to use their names as the basis for alphabet teaching is unfortunate, in our view.
Third, using programs that teach children one letter at a time (i.e., one per week) sometimes deters preschool teachers from providing alphabet books, alphabet puzzles, sets of magnetic letters, alphabet charts, and games, such as alphabet Bingo or memory games. We think it is very unwise to eliminate these materials from preschoolers’ use for months, thinking that children must first be exposed to most of the letters, or even that it is not necessary to use anything else, at all, even after children have been exposed to many letters, because the formal, “letter of the week” program will cover alphabet learning, all by itself.
Fourth, we think a “letter of the week” approach isn’t helpful because it conflicts with children writing freely with support from adults at the writing table, during choice time, for example. Yet, if using a “letter of the week” approach, teachers often get the message that they can’t teach other letters or can’t help children write a word that has a letter not yet covered in the formal program. Children also might get the message that they are not entitled to information because it isn’t the right week to know or have access to it. Consider this situation: It’s the seventh week of school, and the official letter program (one letter a week) has only reached as far as G. One child, however, wants to write the word, “cat,” at the writing table, and asks for help. The teacher helps with C and A (including, we hope, support with phonemic segmentation and letter selection), but when she gets to the last sound, she wonders, “Well, can I tell the child the last sound or letter? The children haven’t learned about T yet.”
To avoid such dilemmas, teachers might simply restrict writing table activities during choice time to those involving the current letter of the week, and letters already covered in previous weeks, using narrow activities. For example, worksheets might be provided for children to practice writing letters already taught, or the teacher might encourage children to use letter stamps and ink-pads to print letters they have already learned on a piece of paper to take home to show their parents. This would restrict children’s learning of letter names, and would also slow down the acquisition of phonological awareness and the insight that alphabet letters are used in printed words to represent sounds heard in spoken words (i.e., the alphabetic principle). It is educationally unsound to restrict children in learning the alphabetic principle, as they learn letter names, when both kinds of learning can occur in child-initiated word-writing activities, if teachers help by demonstrating the segmentation of words into individual sounds, naming the letters needed to represent these sounds, and showing the child the letter named and how it is created when writing it, if the child does not know.
Thanks for asking this question. It is one about which we thought a lot when writing So Much More… You will find many suggestions for helping preschoolers learn the names of alphabet letters in chapter 5 (“Young Children and Literacy Skills Development”), and will find additional suggestions in most of the other chapters.

We agree wholeheartedly that developing a child’s content knowledge during the early childhood years, from baby hood through the preschool and kindergarten years, should be a very high priority, and that continuing to gain content knowledge from many first-hand experiences should remain a high priority in the early primary grades. Oral vocabulary acquisition depends on it, and good oral vocabulary is related, in turn, to higher levels of phonological awareness, a skill essential for learning to read, and also to reading comprehension in later grades. Even though school texts used in later grades are the major sources of children's new content knowledge, many children are unable to learn optimally from their content area books because they take too little in the way of basic information and related vocabulary to these books from their earlier years. Because oral vocabulary and content knowledge build over time, a good strong start in the early years is essential.

Because of the ramifications for learning, we also worry, as you do, about the lack of funds for field trips during preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Only one or two field trips a year, even if especially good, will not be enough. Of course, one or two are better than none. We would suggest selecting a setting, such as a petting farm or an aquarium, where children can see a variety of animals, up close. If you cannot take field trips at all, or only one or two a year, we recommend exploiting the immediate area around your school, to the extent that you can, and also bringing the world into the classroom.

Often, children and teachers can take walks around the immediate area, perhaps to drop a letter into the mailbox and talk about how it will get to its final destination. There might be other things to observe too, such as a road repair crew or a construction crew building a house or repairing a roof. Also consider the animals that might live nearby, such as squirrels, birds, and insects. Think about getting a few pairs of binoculars that are designed for young children, and having children use these to look through classroom windows at animals that might be outside, or take them outside for use while on the playground.

Do little experiments, such as leaving small containers of water outside overnight when it’s cold, to see if any ice has formed by the next morning; bring snow into the water table or a plastic tub for children to play with and watch melt (they’ll need their mittens, of course); and leave a pan or two of water on a windowsill to observe how it disappears over time (evaporates). Tie a few strips of ribbon on a playground fence, and help children observe how it blows in the wind on some days, and simply hangs limply on others, when there is no wind at all. Help children notice their own shadows when outside, as well as the shadows made by trees and playground equipment.

In addition to excursions nearby and little experiments and observations, think about bringing the world into your classroom, as much as possible. Sometimes, parents can serve as guest speakers and bring tools they use in their work, or even a musical instrument, if they play one. A parent who knows how to knit, build birdhouses, or bake fancy cakes might be willing to demonstrate. A parent who is a carpenter can bring a toolbox and explain the use of various tools. A parent with a new baby might be willing to talk about taking care of the baby, and to show some appropriate toys and explain why they are safe.

Firefighters from a local fire station are often willing to visit classrooms too, and they usually show children their clothing and equipment, and talk about fire safety. Other people from the community might also be willing to make a visit (e.g., a reptile specialist or pastry chef). In some areas, personnel from local museums or petting zoos will visit classrooms and bring an animal or two with them. This does involve a fee, but the cost can be far less than a field trip. Larvae (caterpillars) can be ordered and raised into the insect's adult butterfly or moth forms in the classroom. These materials also involve a cost, but these are minimal compared to field trips. Local vegetable farmers might be willing to visit and show some items they grow, in their original form (e.g., carrots and beets with tops, corn on the cob, etc.).

In this digital age, it might be possible to use digital media, such as skyping with zookeepers, aquarium staff, or museum docents. These could be “online” visits to a special exhibit that children cannot visit in person. Teachers can also select videos that are available on many good websites. These can be used to show children real animals and plants, and their behavior.

Provide units of study for the children that include hands-on experiences, such as planting seeds and caring for the seedlings that result, and taking care of other plants that you might bring to the classroom. Parents also might have interesting plants at home that they would be willing to bring in to show and talk about.

We also recommend using books to support children’s content knowledge development. Of course, children need some first-hand experiences to anchor the information they can obtain from books, and even upper grades children studying biology, physics, or chemistry have hands-on labs to support their learning from textbooks. Books, however, are essential for helping children reflect about and expand knowledge beyond what they can acquire first hand. Information books are especially helpful for communicating facts and details about a topic, and many have excellent photographs and illustrations to help convey this information. They can be useful both before and after hands-on experiences, including field trips. A unit of study that includes hands-on experiences, information books, and narratives (i.e., storybooks) can be especially rich because children encounter some of the same content and associated vocabulary in a variety of contexts.

Thanks for your question, and best of luck to you and to all teachers who are trying to do the best they can for children's learning during these very difficult economic times.

We would like to know more about the nature of the worksheets that some parents of children in your class make available at home. We do not recommend worksheets of any kind for preschool classrooms, because we think they are not terribly beneficial in aiding a young child’s learning. That said, however, not all worksheets are developmentally inappropriate. For example, if a worksheet has a variety of pictures, clusters of which are related (i.e., items from the same category), and the child is to find items that are alike, the experience might be developmentally appropriate. A preschooler, for example, could use a blue crayon to mark all of the furniture items, a red crayon to mark all of the animal items, and a green crayon to mark all of the toy items. If a parent worked with the child to name the items and comment (e.g., “Yes, the panda bear, the dog, and the lizard are all animals, so they are alike”), some learning of benefit would result.
We suspect, though, that you are talking about worksheets of a different kind that are specific to writing, probably ones that require a child to write rows of specific letters to the right of a model shown on the paper, or to trace letters represented only by dots. We would agree that these are not developmentally appropriate for most preschoolers. Worse, they probably don’t lead to the learning that a parent thinks they should promote. At best, the child might gain stronger visual images for the letters on the paper, given models provided, even if in dotted form. Many preschool children, however, do not yet have the small motor skills needed to hold a writing utensil flexibly between fingers and thumb. Instead, they hold the tool in a tight fist grip, using the muscles of the upper arm to move it. Given the long distance between the point of the tool and the place of movement in the upper arm, the child cannot make small and controlled marks that fit within lines. This can produce a very negative experience if a parent criticizes a child’s performance and expects him to do better, thinking the child can do better with a lot of practice, when he actually can’t improve quickly with just practice, because maturation also matters.

We would be curious to know whether the preschoolers of parents who have rejected your advice have fairly advanced fine motor skills for their age, and, thus, are able to complete some of the worksheets fairly well. In our experience with many groups of preschoolers over many years, we’ve seen quite a few children, usually girls, who had very mature fine motor skills. Although we do not think handwriting is the most important aspect of writing to stress, even for preschoolers with mature fine motor skills, it’s difficult to persuade a parent of such a child that the worksheets are not developmentally appropriate. We probably would not try, because, in some ways, for such a child, they are (i.e., the child can complete them, as intended). We would point out that many activities for children fit this definition of developmentally appropriate (i.e., the child can complete the task successfully), even when we would judge the educational value of the task as low for a preschool child.

We would, however, provide information to the parent about other aspects of writing that are terribly important, such as prompting a child to generate stories about pictures she draws, or provide descriptions. Writing is, after all, a vehicle for conveying meaning, and experience in doing this orally during the preschool years has benefits for the child’s language development, content knowledge development, reasoning skills, and understanding of different text structures (narrative versus expository). Developing these things, for example, by asking a child to tell about a drawing, and then asking questions or making comments during this process, in conversational style, has benefits for the child’s later reading comprehension and composing skill.

The problem with narrowing the focus to mark making, even when scribbles and mock letters are fully accepted and a teacher or parent encourages children to write their names at whatever skill level they can muster, is that this is still just one aspect of writing—physical mark making and learning about the writing system. This focus does not include ideas and their expression, helping children understand that they must include sufficient details when relating a past experience to a listener who was not present for the event, and so on.

If, instead, the writing center is actually a writing, drawing, and talking center, with a range of activities encouraged and accepted, you might be able to make the case with parents that a focus on handwriting at home could limit a child’s interest in joining the broader activities provided at preschool, especially if the experiences at home lead the child to associate use of a marking tool with high expectations for motor performances that are, in fact, a struggle for the child to meet. A handwriting focus at home might also communicate to the child that this (handwriting) is all that writing is about, and that there’s no need to think about ideas and try to express them.

Don’t be shy about creating some bulletin board displays in a hallway to your classroom, or in a prominent place inside, where parents can see the pictures and dictated descriptions or stories that accompany them. Children might write their names, however they are able, on wide strips of paper, for posting on the bulletin board beside their work.

We think it’s harder to make your case to parents if you focus mostly on writing (e.g., scribbling, mock letters, actual letters, children’s names) in your preschool classroom and not on drawing, writing, and talking, no matter whether you approach writing in an exploratory way and are accepting of any level of skill.

It also might help to explain to parents that writing letters is not a terribly good way for preschool children to learn letter names, and that learning letter names is the priority for the preschool level. Playing letter bingo, using letter matching materials, reading alphabet books, and working letter puzzles with an adult who names the letters are far quicker and better ways to help children learn letter names, and more developmentally appropriate too, because they do not require a great deal of fine motor skill.

Suggest that parental support in helping their children learn letter names would be greatly appreciated, and give parents multiple suggestions for activities, such as the ones we’ve listed. You could add to the list the alphabet clue game we’ve described in the So Much More…..book, and others you think of. Explain to parents that having a good visual image of each letter, and knowing its name, is helpful to the child later, in learning to write letters. Giving parents a letter naming focus at the beginning of the school year, and indicating that writing is not a good way to help a child learn letter names, might at least delay the time at which some parents give worksheets to their children.

Thanks for your thanks and validation from your kindergarten teaching and parent experiences. Our new book focuses on early literacy experiences for the infant, toddler, and preschooler (up through age five), and describes many experiences that are suitable for parents at home, as well as for teachers in a classroom setting. It would probably work best if you found information in the book rather than for us to summarize various things here, because the book provides considerable detail. Your question, however, gives us the opportunity to underscore the importance of early language and literacy experiences at home, as well as in classrooms.

We stress strategies throughout the book using examples that come from both home and classroom contexts. Strategies and recommendations are based on recent research, and we cite relevant studies throughout. You will, of course, need to tweak specific experiences a bit for use at home, if an example we’ve used comes from a classroom setting.

If you are especially interested in experiences for the toddler and very young preschooler, we think Chapter 2, “The Beginning: Reading with Babies and Toddlers,” and Chapter 7, “Babies and Toddlers Leave Their Mark,” would be especially of interest.

Lucky are the children whose Moms are former kindergarten teachers!

We agree that labeling everything in the classroom is not very useful.
Studies long ago indicated that children ignore print in the environment if there is no reason to engage with it for some real purpose. Some preschoolers will enjoy copying such labels, because they feel grown up if they can create lists of words (especially if they have older siblings who do homework), but this activity is not very beneficial for a preschooler’s learning, and children can find words in book titles, on food cartons at lunch or in the dramatic play area, or on markers or crayons, if they are determined to copy words.

Word walls are appropriate for older children who already know some of the basics of the spelling system (i.e., that alphabet letters in printed words represent individual sounds in spoken words), but are not yet familiar with the spellings of a lot of words, especially those with irregular spellings (e.g., through, once, knock, etc.). Having access to words on a word wall or in a good picture dictionary can help kindergarten and first grade children learn some conventional spellings for words they might commonly want to use. Given the knowledge a kindergarten or first-grade teacher has about spellings and the aims of word walls, the selection of words for the word wall can be targeted to those children would have trouble spelling by sounding them out. Of course, as kindergarten and first graders learn to read, they see these same words repeatedly and become familiar with them. As this happens, they begin to respond to these and other words quickly (i.e., by sight, rather than by deliberate sounding out).

The best way to respond to preschool children who ask for the spellings of specific words is to sound the words out, segment by segment, and name the letter or letters used to write each sound. When words, such as cake, boat, or balloon, are requested, the teacher can add the final silent letter in cake and comment that words sometimes contain letters that we don’t hear when saying the word. For a word like boat, the teacher might comment that an ‘a’ follows the ‘o’ in this word, but we don’t hear a sound for that specific letter in the word when we say it. Similar comments can be made when writing a word such as balloon. And for words, such as jumped and skipped, where ‘ed’ is used to spell the /t/ sound at the end, a teacher can just comment that all words for movements we have completed are spelled with ‘ed’, no matter how they sound. When curious and thoughtful children ask “why?” in the face of such mysterious spellings, we can just respond honestly with “I don’t know. That’s just how grown-ups always write these words.”

As for putting up the most relevant words in books you read, or words the children ask about when you write down their descriptions or stories about pictures they draw, we would suggest that a more important focus in a book reading situation is on the meaning of words, not on how the words are written, although we certainly would respond to a child’s request to know how to write a word that she had heard in a story. We would sound it out, though, not write it without any analysis, because children will gain little skill in writing words if they are not helped to understand that letters in printed words represent sounds in spoken words. This could be undertaken later that day at the writing center or in a small group setting when there is time for segmenting sounds, modeling sound to letter selections, and writing the words. Or, a teacher might include a short activity during a whole group circle time in which a few words of interest to children are sounded out and written, letter by letter, by the teacher on a large piece of chart paper or white marker board.

When writing dictation for individual children, such as at a writing center during choice time, when children draw pictures and engage in emergent writing, we prefer engaging the child in watching as we write down what they say, and listening as we sound out some of the words, as we write them. Preschoolers will also start to suggest letters for writing sounds that the teacher has isolated in words the child wants to write.

Preschoolers should not be led to believe that learning to write words is a matter of copying them and trying to memorize their letter sequences. Instead, it is important for children to learn basics of the coding system for writing words in an alphabetic writing system. The most basic idea is that specific letters are used to write specific words, because the words contain a series of specific sounds, and because specific letters or letter pairs are assigned to represent these sound values.

Of course, children will at first make a lot of spelling errors when they try to write words by sounding them out and selecting letters to represent what they hear. But this is part of the process, and spellings will improve over time if preschool teachers model this process frequently in various situations. It is also helpful to explain why their errors seemed plausible (e.g., Yes, ‘k’ is used to write the /k/ sound in the words ‘key’ and ‘kitten,’ but grown ups use the letter ‘c’ to write the /k/ sound in the word ‘cake.’ The letters ‘k’ or ‘c’ are both used to write the /k/ sound, which is kind of confusing, isn’t it?”). This kind of commenting reinforces accurate representations of sounds when children use them, and provides information about situations that are identical, but for which a different coding of a sound Is used in the conventional spelling. Of course, we would be careful with preschoolers about indicating that a coding they have used is unacceptable for their own writing. We are suggesting only that teachers can sometimes simply comment that grown-ups write some sounds using different letters, depending on the word context.

You will find a lot of information about this in So Much More…..and we hope you find it helpful. You will find no suggestions for labeling items in the classroom, except as it aids the organization of the physical environment, or for using word walls, because we don’t think they are useful or appropriate for preschool age children. In essence, we agree with you about those things.

Thanks for your question, and good luck in your teaching.

We have not encountered this particular “push” by parents of preschoolers or by preschool teachers. We would not rush to have preschoolers use chapter books, because many have stories that are much longer and more complex than those found in picture books. Picture books, in general, would be at a more appropriate level for preschoolers.

We are curious, however, about the specific “reading skills” you think are developed by picture books versus chapter books. For the most part, good story and informational picture books contribute little to literacy skills (e.g., alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, print conventions), but can contribute substantially to children’s oral vocabulary and other oral language skills, and to a child’s content knowledge and listening comprehension, especially if adults use specific strategies, such as those we suggest in So Much More…, as they read these to preschoolers.

Print-related skills can be developed in the read-aloud context (e.g., by underlining the title when introducing the book), although, in our view, literacy skills development is not the most important goal to pursue with a good picture book, and should not be overemphasized. We suggest instead that preschool teachers focus primarily on helping children think about and understand the meanings conveyed by the book. Poetry charts and some predictable text books can be used to focus more on literacy skills, in combination with other print related activities, such as letter matching games, and games with pictures that focus on rhyming words or beginning sounds, and writing. In the writing context, of course, teachers should also make sure to talk with children about their meanings—the message they are trying to convey--and not treat every occasion of helping a child at the writing center as an opportunity to focus only on literacy skills.

The physical structure and appearance of chapter books do not lend themselves well to literacy skills learning from books, but this is not the primary reason we prefer good picture storybooks or informational texts.
Thanks for your question, and now that you know why we prefer picture books to chapter books for preschoolers, we’d like to know more about why you think chapter books are not very appropriate for preschoolers.

Thanks for your question, but we are at a loss in answering because we know of no research that suggests any problem with writing on colored strips of paper or poster board, or using colored markers for writing. We’ve never heard cautions about this from any practitioners either. Therefore, we are puzzled about the advice you have been given. Perhaps you could provide more specific details about how you are using colored paper or colored markers as a means of instruction, and we could try again to provide an answer.