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The author of the book A Young Writer’s World: Creating Early Childhood Classrooms Where Authors Abound joins Heather to discuss emerging writing in the early years. Thanks for listening! Like the show? Consider supporting our work by becoming a Patron, shopping our Amazon Link, or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it. You can leave a comment or ask a question here. Click here for more Heather. For a small fee we can issue self-study certificates for listening to podcasts. Episode Transcript Heather 00:54 Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of that early childhood nerd. I’m Heather burnt Santi joined today by Rebecca. McMahon Giles. Did I say it, right? I asked you, then I forgot. So I’m very sorry. Rebecca is the author of a book called A Young Writers world creating Early Childhood classrooms. Where author is abound that. I read early summer, I think and we’ve kind of been talking about you coming on and trying to get it scheduled. For a while now, so welcome. Rebecca McMahon-Giles 01:26 Thank you. It’s nice. Heather 01:28 Yeah, what would you like folks to know about you before we jump into talking about your book? Rebecca McMahon-Giles 01:35 Um, let’s see. I guess I’m early childhood educator at heart and that is my passion actually working with young children. And I am currently at the University where I work with training future teachers to work with young children, but get back into the classroom, usually through teacher training grants or even just volunteering as much as possible to have that time with three, four and five years. They teach you so much. Heather 02:07 Yeah. Yeah. I just I just moved from a job where I was more directly with children in the mornings. And now I’m just at the college by myself with grownups and usually those grown-ups are on a screen right now and I miss it so much. I can’t wait to be able to find ways to get back in with children. So before we jump in with a starting quote, I want to thank you for the book. I feel like literacy of course, is always a topic and people always want to talk about reading. And teaching reading, but there really aren’t that many books out there that I’ve seen that really focus on the piece of helping children become writers. So, so I’m excited. I think I told you, I’m going to try and use it in a literacy class. I’m teaching later this semester. I’m excited about it. Rebecca McMahon-Giles 02:52 I do think that we as parents and teachers and just kind of a society in general recognize the importance of teaching reading and teaching, our children a love for reading And we have gotten the message through. I think that we need to begin early and often and very casually and just making it a part of our daily routine, the exposure to books and reading but we haven’t done such a good job with getting that message to the writing but it’s equally important. It’s just not emphasized Heather 03:29 right? I mean other than like name writing we tend to really really want to see that happen. Happen in practice that whether we’re parents or teachers with young children, but with the depths that you go to, in the book, we sometimes, oh, and don’t forget to, Rebecca McMahon-Giles 03:45 and the common misconception that occurs between the terms writing and handwriting. Yes. Definitely writing is definitely not penmanship. Yeah, writing in penmanship are synonymous and you’re talking about legibility and flew it. See. And those criteria relate to putting marks on paper, but when you’re talking about writing, it’s all about seven self-expression and emphasis is on communication regardless of the form that, that might take. Heather 04:21 Yeah. Yeah, and that’s you say that very early in the book. It’s not a manual on teaching handwriting. It’s it’s a guide to help nurture young children’s writing as a means of communication. And I love that that that discussion of the ultimate Goal, right early in the book because when I said there isn’t a lot out there about writing, there are handwriting curriculums there are, you can get. Yeah, but that’s not what you’ve written here. Rebecca McMahon-Giles 04:46 No, and it’s a different focus. And if we think handwriting as functional, functional writing where I want to focus on more expressive writing, so more than just being able to write your name, but being able To really communicate your thoughts and ideas. And that’s why I used the word author. Repeatedly helping children become authors as opposed to just writers helping them realize that they have something worth saying in a more permanent form than orally. It’s worth putting it down on paper and in doing that, it gains some power because it gains some, some permanence and some Vince. Heather 05:36 And one of the things that that I thought was great, you talked about having a publishing Center in the classroom. So we all kind of have our writing area, right? Most of us do or we have the pencils and pens and notebooks and paper in the things that are on all of our regulatory lists and our, our accreditation criteria, but what’s different from between a publishing Center in a Writing Center the way we would traditionally Rebecca McMahon-Giles 06:04 see it. Again, it’s just the perspective. And so most of us do not have a reading Center. We have a classroom library because books are everywhere and they are are counting books in the math Center and there’s nonfiction text in the science. Discovery Center and reading is a part of everything that we do, but there’s kind of a concentrated focus on reading in the library. So I want that same emphasis for writing writing, isn’t something that’s done in a little corner. or a designated space but you right around the room as a part of children’s play and they’re learning in blocks and in science and math, but there can be a designated space for publishing where if you specifically want to work on your craft as an author or if you need quick access to book making supplies, then there’s a space for that but writing isn’t Isolated or is it isn’t? It doesn’t happen. Just in that one spot. Heather 07:13 Yeah, we really we really tried to compartmentalize Children sometimes and we do it. I think because with good intentions like we want to make sure we’re offering something for every piece of their development, but we forget that it happens in such connected ways. Like it’s when you’re in the block area and you want to make a sign or you want to write A note to somebody it, when you’re playing in a pretend play, dramatic play area, or you want to tell story about the art that you’ve done those kinds of things. Rebecca McMahon-Giles 07:48 And so I think one of the main goals of the book is to help teachers realize first of all the importance of having writing utensils and writing materials and every aspect of the classroom and then how to make that happen. So they recognized the necessity that it be available and then just some some tips, some ideas for what types of materials and storage, and how to rotate them in and out to maintain internal interest and to better relate to the curriculum or the theme of current study. Heather 08:25 Yeah. I was just teaching one of the classes. I’m teaching this semester is about cognitive curriculum. And I mean, that’s the name of the class. And we were talking about science last week and we looked at like the School supply catalog section on science and all the materials you can have about science. And we talked about how you can have. You have all the stuff on the shelves that your budget can buy. But if you yourself don’t understand how each piece relates to science, it’s not going to be as rich in experience for children. And would you say the same is kind of true with the writing, you know, you just you just described having materials kind of all over the The room, Rebecca McMahon-Giles 09:08 definitely. I think that first and foremost, we have to create learning experiences for our children that are worthy of being written about that. They have to have a topic of Interest something that they’re excited to share and then we need to have the materials in place and the support system to help them share that in in writing and again I’m saying Writing. But that writing could be any form of kid writing. It could be scribbling. It could be random letters. It can be dictation. It can be there or a words that are actually transcribed by an adult and writing and then publishing is another term that I use differently. I think more than a lot of people and I use it more. Only for a number of years. I taught the writing process and how we teach writing and we go through the five steps. And I associate that whole view of prewriting and Drafting and revising and editing and Publishing with Donald Graves and Donald Graves is a personal favorite of mine and he just did wonderful work in the area and the pedagogy of teaching writing. But when I tried that with our youngest Learners, it wasn’t, it wasn’t as effective for a number of reasons. But mainly, because developmentally they’re different. They’re have short attention spans. They they don’t understand time. Well, they lack fine motor skills. They are egocentric. And so this delayed gratification where you revisit one piece of work. So that The makes more sense to the reader and you do it over and exterior it over an extended period of time was just more difficult for them. And so they need the end. They need the final step which is the publishing or the sharing because that’s where the acknowledgement and the recognition comes and it takes that acknowledgement. It takes the constructive feedback. Back that they get from a reader to provide both the motivation to continue writing as well as increased knowledge about writing and how it works. And so for me, publishing is any writing, that’s red if it is shared, it is published. So it doesn’t have to be perfected. It doesn’t have to be revised and edited and eventually we will, we will get there, but it is that Um One Step writing your first draft writing or writing that is immediately, read that elicits a response that is going to keep them writing and also help them improve as writers. Heather 12:23 That’s such a good I guess unpacking of How It’s like like everything else when we’re working with children this age. It’s the process that is, is more. for this age group than the product, some of the time like they’re going to love that product and you’re getting them to the product quicker by changing your your process there with with about publishing, but it’s really about What did I communicate? How did it feel for me to communicate that? How did someone else respond to it? When I published it? Whatever that meant means of public publishing is. I think that really fits what we know about three to five year olds. Rebecca McMahon-Giles 13:05 And if we think about the process that children go through when they acquire oral language and the adult role in that and so when your child comes to you and they are babbling and we’re so excited. And we’re so encouraging and we’re so accepting of those initial attempts that don’t look anything like the end result, but that we recognize as a valuable part of the process and without our reaction, their trial-and-error learning their attempts aren’t going to continue at nearly the same the same rate. And so that’s kind of the environment. Moment that I would like posture for our Young Writers. Sure, Heather 13:53 sure, I think about devaluing even unconsciously devaluing scribbling, you know, they’re just they’re going through so much paper and they just put one mark on this. And then they want another piece of paper. We don’t think that way about their early words Rebecca McMahon-Giles 14:08 know Heather 14:09 they’re only using one word and then they just wander off. We don’t complain about that but Rebecca McMahon-Giles 14:15 and their invented spelling or their first Heather 14:18 invented spelling. Rebecca McMahon-Giles 14:20 Yes, and writing words the way they sound and it reveals so much that they know about phonics and about sound cymbal relationship, and it is often a teachable moment, but it’s not a corrective moment with with Heather 14:41 them. And it’s such a one of the things I love about invented spelling as you get such a glimpse into how they thought about it. Again. It’s that process for them. It’s such a It’s like a snapshot of their thought process that you can’t get in other areas of development, Rebecca McMahon-Giles 14:55 and language learning. I mean oral written Reading Writing. It is risky. And then it’s about, you know, you get an idea about how you think it works and you try it out and then it’s the feedback. It’s the reaction as to, whether or not, you can continue what you’re doing or you make adjustments. Heather 15:13 Yeah. Yeah. That’s such a really really good point Rebecca McMahon-Giles 15:18 solution. Gives them that opportunity. Tunity to make adjustments and to go on to extend and further their own positive affirming way Heather 15:29 sure and and might give us a clue about what other kinds of materials we should have around or what other kinds of experiences or or ways. We can extend. What we see is important to them in this moment and what they’re trying to tell us a story about or communicate to us. I love the idea of thinking about it as fishing and just the way you’ve described. I also love that you included a whole chapter called playing with Prince, a lot of the listeners of the show and and myself were Believers in play and Defenders of play. So I wanted to ask you, you know, why was it so important to devote a whole chapter to it? And what do you mean when you talk about play in terms of developing Young Writers? Rebecca McMahon-Giles 16:15 Aye-aye to Good Lovin. Now you children’s play. And that’s one of the things I try to get across to the Future teacher’s. It’s not an either/or. It’s not play or learn. I mean, playing is how children learn to young children to a large extent. It’s how they make sense of the world around them. And so, we need to create Opportunities in there, play where they have exposure to print, where they have relevant meaningful opportunities to use print to communicate, but I don’t think that that’s always the case, even in classrooms, and I feel like they are fewer now than they were 20 years ago. Even in classrooms, where they still have. Sinners and they call them Learning Centers, but I think we have Learning Centers for a small period of the day and then we have a lot of whole group instruction or individual desk work and for three four and five-year-olds, especially I see that Interacting in the environment in intentionally prepared environments as equally or more important than the direct direct instruction and it’s the intentional preparation that ensures I guess that they’re learning. And you know, I hear parents or novice teacher say things like um, You know, I have to set the timer and make them leave the block Center because if they stay in blocks all day, then they’re not ever reading or writing or doing math, and they are, if reading and writing and math intentionally embedded. Yes. It doesn’t matter where they choose to play. If everywhere they are playing is providing the same opportunities that they need. For learning. Yeah, so I guess that’s the point, what’s with the writing and it seems again like we’re doing better with the reading. And so I just wanted to Advocate strongly that we don’t forget. Hmm, writing needs to be in there as well and the expressive type of writing, not the functional letter formation type of writing. Heather 19:01 Yeah, I think about and these are more, I guess. I’m just thinking about like a book, my youngest wrote quote unquote, you know, wrote when, when they were maybe six, six years old, lots, and it was who will be heart girl’s friend. And it was really, it was like a wordless picture book. It just was this, this Narrative o…
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