Translating Ideas into Language: High-Impact Strategies to Nurture Children′s Creative Composing in Early Childhood Classrooms

Abstract

This study investigates translation strategies that enhance idea generation and linguistic construction in early childhood composing, focusing on high language-growth prekindergarten to first-grade classrooms. Our sample included 28 teachers from two under-resourced districts in the Northeastern United States, serving 324 children. Using an exploratory sequential mixed-method approach, we analyzed 28 video recordings of small group composing sessions to identify specific strategies employed by teachers. We found teachers’ use of strategies for idea generation and language construction were positively associated with children's receptive vocabulary growth. Teachers in high language-growth classrooms were approximately three and half times more likely to use translation strategies than teachers in low language-growth classrooms. Five strategies emerged that facilitate memory retrieval, comparative thinking, and idea synthesis related to idea generation. Additionally, five strategies related to language construction emerged for transitioning children’s language from contextualized to decontextualized forms, enhancing vocabulary, and constructing more complex sentences. These insights provide a framework for teachers to support early writing development through targeted and intentional instructional strategies to facilitate the idea-language translation process, thereby promoting significant gains in children's language skills.