“Everything Go Upside Down”

Abstract

Making mistakes is at the heart of learning. Prior research has established the value of trial and error and corrective feedback, however, inquiries into the experience of learning from mistakes in real-world contexts are rare. In this article, the author employs portraiture to represent one preschool child’s experience as she learns to print the letters of her name. Anchored in a parent-teacher perspective, this descriptive account details the journey of learning from mistakes—riddled with developmentally appropriate stops and starts—and illustrates the resilience young children can demonstrate during practice, reappraising errors with an eager willingness to try again.