{"title":"Preschool Children’s Interest in Early Writing Activities and Perceptions of Writing Experience","authors":"Chenyi Zhang, Margaret F. Quinn","doi":"10.1086/709979","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Early literacy research links children’s interest in writing to early literacy development. It is unclear, however, what kind of learning activities related to writing are interesting to young children. Existing studies primarily rely on an adult-report approach to capture children’s interest. This study used picture-based assessment and structured interview and interviewed 55 preschool children (29 girls, 26 boys, M = 51 months, SD = 6.70) to capture children’s perspectives about their writing experiences. Children’s responses were transcribed and coded for data analysis. Chi-square analyses showed that children exhibited significantly stronger interest in nonwriting activities involving meaningful themes and artistic learning materials than in transcription-focused writing activities. Children showed strong interest in digital writing (i.e., iPad and computer writing), although most children did not consider digital writing a writing activity. Children’s responses demonstrated their developing perception of and positive experiences with writing processes, materials, and interactions. Classroom implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":48010,"journal":{"name":"Elementary School Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/709979","citationCount":"11","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Elementary School Journal","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1086/709979","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 11
Abstract
Early literacy research links children’s interest in writing to early literacy development. It is unclear, however, what kind of learning activities related to writing are interesting to young children. Existing studies primarily rely on an adult-report approach to capture children’s interest. This study used picture-based assessment and structured interview and interviewed 55 preschool children (29 girls, 26 boys, M = 51 months, SD = 6.70) to capture children’s perspectives about their writing experiences. Children’s responses were transcribed and coded for data analysis. Chi-square analyses showed that children exhibited significantly stronger interest in nonwriting activities involving meaningful themes and artistic learning materials than in transcription-focused writing activities. Children showed strong interest in digital writing (i.e., iPad and computer writing), although most children did not consider digital writing a writing activity. Children’s responses demonstrated their developing perception of and positive experiences with writing processes, materials, and interactions. Classroom implications are discussed.
期刊介绍:
The Elementary School Journal has served researchers, teacher educators, and practitioners in the elementary and middle school education for over one hundred years. ESJ publishes peer-reviewed articles dealing with both education theory and research and their implications for teaching practice. In addition, ESJ presents articles that relate the latest research in child development, cognitive psychology, and sociology to school learning and teaching. ESJ prefers to publish original studies that contain data about school and classroom processes in elementary or middle schools while occasionally publishing integrative research reviews and in-depth conceptual analyses of schooling.