“Mommy, How Do You Write ‘Sarah’?”: The Role of Name Writing in One Child's Literacy

Martens, Prisca

doi:10.1080/02568549909594747

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Because children master spelling of their name before they understand the principles behind it, at some point they may reveal discrepancies between name writing and their comprehension of writing in general. This phenomenon was documented in a longitudinal case study (Martens, 1999). Months after she had started printing her name with the conventional string of letters, Sarah began inventing her name writing, coming up with CAYI (perhaps indicating that she attributed sounds to letters based on their names, such as C for /s/).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Writing starts with own name writing: From scribbling to conventional spelling in Israeli and Dutch children

Levin

Vries

Aram

et al. 2005

Applied Psycholinguistics

116

112

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The development of children's writing of their own names as compared to their writing of dictated words was examined on samples of children ranging from 2 to 5 years of age, who were immersed in Hebrew or Dutch and recruited from low to high socioeconomic status families. Analyses were based on four data sets collected in three studies. From a young age, children wrote their name on a higher level than they wrote other words, and name writing improved with age more rapidly than word writing across the whole age range. Furthermore, the intercorrelations between word writings, corrected for age, were generally higher than the correlation between word and name writing, indicating that children exhibit a unique approach to the writing of their own name, irrespective of other background variables. Children's advanced skill in writing their name may suggest that name writing promotes the development of writing in general.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Writing starts with own name writing: From scribbling to conventional spelling in Israeli and Dutch children

Levin

Vries

Aram

et al. 2005

Applied Psycholinguistics

116

112

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“…Given that a child’s name is among the first things that children write (Both-de Vries & Bus, 2008, 2010; Clay, 1975; Martens, 1999), examining what skills contribute to name writing will add to our current understanding of writing development. Blair and Savage (2006) reported that phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge were strongly related to children’s name-writing abilities; whereas Welsch, Sullivan, and Justice (2003) found that phonological awareness was not related to a child’s name-writing ability when print-related knowledge was accounted for.…”

Section: Contribution Of Emergent Literacy Skills To Name Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions of emergent literacy skills to name writing, letter writing, and spelling in preschool children

Puranik¹,

Lonigan

Kim

2011

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

164

107

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The purpose of this study was to examine which emergent literacy skills contribute to preschool children’s emergent writing (name-writing, letter-writing, and spelling) skills. Emergent reading and writing tasks were administered to 296 preschool children aged 4–5 years. Print knowledge and letter-writing skills made positive contributions to name writing; whereas alphabet knowledge, print knowledge, and name writing made positive contributions to letter writing. Both name-writing and letter-writing skills made significant contributions to the prediction of spelling after controlling for age, parental education, print knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge; however, only letter-writing abilities made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of spelling when both letter-writing and name-writing skills were considered together. Name writing reflects knowledge of some letters rather than a broader knowledge of letters that may be needed to support early spelling. Children’s letter-writing skills may be a better indicator of children’s emergent literacy and developing spelling skills than are their name-writing skills at the end of the preschool year. Spelling is a developmentally complex skill beginning in preschool and includes letter writing and blending skills, print knowledge, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge.

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“…Although they may sometimes 'experience "moments of transition" due to the co-presence of both systems', again this is seen more as exploration than confusion (Kenner, 2004: 55). This conclusion is further supported by studies of monolingual children who have also been found to experiment with directionality and letter reversal (Bloodgood, 1999;Martens, 1999;Yang and Noel, 2006). Kenner and Kress (2003: 199) argue that children who develop biliteracy in scripts with different directionalities benefit from a 'visual and actional flexibility .…”

Section: Early Print Knowledge: Letters and Directionalitymentioning

confidence: 67%

“…Emergent print awareness includes recognizing that signs and symbols represent meaning as well as making hypotheses about text directionality and how letters are formed. Young children may start writing in the form of marks that communicate meaning, copying letters, mock letters and name writing before progressing to word and sentence writing (Martens, 1999;Yang and Noel, 2006). These early literacy skills have been found to be universal, regardless of the scripts to which children are exposed (Harste and Carey, 1979).…”

Section: Emergent Writing Practices Of Young Mono-and Bi-lingual Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demystifying simultaneous triliteracy development: One child’s emergent writing practices across three scripts focusing on letter recognition, directionality and name writing

Choi

2019

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy

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It has long been acknowledged that immigrant children who are originally exposed to home languages become rapidly socialized into using only English. Although many children ultimately develop receptive skills in their home language, they often become English dominant and rarely have the opportunity for literacy development. There is also a common misperception that allowing children to acquire three languages and scripts simultaneously is either too difficult or too confusing, or both. That children do not realize their full multilingual, multiliterate potential is not only a loss to their cognitive, emotional and academic development but also a violation of their language rights. As a way to help demystify simultaneous triliteracy development, I study my own child as a motherscholar. He is growing up in the United States as a simultaneous trilingual and triliterate in three alphabetical languages using two non-Roman scripts, Korean and Farsi, as well as a Roman script, English. I examine the ways in which he makes sense of and communicates in his literate world from age three to six by focusing on his emergent writing practices, particularly letter recognition, directionality and name writing in three distinctively different scripts. Social semiotic and translanguaging theories have guided my analysis of video and audio data as well as artefacts pertinent to his writing. Qualitative analysis rooted in an ethnographic case study approach demonstrated that he recognized different orthographic symbols across scripts but made linkages between them, applied correct directionality in scripts but with flexibility, and stamped a trilingual identity and met audiences' needs through name writing. The findings show the trilingual child engaging in a more flexible and creative process of letter designing as well as name writing in three scripts in more sophisticated and nuanced ways. The study provides insights into educational practices for multilingual children at preschools and schools.

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“Mommy, How Do You Write ‘Sarah’?”: The Role of Name Writing in One Child's Literacy

Cited by 12 publications

References 5 publications

Writing starts with own name writing: From scribbling to conventional spelling in Israeli and Dutch children

Writing starts with own name writing: From scribbling to conventional spelling in Israeli and Dutch children

Contributions of emergent literacy skills to name writing, letter writing, and spelling in preschool children

Demystifying simultaneous triliteracy development: One child’s emergent writing practices across three scripts focusing on letter recognition, directionality and name writing

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