Volume 23 Number 3
May 1984

Sigmund A. Boloz and Diana Jenness

THE ROOM ATMOSPHERE is electric. The children are busy interacting with one another, writing sentences and stories, or conferencing with the teacher. Some of the writers are reading their compositions to the aide. Certainly, this scene is typical of many classrooms where writing is a necessary component in the development of language literacy. However these students are in kindergarten and most are Navajo.

Tara writes:

Although this school houses a writing project, before last year, the kindergarten children attending Ganado Primary School were not expected to be able to write freely and expressively. The students were expected to sound out and read some regularly phonetic words and copy sentences. However, they were not actually expected to write whole sentences and stories using their own spelling. To paraphrase Holbrook, 1981, it was quite possible that our teachers weren’t so much not teaching writing, as they were simply overlooking the fact at some of the children already could

This article is based upon observations within one kindergarten classroom located on the Navajo Reservation in the northeast comer of Arizona. The children within this public school classroom are a part of the school’s 480 mostly Navajo, student population.

This kindergarten through third grade school, also houses the GLAD (Ganado Language Arts Development) Project, a school-wide writing and publishing project. Although the observations are limited to one classroom over a four-month period, the students’ progress in that short time has the authors convinced that most kindergarten children are capable of real writing. Therefore young children should be allowed and expected to develop as writers even at the kindergarten level.

With the assistance of one third grade class, we had the twenty-seven journals which we needed. It had been the third grader’s class project to prepare the 30-page journals and although the kindergarten students didn’t really know what to make of the booklets on that first day, they were delighted with the presents.

During that first week of daily journal time, our purpose was to establish a low-risk classroom environment in which children could have numerous, successful experiences and thereby could view writing positively and purposefully. In beginning this process, we therefore asked the students what words they would like to write, we wrote the words on the blackboard, and the students copied them. When they had completed their entries, the students came up and read the journal entries to an adult. During this writing time, the students also had the option to copy any words from around the room or anyone else’s words.

On the third day, Kathy asked, "Is it okay if I write my sisters’ names?" We were prepared to write the names, and we asked which one she wanted written first. "That’s okay," she answered. "I already know how to write their names."

Through a natural, meaningful interaction with her environment, this young girl had learned to spell the names of significant others. In addition, we found that she could already spell "dad," "mom," "I love you," and several other words and phrases for which she had little use thus far in school.

We began with the premise that kindergarten children could learn to write expressively if we would only provide the right environment. How could we blame Kathy for stealing our thunder. She had no way of knowing that kindergarten students were not supposed to know how to write words yet.

We were delighted to realize that other students also had untapped resources. Many of these young children could write the names of family members. In addition, we found that some could also write the names of colors, of fast food stores, of high frequency foods and beverages and even of some television characters. However, it seems tragic that many similar children might never fully participate as these children were in their own education, that their hidden resources would remain untapped and that they would remain chained to learning the alphabet in the name of education.

It is no wonder that Holbrook, 1981, stated that many children enter school filled with poetic images and unique word useage, which they tend to lose once they had undergone "proper" language teaching. We found that many of our Navajo students entered school with the capacity to move directly into writing on a daily basis. In fact, many had already formed strong concepts about written language.

Most students knew that it carried meaning and that its form had certain properties. It is quite possible that many young authors had had years of home experiences at imitating writing, at scribbling and at inventing their own stories. Unfortunately, this rich enthusiasm and readiness for real writing is traditionally lost, not because we expect too much, rather, that in education we often settle for too little.

Carol Chomsky, 1975, noted that although young children’s early writing efforts may not resemble adult writing and therefore sometimes passes unnoticed, preschoolers do have the ability to categorize sounds. She added that even prior to formal instruction, many children have learned to construct inventive spellings, and are very scientific as they hypothesize and revise rules. Further, McPherson, 1977, noted that all writing, no matter how incoherent or how incomplete it may seem, does represent an attempt at communication, an attempt that must be treated with respect.

Progressing into the second week of journals, some of the students began wanting to express phrases and simple sentences. Building on the special interest of those few, we introduced the concept of a sentence. For some students, this strange concept was explained in Navajo. While it is important to stress that not all students were ready to write sentences, some did excel.

Students grow from their successes and take greater risks and so do teachers. As a result of student progress, an inservice on inventive spelling and the reliance of the students on the teacher as a walking dictionary, the kindergarten writing program took a significant turn. The kindergarten students were now expected to experiment with their own inventive spelling. Given large sheets of "story paper," the students were asked to draw pictures and to write stories about them. If they came to a word they didn’t know how to spell, they were encouraged to listen for the sounds in the word and write them down. Some could do this and others required extra help.

When they were finished, they would "read" the story to an adult within the classroom and the work would be posted. On other occasions, the teacher would translate the child’s writing into adult writing and display both. At a final class project, selected stories of each child were combined and published as a 74 page volume by the school’s writing project.

In expecting that the students would accept responsibility for their spelling and writing, the children gained confidence in their own ability to express themselves. Children such as Kathy, who had already obtained a good phonetic background and was working ahead of the class, actually wrote full pages. When told that it was okay to write smaller, she wrote even more.

The quality of these children’s work varied because of several factors: language sophistication, ability to speak English, maturity, and knowledge of letter sounds. For instance, David who was developmentally about two years behind the rest of the class, was able to put "letters" in rows under his drawing and to tell what the "words" said.

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(Pac Man)

For young writers Dyson, 1981, felt the essential writing problem is not how to encode talk, but rather how to make meaningful graphics about which to talk. She added that children’s early writing reflect the diversity of strategies in the early writing processes. These products suggest that early writing is only partly a paper-and-pencil activity and that talking strategies are also used to make meaning on paper. According to Dyson:

Although the routes which young children take towards effective manipulation of the conventions of writing vary widely, many educators have observed that early writings demonstrate attempts to establish order. The following developmental sequence appears to be representative.

Whether the student is a native English or Navajo speaker or a Kathy or a David, to promote language proficiency among kindergarten students, the teacher must first believe that the child is capable of developing language. Secondly, the teacher must believe in the power of the child and allow and expect his or her participation. Thirdly, the teacher must be prepared to risk. Lastly, the teacher must constantly expose her students to print and must give them numerous opportunities to test their own theories about language. In addition, the students in this program participated in the following language activities:

Even Navajo children enter kindergarten that first day with the anticipation that they will learn to read and write. All have been exposed to or surrounded by the structure and function of language. Many have had years of play with pencil, pen or crayons and have formed strong theories about what language does and how it is formed. Most have also learned to Spell words that carry significance in their life. The time has come to raise our expectations for all students and to let the sun shine in their eyes. In the immortal words of Kathy, "Why don’t you think the sun is very nice? Well look at it and you will see."

Boloz, Sigmund A. "The GLAD Project: Energizing Language," The New Mexico Journal of Reading, volume 2: number 3, (Spring 1982), Albuquerque: New Mexico State Council of the International Reading Association.

Calkins, Lucy M. "When Children Want to Punctuate: Basic Skills Belong in Context." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Conference on Language Arts in the Elementary School, Hartford, Connecticut, March 1979, [ED 170 766].

Chomsky, Carol. "How Sister Got Into the Grog," Early Years, (November 1975) pp. 36.

Clay, Marie C. What Did I Write? London: Heineman Educational Books Ltd., 1975.

Dyson, Anne Haas. "Oral Language: The Rooting System for Learning to Write." Language Arts, vol. 58 (October 1981), pp. 776-84.

Ferreiro, Emilia. The Relationship Between Oral and Written Language: The Children’s Viewpoints. New York: The Ford Foundation, 1978.

Holbrook, Hilary Taylor. "Johnny Could Write When He Was a Kid.’ Language Arts, vol. 58 (October 1981), pp. 864-66.

McPherson, Elizabeth, "The Process of Writing." The Teaching of English, Edited by James Squire, 76th Yearbook of the National Society for the study of Education, p. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Sigmund A. Boloz is principal of Ganado Primary School and Diana Jenness is a kindergarten teacher at the school.