ABSTRACT
In a small rural setting, practitioners had recently attended a training day on the subject of early literacy. During the day, a debate had centred on the necessity for children to enjoy their encounters with literacy in ways that would reduce the stress that some of them, and their families felt, at the length of time it took for young children to become competent writers and drawers. Back in the setting, the practitioners reflected on their day’s training and agreed that the boys, in particular, seemed to find it almost impossible to grip pencils in the correct way and even to sit still long enough to write their names when asked to do so. This was despite the staff’s emphasis on how important a skill this was and having devoted designated ‘writing times’ for the older children in the hopes of meeting the early learning goals in this area of the curriculum. Staff spent some time over the following few days observing children’s mark making, and in particular their writing, and concluded that the problem centred around children’s resistance to any adult suggestion that they should write or draw. Sometimes this was evidenced by children saying ‘I can’t’ when asked to write and sometimes children just seemed to vanish when they anticipated that a writing or drawing activity was closing in on them. Some children
had developed quite sophisticated avoidance strategies such as breaking the ends of their pencils, not finding a piece of paper to their liking, losing the eraser or needing to visit the toilet. Observations showed unwilling children, exasperated staff and little enjoyment or ‘gaining and giving aesthetic pleasure’ anywhere to be seen. Clearly, a rethink was necessary.
