Do children have to know how to spell and read before they are taught to write? No, contends Bea Johnson emphatically in Never Too Early to Write—a gem of a book which describes both a writing program and a way of thinking.  

Each chapter is chock-full of advice, tips, anecdotes, and, thoughtfully, samples of actual student work. In Chapters 1 and 2, Johnson makes the argument that kindergartners and first graders should be taught to write.
To support her contention, she explains in detail the many benefits in doing so. One of the most important is that when students write, they are using letters and punctuation. Indeed, they are immersed in them. This, in turn, imbues the strange squiggles and marks with meaning. They are not so mysterious nor foreign anymore. They have a purpose. They can communicate thoughts, feelings, ideas. Other benefits include: enlarged vocabulary, enhanced phonetics and spelling, increased familiarity of sentence patterns and word discrimination, additional opportunities to think critically and creatively, and even increased self-esteem.

At this point you may be thinking, that all sounds well and good, but how am
I going to fit this into my already crowded day? The answer: Integrate the writing experiences into your other subjects. "Writing," asserts Johnson, "shouldn't be a once-a-week activity done on Friday afternoon, 20 minutes before the busses arrive." Johnson also contends that you "will discover incredible truths" about your teaching if you have your students write in the content areas. How? By having students write about the lesson, you will have immediate feedback—in black and white—about what they learned
and didn't learn.

Chapter 3 delves into seven stages or benchmarks of writing: from scribbling to random lettering to conventional spelling. It is important, declares Johnson, that children should not be taught at a level beyond their capabilities.

In the next chapter, Johnson discusses "The Rules." Although they are an "ideal" and you won't be able to follow them all the time, they should, she states, at least be in the back of your mind. In a nutshell, an effective writing classroom is informal, open to experimentation, content oriented, supportive, affirming, and encourages "table talk." The teacher "provides students with the tools, time, and structure to write."

"The Big Four" are discussed in Chapter 5. They are: Dictation, Drawing, Scribbling, and Temporary Spelling. There are a plethora of benefits to dictation, notes Johnson. First and foremost, the student "realizes immediately that his spoken words have meaning and can be written down" (emphasis mine). As the teacher or volunteer writes, the student is able to observe: left-to-right progression, punctuation, phonics, sentence structure, and more.

"Drawing," writes Johnson, "becomes the child's rehearsal stage of writing." These illustrations are snapshots, so to speak, of the child's thinking. Scribbles are the beginning stages of writing. Here the child experiments with word and sentence formation, symbols, holding the writing instrument and more. As educators, we should not overlook these attempts. Rather, we should "take advantage of the learning potential" of them by asking the student what he or she has written. Temporary spelling, notes Johnson, "is children's first attempts to write words using their best judgment about spelling." She then goes on to discuss the three stages of temporary spelling as well as the benefits described in research findings. 

In Chapters 6 through 15 Johnson discusses in detail ten writing strategies. Among them are: Individual Language Experience Stories (ILES); Journal Writing; Draw and Write; Pattern Stories; Class Newspaper.

Johnson rounds out the book with a chapter on communicating with parents (which includes sample parent letters) and a chapter on conclusions, questions and answers.

If you are interested in trying a writing workshop in your kindergarten or first grade classroom, this concise, approachable, highly useful volume that will help you accomplish your goal.  

Reviewed by the Education Oasis Staff