Princess Metawolf: The Almost-4-Year-Old Writes a Book

With everyone stuck at home, much of my blogging inspiration right now is coming from small children doing literary things, so I thought I'd share some of what the almost-4-year-old has been up to (Also - she's super-cute and provides a much-needed distraction).

Here's the text of her story:

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

That princess 

<turn page>

met a wolf.

But, she met two different girls,

A bunnier, 

and a hopper, 

and a gi-flower that can walk on two feet, 

and a bunny, 

and a flower, 

and one more flower.

That princess, 

that flower, 

and that bunny, 

and those chia, 

and those chee-os, 

and those bad boys, 

<turn page>

And then she met a deela,

and ate her up. 

<look at marker on finger>

<turn page>

And then he ate her up.

***

It's gripping stuff, right? Although I am, in part, sharing this video because I think this kid is amazing, it's also a video that helps to illustrate some of the higher level thinking that goes on in children's play. I'll elaborate on two of them. There are a lot more than two things going on in here, but blog posts are supposed to be short.

1. Children's interests direct early writing:
   
   You know what book the almost-four-year-old has been reading a lot lately? That's right. It's Little Red Riding Hood. Actually, that's not completely true - she's been reading The Jolly Christmas Postman, and her favorite page is the page where Little Red Riding Hood makes jokes with the wolf.
   
   The relationship between interest and writing goes even deeper than topic. Rowe & Neitzel (2010) observed 2- and 3-year-olds as they wrote, finding that children's patterns of play were frequently linked to their ways of writing. So, a child who always wants to find out how something works, for example, is most likely to write in ways that involve understanding a topic more deeply. The almost-4-year-old is a ball of creativity, and it's not surprising that she's using writing to creative imaginary stories. Her older brother, who is impossibly tall and almost ten, almost always used early writing for social purposes, for example: to write a letter to a friend.

1. Children love the letters in their names:
   
   The almost-four-year-old never wrote her name throughout the whole book, but she wrote the letters in her name in different groupings throughout the book. She also included favorite letters from her brother's name (because he is significantly more important than anyone else in the family). Perlmutter, Folger, & Holt (2009) have observed that young children will often solidify their understandings of letter-sound combinations through writing loved ones' names.
   
   You have to be careful, though! Every time I ask the almost-four-year-old if she knows the first sound in mom, she says, /b/. (It's funny because my name is Bethany)

References:

Perlmutter, J., Folger, T., & Holt, K. (2009). Pre-kindergartners learn to write: A play on words. Childhood Education, 86(1), 14–19. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2009.10523102 

Rowe, D. W. & Neitzel, C. (2010). Interest and agency in 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds' participation in emergent writing. Reading Research Quarterly. 45(2), 169–195. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.45.2.2