Pedagogical management of emerging literacy in three-year-old children: “I won’t help you anymore, you try it”

Abstract

This article aims to present and analyze emerging literacy practices developed in the context of supervised teaching practice with three-year old children. The data were collected through a direct and indirect observation grid of emerging literacy (adapted from Martins & Santos, 2005) and the analysis of observation registers on the children’s perceptions and productions as well as the reflections that illustrate the professional development supporting practices that resulted from the trainee intervention. In order to produce relevant knowledge for professional teacher training (Gimeno, 1988), the data analysis was framed by the constitutional principles of Emerging Literacy and Childhood Pedagogy (Katz & Chard, 2009). We concluded that the development of emerging literacy practices with three-year-old children is an asset and that the use of instructional strategies by the adult enhances children writing skills. Therefore, promoting writing opportunities through individualized writing scaffolding can contribute to the development of early writing ability and, accordingly, time and support should be invested in the development of playful activities on early writing in preschool children. Moreover, another conclusion that has been reached was that in this developmental process, children’ age of is not, in itself, a determining factor, and that the stimulus arising from the family context or the child’s intrinsic motivation assumes indeed a fundamental role.