Writer's Workshop For Preschoolers

This week in my Design for Curriculum class we read an article called "Documenting Children's Play Stories to Enhance Learning".The article connected preschoolers to Writer's Workshop.  The article stated young children need to think about themselves as authors. It really stuck with me because I had never heard anyone refer to such young children as authors. Preschoolers are still practicing writing their names, authors? hardly, I thought. However, I learned writing is much more than just putting a pencil to paper and creating sentences. Writing has many components, as the teacher in the article pointed out. Writing consists of thoughts, feeling and actions. That is when the light bulb went off in my head! Preschoolers have all of that! They are creative, imaginative and curious. They are perfect for creating stories!

The teacher observed and documented children playing in the dramatic area. There were 3 children working together to fix a ship that was surrounded by shark infested water. She wrote word for word what they were saying and doing. Afterwards she put the 'story' into a class book including illustrations from the children. This was very exciting for the children! They all wanted to 'write stories!'  It was contagious. 

The teacher was right- children are authors. They had the components of a story-  characters, plot, and setting. It was amazing to me to think of children creating their very own stories. This teacher was able to connect literacy in a meaningful way to the children. I love the idea about teaching young children to think of themselves as authors because in reality they really are and so good  at too! It is so natural for them, nothing is forced.  It just happens, like we were suppose to all along write their stories. As a perspective teacher, I can't wait to document young children's stories!