What Does Writing in Kindergarten Look Like?

Parents are often curious about what writing looks like in Kindergarten.  Should a kindergarten student be able to print letters correctly?  Should they be able to write a sentence?  Should children be able to spell words correctly? 

Writing is a skill, and just like any skill there are several stages of development that one goes through.  For example, when babies learn to walk they go through several stages of development which include sitting, rolling over, crawling, etc.

Writing in kindergarten is all about guiding children through the stages of writing development.  It is important to provide young children with encouragement and confidence while they develop the skill of writing. 

A few years back I received a resource titled Kid Writing written by Eileen Feldgus and Isabell Cardonick.  This excellent resource outlines the stages of writing young children go through.

I have received permission from the author Eileen Feldgus to share with you the stages of writing development. 

STAGES OF WRITING DEVELOPMENT

Level 1: Emerging/Scribble

This is the beginning level at which your child scribbles.  You may not be able to tell what the picture is about, but it’s important to praise your child’s beginning drawing. 

The flower is growing.

Level 2: Pictorial

At this level, your child begins to draw a somewhat recognizable picture and may not tell about it.  He or she may also imitate writing. 

There are webs in Spidertown.

Level 3: Precommunicative

Your child may now be printing his or her own name or an occasional known word and may be writing strings of letter like forms or a series of random letters.  Sometimes he or she may attempt to read the message back, but you probably can’t read it. 

I have a goldfish named Arielle.

Level 4: Semiphonetic

At this level, your child begins to use some letters to match sounds, often using one beginning letter to write a word.  He or she usually writes from left to right but may reverse some letters.

I found a lamp and a genie came out. 

Level 5: Phonetic

Now your child writes most words using beginning and ending consonant sounds and spells some frequently used words correctly.  He or she may begin to add vowel sounds, but they are often not correct ones.  At this level, your child may begin to leave spaces between words.  It’s getting easier to read your child’s writing. 

Once upon a time, there was (were) four butterflies. They went on an adventure in the woods.

Level 6: Transitional

At this level, your child is writing words the way they sound, representing most syllables in words.  He or she may sometimes be adding an extra silent e at the end of a word or doubling letters when they’re not needed while trying visually to remember how spelling works.  Now your child usually leaves spaces between words and is spelling many words correctly as he or she writes more than one sentence. 

Please note that for this blog post I have included six of the nine stages of writing development.  I have found the first six stages to be of most use for me when teaching kindergarten. 

One of my students during a shared writing activity.