Early Writers in Northern Communities: Ways Teachers Might View and Reflect on Writers’ Representations

Abstract

“What did I write?” is the title of a seminal book (Clay, 1975), illustrating how we can learn what children know about print, in part, from their representations. Children’s writing is socially and culturally situated; play is one context shown to help develop the use of symbol systems. A framing with several lenses is designed and applied to illustrate to teachers ways to consider the samples of early writing accompanying the play of young children in remote Northern communities in Canada. There is consideration of how information could be used to inform and optimize educative actions in such learning contexts.