Last week I was told about an Ofsted inspector who had criticised a Nursery teacher for encouraging the children in her class (aged 3 and 4 years old) to write their names. I’m always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I spoke to a friend who inspects, and they confirmed that during training inspectors have been told that children shouldn’t attempt to write things where they haven’t been taught the “foundational skills” and they think that this is where this idea has developed.
Anyone who has ever attended any of my training or heard me speak will know that I often talk about not trying to do things too soon in the name of ambition, and I’m a huge advocate of not rushing children before they’re ready, but this interpretation of “Doing the right things at the right time” (Bradbury and Swailes 2024) has missed the point completely. Because if we wait until children have been taught the correct letter formation and grapheme-phoneme correspondence for every letter and phoneme, we will have missed a vital window in children’s writing development. I believe this is what some in the education community refer to as a “lethal mutation”. What initially seems like a common-sense message eg. “Don’t expect children to write a short paragraph before they can write simple phrases independently.” Or “Don’t expect them to rewrite a story in their own words before they can write their name.” Has been stretched beyond all recognition and ignores what we know about how early writing develops.
The desire to make marks begins early. Young children who grow up surrounded by environmental print quickly learn that it carries meaning. My eldest child pointed to the familiar jar in the cupboard at age 10 months and said, “Marmitey”. “She can read!” I declared to her dad, and we both laughed. Of course, she wasn’t really reading, but she had learned that this was the Marmite jar and she associated the object with the word. This is how young children begin to learn the names of objects and eventually to recognise that print carries meaning and recognise familiar words, and these skills are an important part of becoming a reader and writer. There’s a fabulous short film from Harvard University that explains this early process here :
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/videos/serve-return-interaction-shapes-brain-circuitry/
Show a group of three-year-olds some popular logos and I guarantee several will proudly “read” them to you. Similarly, my daughter recognised the numbers 4 and 54 before any others. Was she a mathematical genius at 11 months? No, it was because both numbers were relevant and meaningful to her. We lived at number 4, and the bus she caught every evening with her father, to get home from the childminders, was the number 54. She saw those numbers every day and associated them with things that mattered to her.
Young children are fairly egocentric; the world revolves around them for the first few years of their lives. That’s not because they’re selfish; it’s just the way our brains are hardwired to survive at an early age. We try to cash in on this egocentricity by following children’s interests to engage them with their learning. This is one of the overarching principles of the Foundation Stage, that every child is unique and will bring their unique funds of knowledge and range of experiences to their learning. An attuned, experienced practitioner knows that if something is relevant to the child, they are more likely to engage with the task at hand or the information being shared. Children learn about written language through active engagement in their social and cultural worlds. (Bradford and Wyse 2013, Daniels 2014, Street 1995, Gee 2008) Derbyshire et al.’s (2014) research indicates the importance of a sense of connection to their learning for young children. Decontextualised content, which is unsympathetic to children’s life experiences and cultural values, can undermine children’s unique abilities and cause stress and failure, particularly for children from less advantaged backgrounds. What could be more connected to the child than their name? The motivation to write their own name is often more linked to the child’s growing sense of self, who they are in the world, and how they fit in, than it is to the secretarial skills of writing. There is a wealth of research evidence to show that literacy is a socio- cultural practice and the way this learning is offered to children will determine its impact for longer term outcomes (Rowe, 2008, Lancaster 2014, Gutierrex, Bein, Selland and Pierce 2011) It’s fascinating that in a time when the DFE has emphasized increasing research into developing young people’s sense of self and belonging, one of the early ways very young children exert this seems to be out of favour with some inspectors.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68136b1bb0ef2c985052541c/DfE_areas_of_research_interest.pdf

The DFE’s own non- statutory guidance, “Development Matters” (2024) states that, “3 and 4-year-olds will be learning to: Use some of their print and letter knowledge in their early writing. For example: writing a pretend shopping list that starts at the top of the page; writing ‘m’ for mummy. Write some or all of their name.”
The document then offers a range of suggestions that any experienced Early years professional will recognise as good practice:
“Motivate children to write by providing opportunities in a wide range of ways. Suggestions: clipboards outdoors, chalks for paving stones, boards and notepads in the home corner. Children enjoy having a range of pencils, crayons, chalks and pens to choose from. Apps on tablets enable children to mix marks, photos and video to express meanings and tell their own stories. Children are also motivated by simple home-made books, different coloured paper and paper decorated with fancy frames.”

Development Matters – Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage

So why are some inspectors challenging this and stating (incorrectly) that it is harmful to children’s learning? There seems to be some confusion amongst inspectors that is leading to high levels of anxiety in the sector. If inspectors are being told that name writing is poor practice, then shouldn’t the DFE non-statutory guidance be amended accordingly?
A basic understanding of how early writing develops, from pre-communicative markmaking, through the semiphonetic stage, to the phonetic stage, before we get to transitional and correct spelling (Gentry 1982) should be a prerequisite requirement for any inspector making judgements on the teaching of early writing in the foundation stage. I can’t believe that in the 21st century we’re having to make the case for mark making in the under 5s and yet here we are…

Experienced colleagues are telling me that they have been told by leaders and advisors that children should only write phrases and sentences that have been dictated by adults until they know all their grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The secretarial skills of writing are hugely important, but focusing entirely on these misses the point of early, emergent writing.
Neaum (2021) describes writing (and reading) as the tip of a very large iceberg, these are the visible skills that represent a tremendous body of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and understandings that underpin them. “The robustness and strength of the tip is supported and underpinned by what lies beneath”.
If we really want to develop successful writers, we need to bear in mind all of these underpinning skills. More than 50 years ago, James Britton stated, “Early literacy floats on a sea of talk”. Spoken language is the basis of becoming literate. The EEF review of writing (2018) acknowledges that writing is complex and both physically and intellectually demanding, and is underpinned by expressive language. They also highlight the importance of motivation, and what could be more motivating than writing your name?
Writing is a form of communication; without the desire to write and the necessary physical skills, no amount of dictation is going to make a child a writer. Sensory awareness, auditory discrimination, bilateral integration, crossing the midline, vestibular development, manipulative skills, shoulder girdle development, upper body strength and proprioception, the ability to symbolise and metalinguistic awareness, the willingness to have a go, and the resilience to persevere at what is a complex task are all important skills that children need to become effective writers. Phonological awareness and letter formation alone will not lead to confident, competent writers, and limiting children to writing only the letters we’ve taught them to form correctly or only the GPCs that have been taught in phonics lessons will put a ceiling on young children’s learning. Daniels’ (2014) study suggests that reducing early writing purely to a predefined set of skills serves to undervalue the rich range of experiences that children bring to the writing experience. This “top-down” pre-defined curriculum model has been very popular over the last few years since the introduction of the 2019 Ofsted framework, especially with some inspectors and advisors who are not well-versed in early child development. All too often, I have had to have challenging conversations with inspectors who demand to see every possible learning opportunity documented (despite the changes to the 2020 EYFS, which promised practitioners would need to focus less on paperwork and more on interactions) Of course, we can spend hours writing every piece of new vocabulary that could be introduced in each area of provision for every child, but 2-5 year olds don’t tend to follow a script, no matter how much you’d like them to and we can’t know whether vocabulary is new to them until we have conversations with them, so to do so would be a waste of everyone’s time. The notion of not allowing children to write their name, or to attempt to write any letters or words they’ve not been taught yet, is merely an extension of this nonsense!
Far better to consider some of the conversations that might develop, to reflect on how to support those effective interactions and the potential learning opportunities, and then interact with the child in an attuned way, supporting them with their markmaking and writing in a way that is meaningful to the child.

The problem is, poorly informed nonsense spreads like wildfire. Recently, I’ve met so many colleagues who have been told by an advisor or senior leader that unless children have been explicitly taught the sounds in their name at school, they should not write their name or any other words. Theoretically, some children will never be able to write their names if this approach is adopted without question, as many names aren’t phonetically spelled. Sorry, Siobhan, Naimh, and Saoirse, but you’re going to have to find a different way of making it known that the work you’ve handed in belongs to you! Purely from a practical perspective, pity the poor teacher with hundreds of pieces of work at the end of every day, all without a name to claim them. Realistically, try to stop a young child who has realised that print carries meaning and they can make their own marks representing their name from doing so. I wish you luck. There can’t be many EY practitioners who haven’t experienced the young graffiti artist who denies that they wrote on something they shouldn’t, even when their name is there as proof!

Gentry promoted purposeful writing experiences as a key to cognitive growth in spelling and encouraged teachers to model the writing of messages, lists, and plans with the children. I should add that the same inspector who was critical of name writing, also criticised a nursery teacher for writing a shopping list with the children for a cooking activity planned later in the week, even though Development Matters, quite rightly, promotes this approach. This person dared to claim they were an Early Years specialist. I despair!

In their excellent book, The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading, and Writing, Wyse and Hacking (2024) highlight the increasing political influence on the teaching of early reading and writing. Whilst it’s heartening that politicians are interested in early writing development and keen to ensure that children get the best start in life, it’s also vital that they listen to those with expertise in child development and those with direct experience of working with our youngest children. For too long, many who have influenced government thinking have had limited or no experience of working with under-fives. Very young children have different needs from children even just a few years older. Their physical needs are different, and they need rich, concrete experiences that are meaningful to them and that connect with their current understanding of themselves and the wider world. Making writing purely about secretarial skills is too abstract for 3 and 4-year-olds. It needs to relate to what they know and what they’re interested in. Evidence from a range of studies shows that the chosen pedagogies used to teach literacy impact on children’s understanding of what Literacy is and who it is for (Levy, 2011). Ellis and Smith (2017) argue for a Literacy curriculum adapted to meet children’s needs and current understandings. Early Literacy is an embodied experience (Roessingh and Bence, 2018). Young children learn by synaesthetic activities, drawing upon all their senses and experiences, building their knowledge as they link this to prior learning and make meaning from their wide experiences both at school and beyond. (Geneshi and Dyson 2009, Kress 1997).
As my friend Sue Cowley eloquently states in her book, The Ultimate Guide to Markmaking in the Early Years, “The journey to becoming a writer can be a tough one, scattered with potential obstacles”. It’s frustrating that some of those obstacles are now being put in the way by ill-informed advisors and inspectors. Those of us working in the Early Years sector would welcome a discussion with the inspectorate so that we can tackle any myths that are currently developing, challenge any inspectors who make inappropriate suggestions and ensure that what’s right for young children’s development doesn’t get sidelined in the name of what people think Ofsted wants to see. The stakes are too high to get this wrong.

References

Bradbury A. and Swailes, R. (2024) A child-centred EYFS, Sage.
Bradford, H. and Wyse, D. (2013). Writing and writers: the perceptions of young children and their parents. Early Years, 33(3), 252-265.
Daniels, K. (2014). Cultural agents creating texts: A collaborative space adventure. Literacy, 48(2),103-111.
Derbyshire, N., Finn, B., Griggs, S. and Ford, C. (2014) An unsure start for young children in English urban primary schools. Urban Review, 46, pp.816-830.
Development Matters : Non – statutory curriculum guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage . DFE 2023
Education Endowment Foundation (2018) Preparing for Literacy: Improving Communication, Language and Literacy in the Early Years’, London: Education Endowment Foundation
Ellis, S. and Smith, V. (2017) Assessment, teacher education and the emergence of professional expertise. Literacy 51, 3, pp 84-93.
Gee, J. P. (2008). Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in discourse (3rd ed) London: New York: Routledge.
Genishi, C. and Dyson, A., (2009) Children Language and Literacy – Diverse Learners in Diverse Times. London: Teachers’ College Press.
Gentry, J.R. (1982). An Analysis of Developmental Spelling in “GNYS AT WRK”. The Reading Teacher vol. 36, No.2 , pp192-20
Gutierrex, K., Bien, A. Selland, M. and Pierce, D. (2011) Polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies: Mediating emergent academic literacies for dual language learners. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 11.2, pp.232-261.
Kress, G. (1997). Before Writing: Rethinking the paths to literacy. London: Routledge
Lancaster, L. (2014). The Emergence of Symbolic Principles: the Distribution of Mind in Early Sign Making. Biosemiotics, 7.1, pp. 29-47.
Levy, R. (2011). Young Children Reading at Home and at School. London: Sage.
Neaum, S. (2021) What Comes Before Phonics (2nd Edition) Learning Matters
Roessingh, H. and Bence, M (2018) Embodied cognition: Laying the foundations for early language and literacy learning. Language and Literacy, 20 (4).
Rowe, D. (2008). Social contracts for writing: Negotiating shared understandings about text in the preschool years. Reading Research Quarterly, 43, pp. 66-95.
Street, B. (1995). Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education. London: Longman.

Recommended reading:
Gyns at work – A child learns to read and write – Glenda L Bissex – Harvard 1980
The Balancing Act – Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking- Routledge 2024
The Ultimate Guide To Markmaking in the Early Years – Sue Cowley Featherstone 2019
What Comes Before Phonics- Sally Neaum – Learning Matters 2021



Ruth Swailes is the lead author and developer of the Oxford University Press International Early Years Curriculum. She works as a School Improvement and Early Years Improvement Advisor in the UK and Internationally and has written several books about Early Years. Ruth is currently working on a holistic writing development programme to support teachers to develop early literacy from birth to seven.