Beginning Writing Doesn't Start with Writing Part 1

Rethinking How We Teach Our Youngest Writers

Fifteen years ago, when I started my career as a first-grade teacher, I thought I had writing figured out.

Looking back now, I can't help but smile at that version of myself.

I had the lesson plans, the mentor texts, the writing prompts, and all the enthusiasm of a brand-new teacher. I truly believed I knew how to teach children to become writers.

Then one student changed everything.

She sat in front of me with a sharpened pencil in her hand and a blank piece of paper on her desk.

Around her, the room buzzed with the quiet sounds of writing time. Pencils scratched across paper. Some students whispered as they stretched out words, while others eagerly raised their hands to tell me they were finished.

She just sat there.

I walked over and knelt beside her.

"Tell me what you're thinking," I said.

Without hesitation, she started telling me an incredible story.

She told me about the beach trip she had taken with her family over the weekend. She described the waves crashing against the shore, the tiny crabs they found under rocks, and how her little brother screamed every time the cold water touched his feet. She laughed as she talked. She remembered details. She sequenced events. As she spoke, I could picture the entire weekend unfolding in my mind. It was as if I had been there with her.

When she finished, I smiled.

"That's an amazing story," I said. "Now write it."

She looked down at her paper, then back at me, and then back at the paper. The smile that had been on her face quietly disappeared. After several minutes of staring at the blank page, she still hadn't written a single word.

The child who had just painted such a vivid picture with her words suddenly didn't know where to begin.

At the time, I thought the problem was writing.

Like many teachers, I assumed she simply needed more encouragement. More practice. More confidence. Maybe a better writing prompt. Maybe another graphic organizer. Maybe she just wasn't motivated.

Looking back, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Writing wasn't the problem.

Writing was simply where the struggle became visible.

I wish I could tell you she was the only student who ever made me question my approach to writing instruction, but she wasn't.

Over the years, I met classrooms full of students just like her. Children who could spend five minutes passionately explaining the rules of a game they had invented. Children who could tell elaborate stories about dragons, superheroes, or family vacations. Children who eagerly participated in class discussions, made thoughtful connections during read-alouds, and could verbally explain exactly what they were thinking.

Then writing time would begin.

Everything changed.

Those same confident children suddenly became quiet. They stared at blank pieces of paper. They copied classmates. They wrote one sentence and stopped. Some cried. Some shut down completely. Others insisted they had nothing to write about, even though I had just listened to them talk for five straight minutes.

If you've taught young children for any length of time, you've probably met this student, too.

Maybe you're picturing one right now.

As teachers, we naturally try to make sense of what we're seeing.

• We tell ourselves they need more stamina.

• More writing practice.

• More confidence.

• We wonder if they're reluctant writers.

• We search for a better prompt.

• A better graphic organizer.

• A more engaging mentor text.

I've done all of those things. Maybe you have too.

But what if those explanations aren't actually getting to the root of the problem?

What if these children aren't struggling because they lack ideas?

What if they're struggling because we're asking them to perform one of the most complex tasks they'll encounter in elementary school, before we've intentionally taught everything that task requires? That question completely changed the way I think about beginning writing. Like many teachers, I believed writing instruction started when students picked up a pencil. After all, that's what most writing programs ask us to do. We gather students on the carpet. We model a sentence. We read a mentor text. We show a picture. Then we send students off to write. On the surface, that seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, most of us have probably taught writing that way. I know I did. Until I stopped and thought about what we were actually asking children to do.

In a single writing lesson, we're asking them to:

• Generate an idea.

• Organize that idea into a complete thought.

• Hold it in working memory.

• Remember how to form letters.

• Hear the sounds in words.

• Connect those sounds to letters.

• Spell unfamiliar words.

• Leave spaces.

• Use punctuation.

• Monitor handwriting.

• Reread their work.

• Communicate their thinking in a way another person can understand.

All at once.

When you really stop and think about it...it's incredible that beginning writers accomplish as much as they do.

The more I reflected on this, the more I realized something important.

Writing isn't just one skill.

When a child sits down to write, they're pulling together oral language, vocabulary, background knowledge, working memory, phonological awareness, letter formation, spelling, executive functioning, and fine motor development—all at the same time.

We call it writing.

Children experience it as dozens of skills happening simultaneously.

No wonder writing feels overwhelming.

And that's when it finally clicked.

We don't have a writing problem.

We have a sequencing problem.

We've become so focused on the destination that we've unintentionally rushed past the developmental journey.

And I can't help but wonder...

What if we've been teaching beginning writing backwards?

That question sent me down a path that completely changed the way I think about teaching young writers.

The more I studied child development, the more I realized something that now seems so obvious.

Writing doesn't suddenly begin the day a child is asked to write a sentence.

It develops.

Just like reading.

Just like speaking.

Just like walking.

Every stage builds upon the one before it.

And yet...

I don't think we've been talking about writing that way.

In Part 2, I'm sharing the biggest mindset shift I've made in my career:

Writing is developmental.

Because once you understand how writing develops, you'll stop wondering what to teach next—and you'll start seeing your young writers in an entirely different way.

I hope you'll join me.