Abstract
From Levin’s seminal research, it appears that name writing, a natural focus of most young children, is the first stable written form with meaning. Inspired by Levin’s finding, we began to investigate the role of name writing in children’s acquisition of alphabetic knowledge. We present here a series of three Dutch studies from which it appears that children’s understanding of writing as a symbolic device starts with the first letter of the proper name.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Aram, D., & Levin, I. (2001). Mother-child joint writing in low SES: sociocultural factors, maternal mediation, and emergent literacy. Cognitive Development, 16, 831–852.
Badian, N. A. (1982). The prediction of good and poor reading before kindergarten entry: a 4-year follow-up. The Journal of Special Education, 16, 309–318.
Blair, R., & Savage, R. (2006). Name writing but not environmental print recognition is related to letter-sound knowledge and phonological awareness in pre-readers. Reading and Writing, 19, 991–1016.
Bloodgood, J. W. (1999). What’s in a name? Children’s name writing and literacy acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly, 34, 342–367.
Both-de Vries, A. C., & Bus, A. G. (2009a). Name writing: a first step to phonetic writing? Does the name have a special role in understanding the symbolic function of writing? Literacy Teaching and Learning, 12, 37–55.
Both-de Vries, A.C., & Bus, A.G. (2009b). The proper name as starting point for basic reading skills. Reading and Writing. DOI 10.1.007/s11145-008-9158-2.
Bus, A. G., Both-de Vries, A. C., de Jong, M.T., Sulzby, E., de Jong, W., & de Jong, E. (2001). Conceptualizations underlying emergent readers’ story writing. Ann Arbor, MI: Ciera report #2.015.
Bus, A. G., & Out, D. (2009). Unraveling genetic and environmental components of early literacy; a twin study. Reading and Writing, 22, 293–306.
Byrne, B. (1998). The foundation of literacy. The child’s acquisition of the alphabetic principle. East Sussex: Psychology Press Ltd.
Ehri, L. C., & Wilce, L. S. (1985). Movement into reading: is the first stage of printed word learning visual or phonetic? Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 163–179.
Ferreiro, E., & Teberosky, A. (1982). Literacy before schooling. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Foulin, J. N. (2005). Why is letter-name knowledge such a good predictor of learning to read? Reading and Writing, 18, 129–155.
Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of dyslexia. In K. E. Patterson, J. C. Marshall & M. Coltheart (Eds.), Surface dyslexia. neuropsychological and cognitive studies of phonological reading (pp. 301–330). London: Erlbaum.
Frost, J. (2001). Phonetic awareness, spontaneous writing, and reading and spelling development from a preventive perspective. Reading and Writing, 14, 487–513.
Gillanders, C., & Jimenez, R. T. (2004). Reaching for success: a close-up of Mexican immigrant parents in the USA who foster literacy success for their kindergarten children. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4, 243–269.
Levin, I., & Aram, D. (2004). Children’s names contribute to early literacy: a linguistic and social perspective. In D. Ravid & H. Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Eds.), Perspectives on language and language development. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Levin, I., & Bus, A. G. (2003). How is emergent writing based on drawing? Analyses of children’s products and their sorting by children and mothers. Developmental Psychology, 39, 891–905.
Levin, I., Both-de Vries, A. C., Aram, D., & Bus, A. G. (2005). Writing starts with own name writing: from scribbling to conventional spelling of Israeli and Dutch children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 26, 463–477.
Mandel, D. R., Jusczyk, P. W., & Pisoni, D. B. (1995). Infants’ recognition of the sound of their own names. Psychological Science, 6, 314–317.
Martens, P. A. (1999). Mommy, how do you write “Sarah?”: the role of name writing in one’s child literacy. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 14, 5–15.
Molfese, V. J., Beswick, J., Molnar, A., & Jacobi-Vessels, J. (2006). Alphabetic skills in preschool: a preliminary study of letter naming and letter writing. Developmental Neuropsychology, 29, 5–19.
Strickland, D. S., & Shanahan, T. (2004). Laying the groundwork for literacy – Preliminary findings from the National Early Literacy Panel. Educational Leadership, 6, 74–77.
Stuart, M., & Coltheart, M. (1988). Does reading develop in a sequence of stages? Cognition, 30, 139–181.
Sulzby, E., Barnhart, J., & Hieshima, J. (1989). Forms of writing and rereading from writing: a preliminary report. In J. Mason (Ed.), Reading-writing collection (pp. 31–63). Neeham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Treiman, R., & Broderick, V. (1998). What’s in a name? Children’s knowledge about the letters in their own names. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 70, 97–116.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bourassa, D. (2001). Children’s own names influence their spelling. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 555–570.
Treiman, R., Levin, I., & Kessler, B. (2007). Learning of letter names follows similar principles across languages: evidence from Hebrew. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 96, 87–106.
Vernon, S. A., & Ferreiro, E. (1999). Writing development: a neglected variable in the considerations of phonological awareness. Harvard Educational Review, 69, 395–415.
Villaume, S. K., & Wilson, L. C. (1989). Preschool children’s explorations of letters of their own names. Applied Psycholinguistics, 10, 283–300.
Welsch, J. G., Sullivan, A., & Justice, L. M. (2003). That’s my letter!: what preschoolers’ name writing representations tell us about emergent literacy knowledge. Journal of Literacy Research, 2, 757–776.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Both-de Vries, A.C., Bus, A.G. (2010). It’s All in the Name. In: Aram, D., Korat, O. (eds) Literacy Development and Enhancement Across Orthographies and Cultures. Literacy Studies, vol 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0834-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0834-6_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0833-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0834-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)