North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Language Development and Communication (LDC)

Subdomain: Foundations for Writing

Goal: Children use knowledge of letters in attempts to write.

Skill Progression: Use knowledge of letters in attempts to write

Age: 54-60 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 54-60 Months.

Writes at least the most commonly first-learned letters: B, D, S, T, O, A, H, K, M, and C

Situations for Observation of Skill

Make cards for the child’s mother, father, or other special people.

Elicitation Strategy

Have the child draw his pet or favorite animal on the front of the card. Ask him to write a letter inside.

Behavior Observed

The child writes common CVC words like CAT or DOG, and familiar words like MOMMY, DADDY, LOVE, and DEAR. The child may need to copy letters modeled by the adult. The child likes words with the letters he knows, which are the easiest to make.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Let children start their own word books, where they write down the words they learn to read and write each day. This gives them ownership of their words. Encourage them by giving them positive feedback on the words they learned to spell and write in their books. Adults can help children add to their books by talking about letter combinations, rhyming words, and spelling similarities and differences. Brainstorm other words the children could add. Practice writing words with letters that are simple to make first.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.