The impact of daily writing in kindergarten on reading readiness

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of daily writing in a kindergarten classroom on the reading readiness of those students. Two classrooms of kindergarten students were used in this study for the first four months of school. One classroom wrote everyday in their journal, while the second classroom wrote one to two times a week in their journals. The students in this study belonged to a full-day kindergarten program. My study is based on the premise that young children, starting in kindergarten, should be writing everyday. It's an incredibly difficult journey for a child to make the leap from thoughts and drawings to comprehensive writing, but it is one of the most worthwhile and empowering journeys of their lifetime. Grasping concepts of print, identifying letters, and recognizing sounds are the beginning steps of the writing process. My job as a kindergarten teacher is to aide each of my students on this journey. By the end of this study, students in the classroom that wrote everyday could identifY more letters and recognize more sounds than the classroom that wrote one to two times a week. Writing became a time where individuals expressed their thoughts and emotions on paper. Collaboration and creativity were encouraged as well. Writing time created excited, eager young writers. Keywords: daily writing, kindergarten. reading readiness, journal writing, modeled writing