This is a great example of the concept communicated via a recent Buzz Word in Education: "Intentionality".  Although the word itself has been around longer than you can imagine, it has, in the last decade, become a term to reckon with in the classroom.  More on the concept, after we see just how fun it can be in early childhood!

The children were "Intentionally" taught some basic cookie decorating skills to ensure they could: produce beautiful cookie gifts; keep the mess to a minimum; plan and execute a project; and exercise some fine motor coordination techniques.   A lesson taught with Intentionality, which, in turn, taught the children to approach the project with Intentionality.  They were required to think ahead about colors and design, and we used demonstration and hand-over-hand practice to understand the skills...the technique and the outcome of using the techniques.  There were No Mounds of Icing, there were No Big Spills, there were No Sprinkle-Doused Cookies!  There were a lot of little fingers working hard for the correct positioning, there were many thoughtful pauses prior to taking the next step, and there were happy, proud faces enjoying the holiday music and their own Edible Christmas Masterpieces!

Be enlightened!  Click HERE for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's definition and explanation of "Intentionality".    And make it FUN!! :)

Teach the children the framework within which they can "own" the classroom.  My kindergarten children run our entire morning and afternoon meetings by the beginning of November.  They know their jobs and they know the routine.  I sit back and watch, enjoying the new ways they learn by working with each other and not depending on me to guide every detail, answer every question or solve every problem.  Independence, critical thinking, coooperation and collaboration, excitement!  LEARNING!!!  My morning students asked me this week for the keys to the building and offered for me to sleep in while they run the class!  I'm considering it. LOL - JK

Along the same empowering lines of thinking, let them "own" the work.  Teach the concept, not the details.  Demonstrate and explain when it is absolutely necessary to stay within the lines, but let them "color outside the lines" or "think out of the box" on their own, putting their own spin on the work, based on their own prior knowledge or curiosity.  It's never wrong if they are learning something...even when it's not what we expected them to be learning.  The thinking is what really matters!  Provoke the inquisitive nature and the desire to create that children are blessed with!  They naturally come equipped to learn...let them go for it.  Don't get hung up on "doing it right" and stop giving them the answers!  Let them read their writing to you, let them explain their process to you...allow them to share what is going on in their minds as they explore, and allow them to change it to fit how they perceive it should be - you may learn something new!
​                                                                  It's their process and their outcome...Let Them Feel It!

What does all of this mean?  Well, we have been using extrinsic motivators in the classroom (and at work and at home) for many, many years...ever since behavior theories in education were based on animal behaviors in the lab - without the more current knowledge of human behavior and neurological functions.   This is the motivation that we are used to and have been comfortable with..."dangle the carrot;" "offer a reward;" "give a bonus;" "incent them"...

This is also the behavior that creates the response, "What will you give me if I get an A on my report card?"

It starts at a very young age, when, like a puppy in the house-training stage, we incentivize our children with a reward for all of those kind person/good citizen behaviors we expect them to strive for.  "Sit puppy!  Good girl, have a dog biscuit!"  Similar to:  "Your teacher told me that you are so polite in school and that your behavior clip never moves down.  Let's go out for pizza and celebrate!"

Intrinsic Motivation is the simple one!  What is it?  

• Curiosity
• Interest
• Desire
• Passion
• Achievement
• Fulfillment
• Pride

Intrinsic Motivation is the motivator that comes from within.  It's the "feel good about myself" motivator.  Remember the song, "It's the Climb"?  Intrinsic motivation involves enjoying the process, the experience, and not waiting for an outcome in order to be happy about what we are doing.  This is performing acts of kindness, this is doing a job or a school assignment because you are interested in it and excited to be participating in it; this is finding something that captures you about a content area you aren't generally interested in and embracing the work for the enjoyment of pursuing that  interest.

Providing external motivators stops the internal motivation.  The sticker given to a child for a kind act teaches the child to use the positive behavior as a means to get a reward.  The good feeling the child experiences comes from someone else recognizing the act and providing proof of such with a prize.  The child is not aware of feeling good inside for being a good friend or a good citizen... or for learning! 

Doing the work for the purpose of getting the A takes all of the excitement out of the learning it takes to get to the A and creates a mindset of pushing through the work to get to the desired outcome.  It's about the A, not about the learning  that could be happening.  I wonder how many different ways students may find to get to the A if they are  not embracing the learning process?  ...food for thought.

​The positive emotions that we experience, which build self-esteem and confidence, are not recognized with extrinsic motivators.  A pat on the back and a comment such as, "Wow!  You must feel so good about yourself having done something so nice for a friend!  I'll bet you are really proud of yourself," is the best choice for encouraging positive behaviors and building a solid foundation of confidence.    This encourages the child to recognize the intrinsic motivator; the response directs them to recognize the feeling within and eventually eliminates the need to find the reward on the outside.  Self-Regulation in the Works.

And if you are reluctant to give up the reward system, couple the sticker or prize with a comment such as the Wow statement above.  Provide the child with guidance to find and recognize the internal feelings while recognizing the child with a reward.  This is not optimal, but full resistance to the concept is more harmful.

Colleen Mantell is a Certified Sign2Me Instructor
Visit the Sign2Me site for Sign Language Research Articles and
 Contact Colleen at www.BeyondTheStandards.com for Sign2Me Workshops and Materials!
We will have Sign2Me Products Available at our Exhibit Space during the DVAEYC Conference in March!

These and so many other inquiries from our students drove the research and learning involved in our Great Barrier Reef project.  Preparing for a new project, wondering if we could find anything more fun and exciting than our recent North Pole and Santa's Workshop, we laughed about needing a little beach time with all of these "too cold to play" days.  That thought, coupled with a recent obsession with magnets, led our group to a debate over whether we should create a beach or a science laboratory.  Let the voting begin!  

The beach was the winner, and all of the students whole-heartedly embraced our virtual trip to the Coral Sea.  The students' brainstorming eventually led us to exploring the land down under, a beach on Australia's East Coast called Lizard Island, and finally, The Great Barrier Reef.  Students were attracted like their magnets (opposite poles, they will tell you) to the incredible world that exists under the sea.

Recently there have been many, many questions 
posed to me about young children and writing. 

• Can they do it?  
• Should we encourage them to do it?  
• So we just lower our expectations, right?  
• Why in the world would we concern ourselves with 2s and 3s writing??!!
• Isn't this more of the "pushing down" pressure that children are experiencing academically?

Remember, reading and writing go hand-in-hand.   
This means that we learn to read by writing, and we learn to write by reading!   

Reading with young children promotes vocabulary, speaking and listening skills, communication in general, and pre-reading skills including the basic understanding that the words we say and the ideas we express can be written down and later read aloud and shared.

Just as we expose young children to reading by reading stories to them, which eventually results in them imitating this behavior, we also must expose young children to writing by modeling and sharing our writing.  They will, inevitably, mimic this behavior as well.  If I write a grocery list and read the first three items to my two-year-old, asking if he wants me to add anything to the list of items we will pick up at the grocery store today, he might very well say, "nana" (bananas).  I will write the word bananas and read it back to him.  Making this a fun game between us, he may eventually choose to sit next to me and make his own grocery list while I make mine each week, and we might read them to each other before we leave and as we shop.  

Early on, before children can regulate gross and fine motor skills to the extent that they can practice writing letters, writing is all about the scribble!  Scribble can represent a picture and a picture tells a story just as words do.  The scribble can represent the words that describe a picture, and the scribble-words can be read aloud to tell the story, with reference to the picture for visual details.   

A very important facet of this early scribble is that writing is an individual's opportunity to tell his or her story.   Therefore, the scribble, whether a drawing or an attempt to imitate writing, is documenting the toddler's story!  Hence, the key component needed in order to reach the outcome is to have the child "read" aloud his or her story from the illustration and/or scribble-words he or she created. This is ever so exciting!  This is the beginning of a person's ability to share or express his or her thoughts by authoring those thoughts.  WOW!  Powerful play!!!  We can ask a child to draw and write about her favorite place, favorite toy, trip to the zoo, etc., and she can read us her story!  We can even work on advanced reading skills such as reading with expression, because when telling her own story, this lesson is a natural one and can be an opportunity for learning through play.  "Show us your sad face so we know what you looked like when you fell  off the swing in your story.  Can you read it with your sad voice?"

Once children reach three years old, assuming developmentally appropriate fine and gross motor play has been happening up until this point, they can begin to make attempts at controlling a marker, crayon or even a pencil, in order to work toward writing letters.  This is the stage where we may have some actual letters or scribbles similar to letters that are "read" to us when the child tells the story of his illustration.  

Assessing pre-writing skills is important.  The purpose of assessment is to inform instruction.  This means that we monitor the development of the skills in order to determine what it is that each individual child needs from us at this point.  Assessment does not have to be and should not be - particularly in early childhood - formalized testing.  During the early years, children learn through play, and they demonstrate their skills in the same manner.  Therefore, the same fun that we have with them when we are exposing them to writing and encouraging them to be the young authors that they are, is the same fun we must plan and engage, in order to assess skills.

I have found that Scholastic's Easy Assessments for Pre-Kindergarten, by Laurie B. Fyke, is a wonderful resource for developmentally-appropriate assessment activities.   Fyke includes a Language Arts Reading Assessment that makes a must-have tool for checking in with early readers and writers.  She lists objectives for the assessment, the materials needed, the directions, and she provides a student form as well as a teacher form.  How does it work?  The child receives a page that has a large box on it with a title, "I can draw a picture and tell about my story." Sound familiar?  The teacher form is a check-off grid with space for notes and four assessment times, each corresponding with a list of skills to assess.  The skills range from retelling their own story orally to reading with expression.  This covers skills that range from toddlers to first grade!  

Another assessment of Fyke's asks the student to draw a picture of him- or herself.  This writing assessment pertains to organizing information and the skills assessed range from age-appropriate development of the figure in the drawing to demonstrating a correct pencil grip.  Once again, she offers a wide range of skills to assess.  The checklists, forms, and details make these assessments a breeze for teachers and easy to complete one-on-one with students, without stress or tears.  It's easy to keep it fun and see what's going on!

Such assessments allow teachers to easily observe and record where a student is with (pre-)reading and writing skills at a particular point in time.  This enables the educator to build upon the current skills, and just as important, to celebrate achievement with students, no matter how minor, because the milestones will be observed.    Progress is the goal, at the rate at which it fits each individual student's development. 

Below is Fyke's book and also some resource articles pertaining to the information discussed in this post. Happy Writing...and Reading, naturally!


Fyke, L. B. (2007). Easy assessments for pre-kindergarten. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Toddlers and reading: Describe but don't drill. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2014, from
http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/reading-writing/toddler-reading

Early writing: Why squiggles are important. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2014, from Learning
Disabilities Association of America website: http://ldaamerica.org/
early-writing-why-squiggles-are-important/

Today I had the joy of spending my morning with the staff at the Upper Dublin Christian Nursery School. I have never seen such an energetic group so early in the morning!  The energy of the staff spoke volumes to me about the enthusiasm, care, and professional commitment that the families served here must experience.  Needless to say, our professional development session was of high quality, as the interest level and desire to gain insight was outstanding...not to mention the range of talent in the room! 

My purpose here is to follow up and share one issue from our discussion during the PD session, Writing:  A Developmental Skills Approach, that  I felt was left dangling. With the use of some wonderful resources, which I will list below, we visited the topic of pencil grip/grasp: the good and the bad.  Actually the bad were labeled by our OT experts as "poor" and "awkward" pencil grips.  We also looked at the developmental spectrum of pencil grasp.  This is important for teachers of writing, particularly in early childhood education, to be aware of.   I will also throw out the thought to those who teach reading to consider the grip as a clue when issues with reading comprehension are a concern; however, I stop there, because the relationship   between pencil grip and reading is a topic for a PD session, too deep for a blog post. :)

Attendees learned today that along with the traditional "tripod" pencil grip, the "D'Nealian" pencil grip is completely acceptable/functional (see photo above).  In our area, schools generally teach Zaner-Bloser style print, and this grip is named for another style of print, D'Nealian, which I have seen taught in other areas.  This left me with concerns about crossing grasps with writing styles and wondering if there is a specific reason for this pencil grip to be used with D'Nealian style writing.   

I consulted one of my OT resources, and there was a blog post with advice regarding the use of this D'Nealian grasp versus the conventional grasp, which gives some clarity.