Meaningful Mark Making for Boys

Both as an early years professional and a mum of two boys I have observed boys‘ reactions to mark making/writing within the early years environment a lot. Often presented in well resourced, inviting writing areas or other areas dotted around the room but for many boys this was still rarely their first choice of activity. Tying in children's interests to mark making really is the key to changing this motivation and this requires us to really think outside of the box and not view writing as a stand alone activity. It also needs real context and meaning for children. A few years ago I ran a project across a number of different settings, where educators really observed children's interests and provided resources, within a meaningful context for the children to access. The outcomes and motivation for the children involved was amazing to watch. As anyone who has worked with children for a long time would predict, for the group of boys involved the motivation and interests all came from outdoor activities and were often very action based. The educators creativity with providing meaningful writing opportunities with the children who were motivated by football, being pirates and firefighters and riding bikes, was great. They really embraced this idea of taking writing opportunities to the children, in the areas where the children were most interested and where they were most motivated whilst also giving real context to the purpose of the writing.

Some of the ways this was done was truly inspiring. The boys who were always wanting to play football were provided with resources to write lists of their teams and labels to write which position they would play in. They made maps of the pitch and drew where players would be placed. They made and sold tickets for spectators to come and watch them play. They kept written scores of the goals and they wrote letters to their favourite players. These are just a few examples of the many ways practitioners took meaningful writing opportunities in to areas that the children were most interested in. The outcome for the children was a huge increase in their level of engagement in writing, their enjoyment of writing increased and their view of writing changed. All of these combined, inevitably affected the outcomes of the children’s writing. While my approach and beliefs are not driven by outcomes, in a world where children and educators are under constant pressure to ‘do better’ and ‘show progress’ we can at the very least try to make these experiences for children as motivating, meaningful and fun as possible.