A little bit of time...huge payoff!

More 'drawing' of letters than writing.  Writing the date and name.

It's always exciting to hear success stories.  Remember I showed you Parker's writing as he started school.  Well 2 months later and encouragement for authentic writing here is his writing today.  It's a great example of 1) allowing kids time to develop, not pushing 2) allowing for inventive spelling and 3) letting kids write about that which they know rather than writing to a prompt.

Writing to a prompt does nothing to encourage writing.  I mean, if I said to you, write about the best thing today.  Many of you would think, there wasn't any best thing today, today was a horrible day! You might not be in the mood to write about any best thing.  Hence your writing would be contrived, no voice, no passion, flat.  When we give kids writing prompts, we limit their writing.

I go for a walk in the park.  He also wrote 'hat' at the top because he knew how to write 'that'.

All writers write about that which they know. No writer writes  about contrived topics, so we shouldn't have students.   Before my teacher friends say what about the writing test, there is plenty of time to get them 'ready' for that.  

When we give kids in the early years the opportunity to write about anything they want, we create writers.   We create children who take risks in writing.   If your school doesn't allow for 'authentic' writing, you allow it at home.   We have the responsibility of creating lifelong writers, not prompt writers.
Side note:   He will learn when to use periods.  Obviously right now he think the more the better!