Are Those Really Mistakes?: A Response to "Every Mark on the Page" and Sound Systems

The title of Kate Cusumano's article "Every Mark on the Page: Educating Family and Community Members about Young Children's Writing" definitely intrigued me.  I love that she included community members in the subtitle because it assumes that teaching children to read and write, and learn in general, is a group effort, not the responsibility of one parent or teacher.   This title sat well with me because, in a sense, it takes the pressure of me, as a future teacher and potential parent as well.  While I of course want to aid and help the children in my classroom learn literacy in ways that are beneficial to each of them, I love that teaching can be viewed as a team effort.

But now onto the actual article...I was shocked when I read about the mother who was convinced her child was having seizures during writing workshop time because he misspelled "there" and "their" a few times.  These few misspelled words had his mother in such a tizzy; she couldn't accept the fact that her son was still intelligent and capable, despite a few instances of word confusion (p. 9)  I liked this example because Cusumano used it to further explain childrens' capabilities in writing, and how their mistakes should not always be viewed as mistakes, but, in fact, are often strengths.  On page eleven, Cusumano uses a kindergartener's writing sample to explain a way to analyze a child's writing in a way that helps us see the strengths of the piece.  When discussing the use of pictures in order to help children's writing, Cusumano explains that children often confuse pictures and writing because both "convey meaning" (p. 12).  However, this particular child's writing is much more detailed than her picture, "demonstrating that she is moving on to a higher stage of development" (p. 12). In addition to the detailed writing, the child also demonstrates an understanding of periods, spaces, and writing from left to right.  I was amazed by all of the strengths that Cusumano was able to find from this child's writing piece, because when I first saw it, I noticed the spelling mistakes and had trouble deciphering the words.  Cusumano proved a critical point about teaching children to write: we must take into account children's understanding of words and their uses in society when reading their writing, and not just hunt for mistakes.

Anna Lyon and Paula Moore discuss children's understandings of phonetics when reading their writing, which seemed to connect largely to Cusumano's article.  They gave the example of a child who spelled "dragon" as "jagn."  Upon first glance, the reader may have no concept of what word the child was attempting to spell.  However, with an understanding of how the words are spoken orally, the reader can make the connection that "dr" and "j" make similar formations in the mouth when spoken (Lyon and Moore, 14).  This background understanding when reading children's writing helps us make connections to why children spell the way they do, and proves Cusumano's point that children do, in fact, know much more than we often give them credit for.  

After reading the assigned chapters in Sound Systems and Cusumano's article, I feel like I am starting to better understand children and their ways of writing.  At twenty-two, it's often hard to go back in time and try and understand why a child would have spelled a word a particular way.  However, it is crucial to do this because otherwise, we simply view the word as wrong, making it much more difficult to help children spell in the future.  I also love the way that Cusumano, Lyon, and Moore all emphasized the connections between reading, writing, and speaking.  It's almost impossible to separate the three, and, in a way, detrimental. If we understand how children speak, we can then aid them in becoming much better readers, and in turn, great writers too.