Name Writing: A First Step to Phonetic Writing? Does the Name Have a Special Role in Understanding the Symbolic Function of Writing?

This study tested how name writing affects young children's emergent writing. Beginning with a group of 96 Dutch children ages 3 1/2-5, we selected more-advanced children who were producing strings of conventional letters but, apart from very few words, no correct or readable (invented) spellings (N = 35). All children recruited from middle-to-high socioeconomic status (SES) Dutch families were asked to write, in their native Dutch language, their name as well as a set of 16 words such as "baby" and "flower" that were not likely to have been practiced before. The children's control for writing their own proper name influenced spellings of unpracticed words. Fifty-two percent of the letters used to represent unpracticed words were letters from the child's proper name and, more importantly, the first letter of the name was the first one to be written phonetically. These effects of name writing were replicated in a second study with another sample of slightly older children (ages 4-6) from low SES Dutch families (N = 79). We speculate on factors that may explain why a shift to phonetic writing starts with the first letter of a child's name. (Contains 2 tables.)