Leornrn~ and lncrruck~n Vol 2, pp 2341. 1Y92 Prmted m Great Bntam All rights reserved 09594752/92 $15 00 0 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd zyxwvut WRITING IN PRELITERATE CHILDREN JEAN EMILE GOMBERT and MICHEL FAYOL University of Burgundy, France Abstract The purpose of this study was to gauge the knowledge young children have of writing conventions. To accomplish this, children age 3 to 6 years were asked to ‘write’ dictated pairs of words and sets of sentences designed in such a way that one of the members of the pair or set was phonologically included in the other(s). Following this, the subjects were asked to draw pictures of the objects referred to by the dictated words. Finally, in a later experimental session, they performed a force-choice task which involved selecting the best of three ‘writing’ samples: their own production, a drawing, and standard writing. The results obtained are roughly consistent with those found in previous research. Nevertheless, they provide evidence that children, some as young as age 3, have the capability to produce graphics which exhibit some of the characteristics of writing. Introduction More and more studies have begun to show that, even before learning to read, children have some awareness of the purpose of reading (Downing, 1970; Hiebert, 1978; Huba & Kontos, 1985; Weiss & Hagen, 1988) and of the main conventions governing the manipulation of writing, such as directionality (Day, Day, Spicola, & Griffin, 1981; Hildreth, 1936). This awareness is displayed by their ability to hold a book correctly and to differentiate written material from pictorial material (Day et al., 1981; Huba & Kontos, 1985; Sulzby, 1985). Children are also aware of certain features of letters (Lavine, 1977; Pick, Unze, Brownell, Drozdal, & Hopmann, 1978) and can name some of them (Hiebert, 1981; Mason, 1980; Smythe, Stennett, Hardy, & Wilson, 1971). They know the difference between a word, a letter, and a number (De Goes & Martlew, 1983; Ferreiro, Gomez Palacio, Guarjago, Rodriguez, Vega, & Cantu, 1979; Ganopole, Pick zyxwvuts et al., 1978). Finally, they can recognize certain words presented in familiar contexts such as food wrappers or children’s books (Goodall, 1984; Hiebert, 1978; Mason, 1980; Masonheimer, Drum, & Ehri, 1984). These various aspects of writing knowledge possessed by preliterate children do not surface concurrently. Following the research by Hiebert, Cioffi, and Antonak (1984) and by Mason (1980), Lomax and McGhee (1987) conducted a study dealing with the emergence of different types of early writing knowledge. These authors found that Address for correspondence: J. E. Gombert, LEAD-CNRS Universite de Bourgogne, Facultt des Sciences Gabriel, BP 138, F-21004 Dijon-Cedex, France. 23