Relationship between preschoolers’ name-writing proficiency and
emergent literacy skills
Cynthia Puranik, Caitlin Hughes, & Samantha Schreiber
ABSTRACT
Study 1
The goals of this study were:
1) to examine whether preschoolers’ name-writing proficiency
differentiated them on other emergent literacy tasks
2) to determine whether a child’s length of name is associated with
their emergent literacy skills
3) to examine whether children with longer names (7 or more
letters) performed better on measures of alphabet knowledge and
spelling compared to children with shorter names.
In study 1, 296 preschool children aged 4 to 5 years were evaluated
on a range of emergent literacy tasks. The more advanced name writers
outperformed the less advanced name writers on all emergent literacy
measures; furthermore, children with longer names did not show
superior performance when compared to children with shorter names.
In study 2, 104 preschool children aged 3 to 5 years were evaluated
using four measures of alphabet knowledge and spelling. Once again,
the more advanced name writers outperformed the less advanced name
writers on the alphabet knowledge and spelling measures.
Results indicated that having a longer name did not translate into an
advantage on alphabet knowledge and spelling tasks. Name-writing
proficiency, not length of name, appears to be associated with preschool
children’s developing emergent literacy skills.
-Effect of Name-Writing Proficiency: As proficiency in name
writing improved, performance on other emergent literacy tasks also
improved.
-Effect of Name Length: There were no significant differences
between the three groups based on name length except for on the
Elision task; on other tasks (spelling, letter writing, alphabet
knowledge, print concepts, blending), children with short, medium
and long names performed at similar levels. Pairwise comparisons
indicated statistically significant differences for children with
- medium-length and children with long names.
Study 2
-Effect of Name Writing Proficiency: After controlling for age, the
full alphabetic writers outperformed the partial alphabetic writers;
who, in turn, outperformed the prealphabetic writers in all alphabet
knowledge tasks and spelling. As proficiency in name writing
improved, performance on all alphabet knowledge tasks, and
spelling also showed improvement.
For prealphabetic group n = 47, partial alphabetic n = 79, and full alphabetic name writers n = 170.
METHOD
Study 1
296 preschool children
• From 30 different private and public child care centers in a
moderate-sized city in north Florida
• Mean age of 58.5 months (SD = 3.56; range 51 - 65 months)
• Ethnicity: White- 48.9%, Black/AA- 42.2%, Asian-2.4%, Hispanic3.1%, Other-3.4%
• 56.8% male, 43.2% female
RESULTS
RESULTS- STUDY 1
RESULTS- STUDY 2
-Effect of Name Length: There were no statistically significant
group differences observed for the dependent variables; thus, length
of name does not seem to impact performance on alphabet
knowledge tasks.
CONCLUSIONS
• Name writing provides a lot of information about children’s
emerging literacy skills – their alphabet knowledge (receptive and
expressive) and knowledge of letter-sound relationships (implicitly
captured in the spelling task).
• The importance of facilitating preschool children’s name-writing
skills is further supported by our findings. Name-writing proficiency,
not length of name, appears to be associated with preschool
children’s developing emergent literacy skills.
• Children’s name-writing proficiency could help preschool teachers
and educators provide a quick screening measure of their emergent
literacy knowledge; however, our findings caution against using
name writing exclusively as an indicator of a child’s emergent
literacy knowledge.
Study 2
104 preschool children
•From a moderate-sized city in western Pennsylvania
•Mean age 58.81 months (SD = 8.5; range 37- 71 months)
•Ethnicity- based on name length
•Short name: White- 50%, Black/AA-45%, Hispanic- 2.5%, Asian2.5%
•Medium name: White-56%, Black/AA- 41%, Hispanic-3%
•Long name: White- 79%, Black/AA- 11%, Asian- 10%
•Gender
•Short name: 53% male, 47% female
•Medium name: 44% male, 56% female
•Long name: 44% male, 56% female
CONTACT INFORMATION
Cynthia Puranik at [email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported, in part, by a grant the Institute of Education Science,
US Department of Education (R305A080488) and the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development (HD052120-01).
For prealphabetic group n = 38, partial alphabetic n = 27, and full alphabetic name writers n = 39.