Today's Reading Group

Our reading group today was great. We discussed the letter writing of children. Newkirk uses his daughter Sarah in his study. He found that children find letter writing appealing. They love to give letters as gifts and love to decorate them. Even more important to them is maintaining friendships. They need to confirm, renegotiate or repair friendships. Sometimes the letters don't have to be sent or received by anyone. The primary interest was writing the letter, then they lose interest. Thank you letters were big too. They love to thank and then they want to chat. Children like to role play in their letters and use language and voice of teachers, adults and famous people. They do this because they might get notes from teachers and letters from parents so therefore, they are familiar with the language used and mimic it. Finally, they love to give advice to both adults and children and then discuss their "plan". I find all of this fascinating because I see all of these behaviors in my class all the time. I get the decorated letters and the thank you letters with their reasons to thank me. I see the friendship letters--especially the ones where plans are made for who is playing with who out on recess. Sometimes I hear "my voice" in the letters they write whether it's to me or someone else. However, I don't see too much of the advice letters. Most of the time, they like to give advice in person.