Waldorf News

Steiner’s Three Objectives for Writing in First Grade 

Writing Teaches Reading

Steiner’s objectives for writing are wise. Writing (composition) helps students learn to read.

In phonetic languages, writing and reading are two sides of the same coin—both involve a code where letters represent sounds. When students encode a word, they say the word and then write down the letters they hear in the word. When students decode a word, they say the sound for each letter and blend the sounds into a word. Both are working the same coding skills, just in opposite directions: encoding is analysis (whole to part) whereas decoding is synthesis (part to whole). Encoding helps students build the skills they need for decoding. Thus, writing helps the students learn to read.

Figure 1: Encoding and Decoding: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Kid Writing: How to Teach and Assess Steiner’s Three Objectives for Writing

An easy way to teach and assess Steiner’s three objectives is Kid Writing (Emergent Writing, Phonologically Plausible Spelling, Invented Spelling, or Talking on Paper).

In Kid Writing, students write down the letters they hear in words, and then they read the messages they wrote. (When they are done, an adult shows them how to write their messages in Adult Writing, and the students practice reading their writing again, this time without the spelling errors.)

Teachers who know about the phases of literacy (or the roadmap to literacy) can use their students’ Kid Writing to assess their progress in many literacy skills, including alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, sight words, phonics, decoding, and encoding. They can then adjust their instruction accordingly to help all students learn to read.

Composition, Not Copying

Please note what Steiner is saying. First, Steiner’s objectives go beyond teaching the alphabet. Steiner expects all first-grade students to acquire basic encoding and decoding skills so they can write and read simple things themselves. Second, Steiner is recommending composition, not copying. Steiner calls for students to write and read their own compositions, not material they copied from the board. An example is pictured below.

Figure 2: Example of Kid Writing from First Grade

While the student could have copied every word correctly from the board, the student learned more by encoding the message him/herself. This Kid Writing shows a first grader who is well on the way to learning to read.

Conclusion

Students who accomplish Steiner’s objectives for writing in first grade are on track to learn to read by third grade. They are on track to make the leap from skills blocks to subject blocks in fourth grade when the Waldorf curriculum changes from learning to read to reading to learn. Kid Writing is a vital but overlooked part of the curriculum. It helps students accomplish Steiner’s objectives by giving them a solid foundation in early literacy skills.

To learn more about teaching and assessing Kid Writing, consult “Chapter 3.13: Kid Writing: The Key to Early Literacy” in the book The Roadmap to Literacy: A Guide to Teaching Language Arts in Waldorf Schools Grades 1 through 3 (Langley and Militzer-Kopperl 2018, 298–314).

Bibliography: Steiner, Rudolf. 1997. Three Lectures on the Curriculum September 6, 1919. Lectures on the curriculum translated by Katherine E. Creeger. Hudson New York: Anthroposophic Press. Found in Discussions with Teachers: Fifteen Discussions with the Teachers of the Stuttgart Waldorf School August 21–September 6, 1919. (pg. 184)