Influence of referent's physical features on preschool child's writing

This study examines emergent literacy and referential strategies in preschool children. More precisely, we analyse the influence of referents (real object, picture or drawing) on preschool children's writing size before formal learning has begun. We proposed different tasks to children from 3 to 6 years old: writing a word corresponding to a picture (picture effect) versus drawing an object and writing its name (drawing effect). In each task, we manipulated the congruence (congruence versus incongruence) between real object size and picture size. The results revealed that writing size was influenced by picture size at age 3, by drawing action plans at ages 4 and 5, and by phonological features of words at age 6. (C) 2014 Societe francaise de psychologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.