James is a young four-year old and in his first term at school. Registers have personal meaning to young children as they think about their peers and identify each, enacting the teacher’s role. At nursery and school writing ‘registers’ is often a preoccupation in children’s play.

In this instance James has used a range of letter-like signs, written from left to right. He understands that writing in our alphabetic script uses different letters and has thought about some of their features. He also includes short zigzags, perhaps encoding his sense of the appearance of cursive ‘writing’, or capturing the movement of an adult’s hand as she writes.

Link to Gallery 5: Graphicacy

James - 'Seeing who's here'

Imagination and symbolic play: making meaning with marks for writing