I've previously written about the Developmental Stage of Drawing as I find these stages in development endlessly fascinating. I recently discovered the Developmental Stage of Writing. I love this chart below as it isn't about what age your child is, but rather where your child is developmentally. It can help us understand where our child is at and what stage they are going into.

Source: First seen at Destination Kindergarten, also available at West Hartford Public Schools.

My child has just turned four (48 months) and is Pre-Literate. He is in the Symbolic/Mock Letters stage but is also close to the String of Letters Stage. 

Symbolic/ Mock Letters - the child writes letter-like formations that may resemble letters but isn't intentional, interspersed with numbers and spacing is rarely present. 

String of Letters - the child writes long strings of various letters in random order, may go from left to right, uses letter sequence perhaps from name (yes!!), usually uses capital letters, may write same letters in many ways. 

My child's name is Otto and his writing almost always features o's and t's. The letters are not representative of words, a story or relevant to his drawing. He is writing consistently from left to right! 

It's important to note that the Movable Alphabet is a valuable resource for children learning how to write or compose words before they are able to write them on paper.

Can you identify your child's writing in these developmental stages?