Mark making & role-play 4: stimulating mark making

Role­play and experimentation are key phases that children go through in mark making, before emerging into the ‘transitional’ and ‘conventional’ writing phases. Both early phases help children to shape their knowledge and understanding about writing, as well as providing them with valuable practice. Crucially, children at these stages are linking language with mark making. We can best support children in these phases by providing them with good quality role­play experiences that incorporate mark making.