March 29, 2024

Column: Chip off the block

Editor’s note: this column originally ran on Sept. 27, 2016.

Since I was young, I have been writing. I started by writing and illustrating my own books, moved on to publishing a “kids” newspaper when I was 10 and joined journalism once I got to high school.

I have always enjoyed writing, whether news stories or fictional creative work, it is a way to express my thoughts, dreams or whatever subject I am working on.

My oldest daughter is in kindergarten this year and as a part of her school day, they are learning to write, along with spell. She seems really into it and has even started to bring her work home.

She has always liked to color and would often ask us to spell out words she wanted to put down to describe her art. For quite some time, she has been able to spell her name along with her sister’s name and mom and dad, among others.

Over the past couple of weeks, her new interest is in writing books. She will request that I bind some paper together so she can begin her books, complete will colored pictures.

At first, she would dictate her book to me as I did my best to write down the main points of what she was talking about. Her first book was a Halloween story with scary ghosts, bats, wolves and spiders that ended up being a dream. Pretty good for a five-year-old, I think.

She has since moved on to writing her own books. At times, it can be quite a challenge for her dad and I to read, but she does still provide illustrations to help us along.

The first book she did own her own was about kindness. It talked about love, friends and had a lot of hearts in it.

Her second story moved on to the riveting subject of rocks. I really have no idea why she decided to write a book about rocks, but five full pages were covered with words that in some way or another related to rocks.

We learned rocks can be big or small, heavy, can be colorful or just gray and are even mountains. She did the whole thing by herself and was super proud to hand it over to be enjoyed.

The third and most recent book she completed was more of a compilation of ideas. It had a picture of our family, talked about coloring and other stuff a five-year-old likes.

When writing her books, she works really hard to sound out the words to put them on the paper. She doesn’t know yet the finer points of word spacing or that you should move to the next line before starting a new word.

An exciting new addition to the books have been punctuation, which must have been a subject in school last week. We learned all about periods, question marks and exclamation points, complete with demonstrations on how sentences can sounds different depending on what punctuation you use.

It is really exciting to see her learn so much, so quickly and that she loves doing it. I am also a little proud that she is following in my footsteps as a writing and can’t wait to see what she will do next.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson
at jpierson@newtondailynews.com