The relationships between the understandings children develop while learning the written form of their own names and those developed while learning other words were examined in a study. Twelve children, aged three, four, and five, were selected. The study involved three tasks which examined the subjects' expertise with letters, numbers, and the…

This article offers guidelines to help young children who are deaf move through six developmental stages of learning to write: (1) observing writing; (2) scribbling and drawing; (3) communicating writing to others; (4) requesting assistance in writing; (5) copying writing; and (6) beginning to write independently. (DB)