Small children are very imaginative, and teachers should provide varied experiences to encourage continued growth of their imaginations. Classroom instructional settings can be full of discovery and learning if teachers provide many prewriting opportunities that allow children to discover opportunities for writing. These experiences should cut across the curriculum and include writing, speaking, drawing, and listening to encourage children to make the best of both their imagination and their knowledge. Important tasks for teachers are helping students learn when to use knowledge and when to use imagination, when to talk, and when to listen. For example, children can be allowed to engage in many different kinds of handwriting activities, such as informal, personal, creative, and letter writing. Such activities can be used to teach children about appropriate choices--answering abstract questions can take concrete form; personal questions can stimulate creative responses; spontaneous events can inspire writing about classroom surroundings; the experiences of others (such as parents) can inspire children to live vicariously; and everyday experiences can provide endless themes for writing. Teachers should also be aware that varied writing topics require wider audiences, and provide children with outlets for writing for others. (Samples of children's writing occur throughout the document.) (SKC)