Roy, P., & Chiat, S. (2015, January 14). Preschool attendance boosts language in disadvantaged children.

Young children have stories to tell, even if they don’t yet have the cognitive and fine motor skills to capture those stories in words or images. Prematurely pushing students to write personal stories can turn off the spigot of spoken narratives. Instead, use whole class or content-specific strategies to practice writing skills, and let students continue to tell their stories orally.