This article reports on a case study of a young child (aged five) at a very early stage of his journey as a writer, evidencing "pre-alphabetic tendencies", who has not yet internalised the construction of his name. Analysis of a "baseline" piece of Daniel's writing demonstrates his awareness that the production of random letters conveys a simple message. However, Daniel does not recognise yet the relationship between spoken language and the corresponding grapheme-phonemes. At present he is not making the connections between his aural, oral and visual concepts of how words as text are constructed. In addressing the development of early years writing, the practitioner should be aware of the learning needs of the child as the child develops as an emerging writer in a highly complex problem-solving activity. The complexity of the structural and developmental processes needed to become a writer requires that the child is taught not within a predominantly whole-class structure with its demands for completion within fast-paced time limits. The emerging writer requires sustained recursive opportunities to engage with the experiences, which take the child from the steps of "mark making" to the abstractions of written composition. The decision was made to use the strategy of socio-dramatic play as the framework for the intervention with Daniel. The use of a play/literacy connection (socio-dramatic play) serves to unlock and support the child's writing/spelling development. The child is being supported in his development by the teacher strategically easing the cognitive load, i.e. in this case, through scribing for the child. (Contains 5 figures.)