GETTING READY TO WRITE
How do we prepare youg children to become skillful at handwriting? Not all children take to initial manuscript (printing) instruction equally well. As a parent, you can help prepare your child for a successful school experience in learning to write by providing a variety of pre-writing activities at home.
PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES
Use games like Loob-Loo and Hokey-Pokey to help your child learn to discriminate between left and right.
Arrange pictures that tell a story in a left-to-right and top-to-bottom sequence. Reading story books also helps to teach the left-to-right orientation needed for writing.
Provide play materials that require grasping, such as water colors with large-handled brushes, pencils, markers, chalk, and crayons.
Provide finger paints and show your child how to draw long lines and big circles with his or her fingers. These large movements help to improve the eye/hand coordination and shoulder stability needed for writing. Try adding sawdust, sand, or coffee grounds to the finger paints for added texture.
Encourage your child to draw and play games on vertical surfaces. Painting on easels, drawing on white boards and chalk boards, and playing "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" places your child's hand (biomechanically speaking) in the same position needed for writing. If you do not have an easel for painting activities, tape a large piece of paper to the refrigerator (put a towel on the floor, and give home rules for this activity!). You can also draw roads going different directions on a long piece of paper to the wall. Your child will have fun driving toy cars on the roads while, at the same time, learning to stay within lined boundaries.
Help your child learn how to put stickers on vertical and horizontal lines.
Make a game of matching toothpick patterns. For example: place a toothpick horizontally on a piece of paper, then place two other toothpicks next to it in a vertical position. give your child a supply of toothpicks and aks him/her to make the same pattern.
If your child has difficulty staying on the paper when he draws or paints, use glue in a squeeze bottle to create a border along the edge of the paper. Once the glue has dried, it will provide a raised surface. When the child's crayon bumps into the border, it will remind him/her to stay on the paper.
How do we prepare youg children to become skillful at handwriting? Not all children take to initial manuscript (printing) instruction equally well. As a parent, you can help prepare your child for a successful school experience in learning to write by providing a variety of pre-writing activities at home.
PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES
Use games like Loob-Loo and Hokey-Pokey to help your child learn to discriminate between left and right.
Arrange pictures that tell a story in a left-to-right and top-to-bottom sequence. Reading story books also helps to teach the left-to-right orientation needed for writing.
Provide play materials that require grasping, such as water colors with large-handled brushes, pencils, markers, chalk, and crayons.
Provide finger paints and show your child how to draw long lines and big circles with his or her fingers. These large movements help to improve the eye/hand coordination and shoulder stability needed for writing. Try adding sawdust, sand, or coffee grounds to the finger paints for added texture.
Encourage your child to draw and play games on vertical surfaces. Painting on easels, drawing on white boards and chalk boards, and playing "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" places your child's hand (biomechanically speaking) in the same position needed for writing. If you do not have an easel for painting activities, tape a large piece of paper to the refrigerator (put a towel on the floor, and give home rules for this activity!). You can also draw roads going different directions on a long piece of paper to the wall. Your child will have fun driving toy cars on the roads while, at the same time, learning to stay within lined boundaries.
Help your child learn how to put stickers on vertical and horizontal lines.
Make a game of matching toothpick patterns. For example: place a toothpick horizontally on a piece of paper, then place two other toothpicks next to it in a vertical position. give your child a supply of toothpicks and aks him/her to make the same pattern.
If your child has difficulty staying on the paper when he draws or paints, use glue in a squeeze bottle to create a border along the edge of the paper. Once the glue has dried, it will provide a raised surface. When the child's crayon bumps into the border, it will remind him/her to stay on the paper.
