SCRIBBLES

Children develop writing skills while doing all sorts of motor activities during the day.

Have fun with your child stringing beads or macaronis and making a necklace. This activity helps her improve her hand dexterity and gain better finger movement control to hold the pencil. When you let your child help you bake cookies, you are helping him develop muscle strength. He can press the dough with his hands, roll it or make shapes with it. All these actions help him develop and strengthen his hand and wrist muscles. These muscles play a significant role and are essential in the writing process. When he makes shapes and tries to copy you making the alphabet letters with dough, he is exploring with fun media how letters and shapes are formed. So later on, when he wants to write those letters on a paper, he will have retained the mental imagery for the formation of each letter. This activity leads to improving the pincer grip and helps him develop his muscles endurance to tolerate writing for a longer period of time.

  • Remember the way your child is holding the pencil is not a key factor to his success in writing. What matters is that he should be comfortable with the way he holds the pencil while writing as well as his sitting position and the position of the paper relative to his body.

  • Toddlers and preschoolers, handwriting is about drawing and scribbling with crayons, pencils and chalk. Older children learn formal handwriting at school. Everyday activities like drawing, writing shopping lists and writing memos on the white board can help your child learn to write.

Have your child make letter shapes using different media such as play dough, sand, slime, paint, soap or foam. By exploring with his different senses, these experiences allow him to discover what he is capable of doing using his hands. Which will result in the development of his fine motor and writing skills. Make sure they make a circle in the counter clock direction this will facilitate letter formation in the early stages of writing and eliminate reversals.

Encourage invented spelling: once a child learns the letters, have them write their ideas even if they make mistakes. Don’t feel hard pressed to correct them. Let them write freely and enjoy what they write. Children who use invented spelling are more likely to become good spellers and readers later in childhood.

If you feel that your child is facing challenges in any pre-writing or writing activities, starts complaining that his hand is tired or hurting while drawing or writing, or tends to escape any activity that requires holding or using a brush or a pencil, there is a good reason behind that. Fill ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist to find out more about your child’s weaknesses and strengths in writing.