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LEARNING TO WRITE:
Once your child begins to show a dominant hand, assist your child with
holding markers, crayons, and pencils in a comfortable grip (using the thumb
and index finger, then resting the pencil on the third finger). Pencil
grips can be placed on the pencil and can be helpful in teaching your child
the proper pencil grip.
Scribbling is the first step in writing. Encourage your child to make
you a picture and let them scribble.
Have your child practice tracing dotted lines that are vertical and
horizontal. Once your child can trace vertical lines and horizontal
lines, then try having your child trace squares, slanted lines, half circles,
circles, etc.
Use wide-lined paper when trying to teach a child to form letters.
Without the line as a structured point of reference, children tend to write
all over the paper. Children learning to write will usually have
inconsistencies in the size of the letters and the spacing of letters.
Start off teaching the letters of the alphabet the have straight lines (for
example, "L", "T", "H" "I",
"E", "F"). Initially have your child trace the
letters, and then try to have your child copy each letter.
Once your child has mastered several of the straight lined letters, then
try letters with slanted lines ("Z", "A", "K",
"Y", "X", "W", "V", "M",
"N"). Then introduce the remainder of the alphabet with the
curved lines.
Reversing letters is common among young children. Many times children
will reverse letters up through the end of 2nd grade. One way to help
your child remember how to write the lower case letters correctly is to use
mnemonic techniques. For example, the letter "b"
is a man with a big belly in front, and the letter "d"
is a skinny man with a dog following behind him. The
funnier you can make the mnemonic the better your child will remember that
"b" is for belly and "d" is for "dog". Use
the letter/sound association and your imagination to make writing a fun
activity.
You can also make writing fun by using wax paper and placing chocolate
pudding on it. Have your child use their finger to form various letters
of the alphabet in the pudding You can also use whipping cream or other
edible items like icing. Another tactile aid is to cut out letters of
the alphabet from sandpaper and have your child trace the letters with their
finger.
Correct sequence of letters to form words is always an exciting time for
your child. Begin by having your child try to trace his/her first name,
then try coping the letters, and finally try it from memory.
Written Expression:
Have your child start a journal. Do not try to correct his/her
spelling or letter formation at the beginning. At first you want your
child to learn to express himself/herself in writing and feel good about it.
Have your child read the sentence or story back to you, and provide praise as
a reinforcement.
Encourage your child to write "Thank you" notes to friends and
relatives. Emphasize only the Capital letter at the beginning of a
sentence and a period at the end of the sentence.
Practice spelling words by making lists of vocabulary words in categories
(for example, animals, colors, sports, or whatever subject area interests your
child).
Provide written expression practice with the use of story starters.
To encourage your child to write more, you might write the opening sentence
and your child writes the next. Then you write another sentence and then
your child adds another sentence and so on until the story ends.
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