Beginner
Writing and Literacy Skills
Compiled
by Robyn, South Africa ~ © March 2005
This is some of the helpful information that I
came across in my research on ‘teaching children to write’. Pre-writing involves the refinement of fine motor
skills, directionality and the ability to reproduce written symbols. Everyday activities such as painting,
cutting, pasting, play dough, puzzles, baking, building blocks and sand and
water play are developing these pre-writing skills. Here are some more examples of such
pre-writing activities ~
Pre-Writing Activities
Small
muscle development ~
Working with play dough, Finger-painting,
Playing with small toys like cars and animals, Practicing the pincer grip
(pinching clothes pegs, picking up tiny objects), Screwing on lids or nuts and
bolts, Tearing paper, Cutting paper
Hand-Eye
co-ordination ~
Puzzles, Building with blocks & Lego,
Beading and stringing, Lacing and sewing, Gluing and pasting, Dot-to-dot
Holding
skills ~
Playing with small objects in sand or water,
Digging in the garden with small tools, Playing with kitchen utensils and
measuring with small spoons, Cutting and spreading with knives, Stirring with
large wooden spoons, Dusting with feather dusters and sweeping with small
brooms, Beating drums with drumsticks
Practicing
basic strokes ~
Painting and drawing, Follow the dotted lines, Writing in sand or a tray
of flour, Tracing with crayons, Learning shapes and patterns
When
it comes to learning, we should never pressurise our children, they will let us
know when they are ready to write. Here
are some skills that children should display to show you that they are ready to
start learning to write.
Pre-Writing Readiness Skills
·
Traces
shapes and patterns
·
Copies
a circle
·
Imitates
a cross
·
Copies
a square and triangle
·
Scribbles
·
Colours
in neatly staying within the lines
·
Beginning
to copy first name
·
Pretends
to ‘write’
·
Holds
pencil correctly - the following criteria exists in SA schools relating to
pencil grip:
The forearm should support the hand leaving the hand free.
The pads of the thumb and forefinger should lightly grip the barrel of
the pencil about 2.5cm.
above the point and should be slightly bent.
The middle finger should support the barrel.
The edge of the hand and little finger should be in light contact with
the paper.
Incorrect pencil grip is difficult to change once formed, so it is
better to teach the right way from the very beginning. Using the correct grip will mean neater
writing, better posture and no painful cramps.
A good way of practicing a correct pencil grip if the learner already
has a bad grip is to practice by playing darts.
Fonts
This information is from a very popular South African preschool – Grade
R (Kindergarten) ~
“Children learn to write their names in the
first few months of the year. It is
important that they learn to write using the standardised ‘Nelson’ script. This font is used in all the schools for
Grade 1 and makes the transition from print to cursive (linked print)
easier. If your child is already writing
his or her name, please practice it using this font. The first letter of the name should be a
capital letter and the rest of the name in lower case”.
This information was taken from a South African private school – Grade 1
~
“We teach the Nelson Script,
concentrating on letter formation, spacing and pencil grip. In Grade 1 we focus on the following aspects of handwriting ~
·
Handwriting
patterns which lead to the correct formation of letters, pencil grip and hand
position
·
Learning
the correct letter formation of all lower case letters
·
Writing
on blank paper
·
Writing
on blank paper with broad lines placed underneath as a guide
·
Writing
letters on a given line (17mm spacing)
·
Writing
between lines and correctly positioning letters
·
The
correct formation of upper case letters
·
The
correct positioning of upper case letters between lines”
The script style is taught in most
schools. I couldn’t find a free copy of
‘Nelson Script’ online, but it is very similar to the popular D'Nealian
script with less slant. Below you can
find a number of links to D'Nealian handwriting practice worksheets to use for
teaching your children this format. It
makes the link to cursive easier and is also the font used all over South
Africa and in the UK.
Beginner
Writing Activities
A nice way to start teaching children to write is with his or her first
name. Here is one way of doing it ~
1 ~ print the first name starting with a capital letter near the top of
a large piece of paper. Squeeze glue
over the letters and sprinkle with sand.
When dry, the child can practice tracing over the word with his or her
finger.
2 ~ print the word again, just below the sand word using dotted
lines. Let the child practice the word
by tracing over the dotted-line letters with a crayon.
3 ~ give the child a separate piece of writing paper to place underneath
the first paper. Then let the child try
writing their word on his own. If the
child has difficulty, go back and practice Steps 1 and 2 again.
Always teach children to form the letters correctly using the right
starting point. Bad habits are hard to
break and incorrect forming of letters (eg. starting from the bottom) will
affect their cursive writing skills later on.
Many ABC books teach uppercase letters first
and opinions on this vary, but capital letters account for only five percent of
all written letters. Therefore, it is
rather recommended to pay more attention to teaching the lower case letters. Lower case letters are far more important in
developing reading skills. It is
believed that children learn to read faster and easier if they learn to write
first. So, teach your child to write
letters and words.
Encourage children
to ‘write’ letters to you. The first
attempts will be little squiggles and lines that only he or she
understands. Ask them to read their
letter to you and then write down what they ‘read’. In time they will make the connection between
real writing and their own ideas and will soon come to you to ask you to help
them ‘write’.
Encourage children
to find the letters of his or her own name in newspapers and magazines. Where
possible, get them to cut these out and paste them into the correct sequence to
make their own name.
LINKS
General
Handwriting Teaching Tips
Handwriting 101 – Helping your child learn to write right
YoungMinds Penmanship Practice – basic shape and pattern
traceable printing readiness sheets
Young
Reader Font handwriting practice worksheets from Bry-Back Manor (similar to
Nelson font)
D'Nealian
Manuscript Handwriting Practice Picture Worksheets from First School
Enchanted
Learning’s D'Nealian-Style Printouts: Writing Letters and Numbers
D'Nealian Dotted Handwriting Worksheet Maker – make your own
handwriting practice worksheets
THIS
PAGE WAS LAST UPDATED JULY 2006