Encouraging children to write
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Updated on May 09, 2015
Hello All, Iam a worried mother eversince my 3 year old has joined school. Now, to make it clear, Iam not among the achievement oriented, pushy parents who force the child beyond the limits and want their child to excel in everything. But, recently i have been concerned that my child does not like writing! He can draw some alphabets on a chalk board, trace on the sand paper and all, but he hates holding a crayon or a pencil! And unfortunately for my boy, the teachers only evaluate his writing skills and letter recognition on the paper. He leaves his sheets empty at schools. Many innovative attempts to encourage him to write down (on paper) have been feutile. because he is asked to try to write, he is now hating school. what can be done? With the speed that the school is going, by the next year they might have three letter words. Iam worried that though he is sharp, he may lag behind in writing! Please suggest.
| May 09, 2015
Hi Soumya, Rest assured it's not only your child who struggles with writing. All 3 yr olds will face this difficulty. You are on the right track allowing your child to do the writing using medium which is easier to write with. First of all his fine motor skills are not fully developed and most 3 yr olds are not ready for writing. So try talking to his teacher and find out if she has any solution to help your child. You may also request her not to push him to write too much. But unfortunately schools expect them to start writing at 3 itself. If they are not supportive, then see if you can change the school to a child centered one. Writing skills have to be taught in a step by step manner. You may have done these already. But in case if you havent, try these methods. 1. First the child should have a good pencil grip. 2. What I have found while working with little children is that they find it easier if you use shorter pencils or shorter and wider crayons. You could also use paint brush or markers or wax mica-color pens as the child doesn't have to use much pressure. 3. To improve his motor skills, make him work with play dough or clay. 4. you could do beading or lacing too. 5. Make him use plastic scissors to cut papers of different texture so he could use different amount of pressure while cutting. 6. Sticking beads, stickers, paper cuts would also help 7. make him sort tiny beads. The pincer grip improves the fine motor skills 8. While writing, start practicing standing line, then the sleeping lines and slanting lines and finally the curves (both open and closed curves). Then move on to alphabets with standing lines, the alphabets with sleeping lines, slanting lines and finally the alphabets with curves. You can check Kumon workbook for upper case letters. 9. You could try using joining-the-dot exercise for alphabets. 10. Your child could make his own alphabet book. Allot 2 pages for each alphabet. Let him draw an alphabet or color the alphabet using paint, markers. crayons, color pencils, decorate the page with stickers, beads, glitter glue, paper cuttings from magazine for the words that start with that alphabet. let him choose what he wants to do in that page. Children enjoy making the book and at the same time they learn to write and also improve their motor skills. All he needs is some time to improve his fine motor skills and the change will happen gradually. Good luck.
| May 09, 2015
Hi Soumya, I completely agree with what Carol has suggested. Rather than focussing on making your child write, try and get him to improve his motor skills, which will help with his grip of holding a pencil to start with. You may also get him some PlayDoh and allow him to make different shapes. Do not stress as this is completely normal. Give him some time and be patient. Hope this helps.
| May 11, 2015
Karishma, there can be many reasons for bad handwriting. 1. bad posture - posture depends on many factors such as the height of the desk and the chair which in turn affects the distance between the eye and the paper, how his torso is bent etc. check if it's at comfortable height. 2. Bad pencil grip (tripod grip), - not too much pressure to be used while writing, use HB or 2B pencil so the letters would look darker and he doesn't have to app,y much pressure 3. how he places the notebook while writing- the notebook should be titled in 45 degrees to his body 4. His wrist strength, - if he doesn't have enough stamina, wrist hurts while writing. Wrist exercise such as playing badminton helps 5. Eye and hand coordination - there are specific exercise to improve the same 6. Lack of interest in writing or studying, 7. Not able to concentrate/ focus while writing -many kids find it difficult to stay put in one place while writing because of which the hand writing goes bad. 8. The phase when he had to switch from print letters to cursive. Some children find it difficult to understand how to connect the lines in cursive and the confusion results in bad hand writing. 9. Too much expectation or pressure on him to write neatly also affects the child's writing. So find out the root cause and work towards rectifying the problem. Hope these are useful.
| May 11, 2015
Karishma, there can be many reasons for bad handwriting. 1. bad posture - posture depends on many factors such as the height of the desk and the chair which in turn affect the distance between the eye and the paper, how his torso is bent etc. check if they are at comfortable height. 2. Bad pencil grip (tripod grip), - not too much pressure to be used while writing, use HB or 2B pencil so the letters would look darker and he doesn't have to apply much pressure 3. how he places the notebook while writing- the notebook should be tilted in 45 degrees to his body 4. His wrist strength, - if he doesn't have enough stamina, wrist hurts while writing. Wrist exercise such as playing badminton helps 5. Eye and hand coordination - there are specific exercise to improve the same 6. Lack of interest in writing or studying, 7. Not able to concentrate/ focus while writing -many kids find it difficult to stay put in one place while writing because of which the hand writing goes bad. 8. The phase when he had to switch from print letters to cursive. Some children find it difficult to understand how to connect the lines in cursive and the confusion results in bad hand writing. 9. Too much expectation or pressure on him to write neatly also affects the child's writing. So find out the root cause and work towards rectifying the problem. Hope these are useful
| May 12, 2015
Hi Soumya, I am sharing what i did when my son faced the same issue and after trying this,there is a lot of improvement in him. Invite your child to write with you. Grab some paper and something to write with. And then make up a little story, writing it down, page by page as you go. Keep the stories simple. Make a sketch to illustrate each page or have your child do the illustration. Try to make stories that look like the ones you read with your child in easy books. Hope this will be useful.
