
Introducing writing
By
the time your child starts school, a love of reading and an
interest in the written word will stand him in excellent stead for embarking on
the next stage in his learning journey. You can help achieve this by making it easy
for your child to practice his ‘writing skills’ – because that’s what those
first scribbles actually are!
Start with drawing?
Children
of around 18 months old can usually grip a pencil and love drawing – or at
least scribbling! – in an abstract fashion on scrap paper. Your child will
master the art of drawing a rudimentary circle long before he can make the
connection between that circle, the letter ‘O’ and the sounds that it can make,
so help him develop the basic skills he needs for pencil control. Start by
helping him to hold his pencil properly, rather than grasping it in his fist –
he’ll soon see that this gives him an extra degree of control. Get him drawing
and copying shapes, and coloring in pictures, or just let him experiment with
scribbling with different colors, chalks and crayons.
Introducing letters?
The
next stage is really to try and get him interested in letters, and showing him
that these odd shapes that he sees around him actually form words, and that these words tell us
something. Point out words and letters around you. You may want to invest in a
set of brightly colored magnetic letters to go on the fridge – he’ll love
playing with these and arranging them in shapes and patterns, and it’ll get him
used to the shapes of the different letters. Point out letters that can easily
be associated with something he’ll understand – the hissing ‘S’ is like a
snake, or the round ‘O’ is like an open mouth. Show him the letters that make
up his name – he’s likely to be interested in what his name looks like, and
this might be the route in to getting him to write his first letters. You can
buy wooden alphabet letters that make up his name to display in his room or on
his door to help him to recognize how it’s spelled.
Reading
Try
to read your child a story every day. As he
follows the words you say and connects them with the pictures he sees, he‘ll
eventually begin to recognize some easy letters in his favorite books. See if
your child can spot any letters he recognizes around the house – for example,
the letter ‘T’ on a telephone or ‘W’ on a welcome mat. Sing songs and nursery
rhymes about letters – the alphabet song or doh-ray-me, for example. Encourage your child to make birthday
cards
or write ‘letters’ to Grandma – he can try to copy what you’ve written if he’s
old enough or you can help him to write his name with a crayon if he’s too
young. Alternately, write his name using a highlighter pen and let him write
over it with his pencil.
Keep
in mind that if your child shows no interest in letters and writing, or is
finding it difficult to manage his pencil or crayon, you shouldn’t push it. It doesn’t indicate any kind
of academic problem – many children show no interest in reading and writing until they start
school. Give the writing a break and continue to reinforce the appeal of the
written word through reading books and stories. Studies have shown that
children who are hot-housed into producing the whole alphabet in writing before
they start school don’t necessarily retain their academic advantage later on.
By the time your child starts school, a love of reading and an
interest in the written word will stand him in excellent stead for embarking on
the next stage in his learning journey.