Parenting Technique 50 – Use these ten tips for fostering your child’s writing development in the early years.

They work!

1. Rejoice in your child’s progress. Watch scribbles turn to purposeful lines, curves to complete circles, and circles to parts of letters and numbers. Notice all markings that look like creative designs.

2. Model clear and excellent writing as much as possible. Your child will love to do what you do.

3. Show your child how to correctly hold a pencil, pen, crayon, or marker. It is best to learn these fine motor positions correctly from the start. Unlearning and re-learning are both much harder to do.

4. Buy a pencil grip for your child. These are very helpful for little fingers. They are inexpensive and come in different styles and textures.

5. Assign all junk mail to your child. Check each one of the enclosures for large letters that might be good for tracing. Be sure to use the white spaces on the backs of both the envelopes and the enclosures for free-form drawing and coloring.

6. Introduce recommended activities to build fine motor dexterity. Here are some favorites: finger puppets, puzzles, chalkboards, painting, clay, and play dough.

7. Enjoy reading to your child. Direct exposure to print stimulates the writing process.

8. Create a writing station. Just as it is beneficial to have a comfortable reading corner, so it is important to have a special play area set up for writing and drawing.

9. Have a chalkboard with chalk and erasers handy for your child. That is an old-time favorite.

10. Put out a secret message everyday. Read it to your child in the beginning. See how long it will take for your child to start reading it to you.

Constructive Parenting… 

Have fun with writing, drawing, and creating. The more you two enjoy these activities, the faster and better your child will grow with them.

Fighting Violence!

Lots of relevance here. Writing, coloring, and drawing provide your child with an area of growth that takes 100% positive energy. In addition, both creativity and concentration will grow by leaps and bounds. Moreover, these open-ended activities will lead to other productive uses of energy.