Thoughts on Teaching Writing and Related Skills in Preschool

Being able to write in preschool is not a necessity, but there are certainly skills that every child can work on in preschool that will set them up for future writing success.

Pre-K Pages has a great overview of the skills involved in learning to write, and notes that the focus first needs to be on developing the fine-motor skills that make it possible to hold a pencil properly and with enough control to form letters.

Another key in learning to write is properly forming letters, which means that you start every letter from the top rather than the bottom. This is said to make it faster to write and allow the writer more control.

She also talks about something that is really important to me, which is not forcing hand dominance on students. As the mom of a leftie (who has been strongly left-dominant since she first picked up a crayon) I know how important this is and appreciate the reminder for teachers that kids need to learn their own way. If you force them to use their right hand when they are meant to be left handed, it just makes everything harder.

Do you teach writing early on? I’d love to hear your thoughts and what you do with little ones (and if you agree with the proscription of lined paper).

[Photo via Pre-K Pages.]

So why is tracing important for my toddler to learn and does it help with handwriting? Yes, it does, Learning to trace teaches your child fine motor skills. Tracing is not only limited to preschoolers, it is suitable for all development ages when learning to write, not matter what the age.

Tracing, when added to your child’s drawing time, helps polish those pre-writing abilities, establishing a solid basis for drawing and emerging writing. Highlights: Tracing helps young children strengthen their pre-writing abilities and lays the groundwork for drawing and writing letters and words.

Looking for more tracing worksheets and activities for your child? Check out these tracing articles. If you are looking for some great worksheets check out these tracing workbooks on Amazon.

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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