Writing for Children - In the Beginning

For instance, can you tell if he or she is learning and mastering age-appropriate writing skills? The questions and tips that follow will help you understand what type of early writing skills your 3- and 4-year-old child should be developing and how you can support her budding writing skills. Is your child developing age-appropriate writing skills? The most important thing for parents to remember is that writing during the preschool years is, well, messy! The goal is to help children understand how writing works, that it connects in meaningful ways to reading, and that it communicates information, through words and symbols.

Do you know what basic writing skills your child should be learning and mastering at ages 3 or 4? Review the following questions, and note how your child is doing in each area. Express ideas and stories through pictures she draws? Use pencils, crayons, and markers for drawing and writing? Attempt with some success to write some of the letters in her first name? Show an understanding of how writing and drawing help us communicate and function in everyday life?

Encouraging early writing skills at home Now that you understand some of the beginning writing skills your child should have, you can reinforce those skills and help her make further progress. Here are some activities to try: Let your child use writing tools such as pencils, washable markers, chalk, and crayons. Gather and organize these materials, along with some paper, in a box that your child can decorate and have access to.

Encourage your child to use drawing to express ideas and tell stories. Show your child that written words are a part of daily life. From grocery lists and email messages to billboards and signs in stores, writing is everywhere! Teach your child to print her first name. Be patient, as this will take practice.

This is very empowering for a preschooler! And, let your child label some of her own things such as a notebook or crayon box. For very young children, there are four stages of drawing and writing that you may see as your child grows from 15 months old to 3 years old. Note that the timetables listed below are approximate; your child may master these skills faster or slower and still be developing just fine.

This is the period when young children are just figuring out that their movements result in the lines and scribbles they see on the page. There is joy in creating art at all ages, but at this stage especially, many children relish the feedback they are getting from their senses: For other children, this sensory information may be too much and they may not enjoy some art activities at this stage like finger-painting.

As they grow to tolerate more sensory input, you can incrementally re-introduce art activities into their routine. As children develop better control over the muscles in their hands and fingers, their scribbles begin to change and become more controlled. Toddlers may make repeated marks on the page—open circles, diagonal, curved, horizontal, or vertical lines. Over time, children make the transition to holding the crayon or marker between their thumb and pointer finger.

Children now understand that writing is made up of lines, curves, and repeated patterns. They try to imitate this in their own writing. So while they may not write actual letters, you may see components of letters in their drawing. These might include lines, dots, and curves. This is an exciting time as your toddler realizes that his drawing conveys meaning! For example, he may write something down and then tell you what word it says. This is an important step toward reading and writing.

This ability to hold an image in your mind and then represent it on the page is a thinking skill that takes some time to develop. At first, children name their unplanned creations. This means that they finish the picture and then label their masterpiece with the names of people, animals, or objects they are familiar with. This changes over time. Soon you will see your child clearly planning prior to drawing what he will create. You will also see more detail in the pictures, more control in the way your child handles the crayon or marker, and the use of more colors.

What else to be on the lookout for? Once your child has begun to purposefully draw images, she has mastered symbolic thinking. This important milestone in thinking skills means that your child understands that lines on paper can be a symbol of something else, like a house, a cat, or a person. At this stage, your child also begins to understand the difference between pictures and writing.

Children have had experience with letters and print for several years now and are beginning to use letters in their own writing. Usually children start by experimenting with the letters in their own names, as these are most familiar to them. During this time, children also begin to understand that some words are made of symbols that are shorter and some words are made of symbols that are longer.

As a result, their scribbles change. While these letters and words are probably not technically correct, it does not matter. This exciting milestone means that your child is beginning to understand that text and print have meaning.

• Beginning Writing.
• Le prisonnier (La Bleue) (French Edition).
• The Gendered New World Order: Militarism, Development, and the Environment.
• Beginning to teach reading and writing.
• The New Green Smoothie Diet: Going Green Never Tasted So Good;
• Drawings can have different labels, words remain same?
• Learning to Write and Draw.

Offer chunky, easy-to-grip crayons, thick pencils, and washable markers. Cut paper bags up to draw on. For salt-dough recipes, check the Internet or your local library. Let your child wear an old shirt of yours with sleeves cut off as a smock and lay newspaper or an old shower curtain over the table to keep it clean.

Let your child experiment and explore.

Beginning reading and writing

Creativity means having the power to express yourself in your own way Lagoni et al. This independence is just what a growing toddler is looking for to feel confident, competent, and clever. As parents, we often tend to compliment children on their successes: And sometimes we get hung up on the fact that trees should be green, not purple. Look at the lines you are making—there are so many of them! Or, That picture is really interesting. Those colors make me feel happy. Or, I see you are working really hard on your drawing.

Tell me about your picture. Then see if your child is interested in sharing more. Let children paint with cotton balls, q-tips, sponges, string—you name it.

Give your child crayons and rub over a textured surface like a coin or a screen. Draw with chalk outside on a sidewalk; see how water changes the color of the chalk. Or add a new dimension to water play by adding drops of washable food coloring to the water. What happens when you mix two different colors of water together? Is your child having a tantrum?