In our homeschooling journey this year, we focused a lot on tracing. This practice resulted in letter formation. It also led to writing words and numbers.
I realised that I’m not yet ready to use a pencil and paper for writing. Instead, we used chalk, markers, and our fingers to practice writing and tracing. This approach not only helped V with letter formation, it also improved her fine motor skills. Learning became more enjoyable for her.
This year, we took a break from our occupational therapy activities and physical therapies at home. Instead, we embraced a slower pace of life.
A few months ago, I was really impressed by V. She could write her letters and even her own name by herself. It made me so proud to see her progress. I understand how difficult it can be to write your name without any help or ask for assistance.
These are the important moments, the small moments that bring pride, joy, and happiness.
Here are some tips that helped us improve our pre-writing skills:
Lots and lots of fine motor play– If you have been following our journey for a long time, you know that I focus a lot more on activities that develop fine motor skills and problem-solving skills for V. It’s important to work on fine motor skills before focusing solely on writing skills, as it can be frustrating for a child without a strong foundation in fine motor skills.
Upper body strengthening exercises like climbing ladders, pulling weights, wheelbarrow walking can be challenging for our kids as the child has to carry and push the body weight to climb up on the ladder. These workouts are enough to strengthen her upper body, leg muscles, grip.
Hand and Finger Strengthening Exercises– Hand strength is important for everyday tasks like buttoning clothes, opening bottle caps, cutting objects, and writing or colouring with crayons or pencil.
To improve hand and finger strength, you can try the following exercises regularly:
- Squeezing a soft ball or stress ball, or a gel ball.
- Using tongs and tweezers to pick up small objects like beads or pom poms, can help strengthen your hand muscles.
- Sensory Play- playing with different textures or materials like sand, foam, or water can improve sensory processing and further strengthen your hand and finger muscles.
- Playing with play-dough to help improve finger dexterity and grip strength.
By incorporating these exercises into your routine, you can gradually enhance your hand and finger strength, making daily activities easier and more manageable.
Tracing boards are helpful tools for learning patterns, numbers, and letters by tracing them and learning how to write them. We used them before moving on to wipe and clean books. Investing in tracing boards can greatly enhance the learning experience.
Using Chalks-I prefer using chalk and a board instead of giving a child a pencil for writing. Not only is it inexpensive, but it also helps with hand control and grip. Writing on a vertical surface can strengthen a child’s core.
When I noticed my child’s readiness in writing, I introduced a few resources like Wipe & Clean books, sandpaper tracing, and then a DIY tracing folder to her. The tracing folder helped her with letter formation and improved her pre-writing skills.
You can make a tracing binder at home using printable from Google. To create your personalized tracing binder, you will need the following items.
- Printable
- White boards marker
- Transparent A4 size sleeves
- Ring binder
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