Helping Children Write Well Involves Strengthening Motor Skills and Imaginations
Teaching a student to write well is a process that begins long before they pick up a pencil, a new Edutopia article asserts.
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The article outlines six ways to help preschool students build the skills they need to write well. These include focusing on gross motor skills, spatial awareness, curiosity, strengthening bodies, and helping children to explore with their hands.
Edutopia outlines six strategies to support writing for young children. These include:
Strengthening bodies before pencils: Writing is a fine motor task, but relies on a foundation of gross motor strength. When children climb, dance, or balance, they develop core stability, spatial awareness, and shoulder strength - all muscles that later help them sit upright at a desk and steady their hands for writing.
Hands-on exploration: To learn to hold pencils, children must first get experience digging, squeezing, rolling, and building with materials such as clay, play dough, mud, sticks, and other materials to develop grip strength and coordination.
Develop spatial and directional concepts: Just as much as it’s about forming letters, writing involves understanding directionality and spatial organization. Such concepts as up and down, left to right, diagonal strokes, and repeating patterns all help to pave the way.
Connect play to communication: As children begin to see that their drawings, marks, and symbols can have meaning, they’ll start to understand writing as having a purpose.
Nurture curiosity as a driver for literacy: Children are often eager to record and share discoveries. Teachers can fuel motivation to decode and create written language by connecting a spark of curiosity to literacy opportunities.
Guide emerging writers gently: When children are ready to try early writing, it’s important to provide gentle invitations - such as adding names to artwork - and helping them to practice without pressure. Celebrate attempts and encourage the joy of expression, rather than correcting a child’s form too early.
To find activities to pair with these four strategies, read Edutopia’s article on how to help children build the skills they need for writing.
