How to develop writing skills in a child

How To Improve Writing Skills For Kids: 14 Easy Tips

Writing — it’s an important form of communication and a key part of education. But in today’s technology-driven world, kids aren’t given many opportunities to practise and improve their ability to write. This leaves many parents wondering how to improve their child’s writing skills.

It takes time to develop strong writing skills, and it can be a tough task to accomplish. Thankfully, there are many things that parents can do at home to help improve children’s writing skills.

From fun activities to daily reading and writing sessions, these tips on how to improve kids’ writing skills will help your child build his or her skills in no time.

Improve your child’s communication skills with these simple and fun kids’ writing activities.

14 Activities To Improve Kids’ Writing Skills

Read Up

Regular reading is a stepping stone to better writing and helps kids’ strengthen their writing skills. It helps expand children’s vocabulary and shows them different ways of using words. This also makes it easier for them to use these words in their own writing.

With younger children, make sure you’re reading together every day and encouraging their love of reading as they grow. Start reading early—many children who devour books grow up to become strong writers themselves. Tweet This
Make it Fun!

Play games and activities that encourage writing. Crossword puzzles and word games are great for everyone. Little ones will especially like the “write the word” game: where they search for items and write down the word when they find each item.
Create Writing Worksheets

For young children just learning to write, try creating a worksheet where they can trace letters and words. Write out letters and words, place another piece of paper on top, and have your child trace onto the blank piece of paper. You can also create a connect-the-dots game by having your child trace along dotted lines and then tell you which letter or word she or he finds.
Try Different Materials

Switch it up by writing with something other than a pen or pencil. Sidewalk chalk on the driveway, finger painting, or a salt writing tray are all fun writing activities that will also help build kids’ writing skills.
Write Letters

Today, writing letters is a bit of a lost art. Encourage your child to write letters to friends or family members. Distant family members will especially love receiving handwritten letters and it’s a great way to work on improving writing skills for kids.

Pen-pals are also a fun idea, or you can even write letters to each other and leave them around the house to find!
Encourage Journalling

Keeping a journal is a great way to express thoughts and ideas while also working on improving children’s writing skills. Plan an outing to pick a fun journal with your child and encourage them to write in it as much as possible. Make it a part of his or her daily routine.
Create a Writing Space

Set aside a little corner in your house that is completely devoted to writing. Having an area dedicated solely to writing will help free your child from distractions so he or she can focus on practicing writing skills.
Invest Time

Make sure your child knows you’re available to help with spelling or proofreading whenever he or she needs it. When you make writing time a priority for you, it will make it easier for your child to improve his or her writing skills.
Connect Their Interests

Think about your son or daughter’s favourite book series. Or maybe he or she is obsessed with dinosaurs. Whatever his or her interests, connect them to writing. Have your child write a new short story about his or her favourite characters, or let him or her create a story all about dinosaurs.
Create Story Prompts

A fun way to improve kids’ creative writing skills is to have them write short stories.

Cut out pictures from a magazine with different characters or locations, or write down different words. Place these in a container or glue them to cards to use as writing prompts for creating a unique story. This also makes a fun activity for the whole family to join in.
Model It

There’s no better way to learn something than to see someone else doing it. Let your children see you writing, often. When writing is a normal part of your daily life, it will come more naturally to them. Anything goes: a simple grocery list or letter to the teacher, holiday or thank you cards, or even a sweet note to your child.
Use Technology to Your Advantage

There’s no getting around the fact that technology plays a huge part in our lives. Use it to your advantage by having your child create a blog. This can help your child work on improving his or her writing skills by encouraging frequent writing habits.
Make it Part of Your Daily Routine

Make sure there’s time each day to do some writing in one way or another. Whether it’s writing a grocery list, writing in a journal or composing a letter, practicing writing every day will go a long way to improving kids’ writing skills.
Praise Their Work

Show lots of interest in your child’s writing and stories. Ask questions, celebrate when he or she brings home a good piece from school, and encourage his or her writing as much as possible.

Improving Writing Skills Can Be Fun

Writing is an important practical life skill. While developing great writing skills requires lots of time and patience, you can help your child with these simple writing exercises for kids.

Lots of reading, frequent writing time in a special writing area, and incorporating fun writing activities and games will all go a long way to giving writing skills a boost.

Need Extra Help?

If your child needs extra help improving his or her writing skills, Oxford Learning can help. Our English tutoring program helps develop kids’ writing and comprehension skills, from word recognition to paragraph writing. Contact us today!

Related Resources

5 Reasons Writing By Hand Is Good For The Brain
Understanding Literacy & Your Child
5 Ways To Help Kids Learn At Home

Helping Young Children Develop Strong Writing Skills

Writing is an important part of our daily lives. It is, however, a difficult skill to learn and master. By getting a head start with some simple activities, you can help your child begin to develop her writing skills at an early age. By doing so you will be contributing to her future success as a student and as an adult while teaching her how to express herself.

In this article, we provide some reasons that writing is an important skill for people of all ages, as well as a list of suggestions that will help your child become a stronger writer.

Why is writing important?

Writing is practical.
Every day, we need to write in order to complete our tasks, whether we are filling out a form at the doctor's office or writing an important letter. These tasks require us to write clearly, and organize information effectively.

Writing is an important element of a student's education.
Whether students are writing by hand or on the computer, many assignments and exams require students to write short answers or longer essays as a way of assessing what they have learned. As students get older, they will be expected to show more sophisticated writing skills, and to complete more sophisticated tasks through their writing. In addition, many colleges and universities require students to write essays as part of their admissions application.

Writing can be an important element of an employee's job.
Employees in many kinds of jobs are required to write on a daily basis. Perhaps they are taking phone messages and doing administrative work, or writing research reports and newspaper articles. Whatever the task, their ability to do their job well may depend on their ability to write. Many job applicants also must submit a resumé and a letter of application when applying to a new job.

Writing is an important form of communication.
Writing letters and emails is a common way of keeping in touch with our friends, relatives, and professional colleagues. Writing is frequently the final stage in communication when we want to leave no room for doubt, which is why we write and sign contracts, leases, and treaties when we make important decisions.

Writing can be an important outlet.
Many people find writing to be therapeutic, and a helpful way to express feelings that cannot be expressed so easily by speaking.

What Can You Do?

It's important to remember that writing can be as difficult a subject to teach and assess as it is to learn. Many students have trouble writing with clarity, coherence, and organization, and this can discourage them from writing if they feel frustrated.

That's where parent involvement can make a big difference. Encouraging your child to develop strong writing skills at a young age, and to become a better writer as she gets older, can have a lifelong positive impact on her writing, and may make writing an easier and more enjoyable process for her

To get you started, the Department of Education offers a number of ideas of things you can do help your child become a stronger writer. While many of these ideas apply to younger children, they can be adapted for older children as well. To learn more about ways to support your children if they continue to struggle with writing in middle and high school, read Tips for Parents of Struggling Adolescent Writers.

Ideas for Parents: How to Help Your Child Become a Stronger Writer

What You Need

Pencils, crayons, or markers
Yarn or ribbon
Writing paper or notebook
Cardboard or heavy paper
Construction paper
Safety scissors

Before getting started

Provide a place
It's important for your child to have a good place to write, such as a desk or table with a smooth, flat surface. It's also crucial to have good lighting.

Provide the materials
Provide plenty of paper (lined and unlined) and things to write with, including pencils, pens, and crayons.

Brainstorm
Talk with your child as much as possible about her ideas and impressions, and encourage her to describe people and events to you.

Activities for young children

Encourage the child to draw and to discuss her drawings
Ask your child questions about her drawings such as:

"What is the boy doing?"

"Does the house look like ours?"

"Can you tell a story about this picture?"

Show an interest in, and ask questions about, the things your child says, draws, and may try to write.

Ask your child to tell you simple stories as you write them down
Copy the story as your child tells it, without making changes. Ask her to clarify anything you don't understand.

Encourage your child to write her name
Practice writing her name with her, and point out the letters in her name when you see them in other places (on signs, in stores, etc.). She may start by only writing the first few letters of her name, but soon the rest will follow.

Use games
There are numerous games and puzzles that help children with spelling while increasing their vocabulary. Some of these may include crossword puzzles, word games, anagrams, and cryptograms designed especially for children. Flash cards are fun to use too, and they're easy to make at home.

Turn your child's writing into books
Paste her drawings and writings on pieces of construction paper. For each book, make a cover out of heavier paper or cardboard, and add special art, a title, and her name as author. Punch holes in the pages and cover, and bind the book together with yarn or ribbon.

Day-to-Day Activities

Make sure your child sees you writing
She will learn about writing by watching you write. Talk with her about your writing so that she begins to understand why writing is important and the many ways it can be used.

Encourage your child to write, even if she's scribbling
Give your child opportunities to practice writing by helping her sign birthday cards, write stories, and make lists.

As your child gets older, write together
Have your child help you with the writing you do, including writing letters, shopping lists, and messages.

Suggest note-taking
Encourage your child to take notes on trips or outings, and to describe what she saw. This could include a description of nature walks, a boat ride, a car trip, or other events that lend themselves to note-taking.

Encourage copying
If your child likes a particular song, suggest that she learn the words by writing them down. Also encourage copying favorite poems or quotations from books and plays.

Encourage your child to read her stories out loud
As your child gets older, ask her to share her stories with you. Listen carefully without interrupting, and give her positive feedback about her ideas and her writing!

Hang a family message board in the kitchen
Offer to write notes there for your child. Be sure that she finds notes left there for her.

Help your child write letters and emails to relatives and friends
These may include thank you notes or just a special note to say hello. Be sure to send your child a letter or card once in awhile too so that she is reminded of how special it is to get a letter in the mail. Consider finding a pen pal for your child.

Encourage keeping a journal
This is excellent writing practice as well as a good outlet for venting feelings. Encourage your child to write about things that happen at home and school, about people she likes or dislikes and why, and about things she wants to remember and do. If she wants to share the journal with you, read the entries and discuss them together.

Things to remember

Allow time
Help your child spend time thinking about a writing project or exercise. Good writers often spend a lot of time thinking, preparing, and researching before starting to write. Your child may dawdle, sharpen a pencil, get papers ready, or look up the spelling of a word. Be patient — this may all be part of her preparation.

Respond to your child's writing
Respond to the ideas your child expresses verbally or in writing. Make it clear that you are interested in what the writing conveys, which means focusing on "what" the child has written rather than "how" it was written. It's usually wise to ignore minor errors, particularly at the stage when your child is just getting ideas together.

Praise your child's writing
Take a positive approach and find good things to say about your child's writing. Is it accurate? Descriptive? Original? Creative? Thoughtful? Interesting?

Avoid writing for your child
Don't write a paper for your child that will be turned in as her work, and don't rewrite your child's work. Meeting a writing deadline, taking responsibility for the finished product, and feeling ownership of it are also important parts of the writing process.

Help your child with her writing as she gets older
Ask your child questions that will help her clarify the details of her stories and assignments as they get longer, and help her organize her thoughts. Talk about the objective of what she is writing.

Provide your child with spelling help when she's ready for it
When your child is just learning how to read and write, she may try different ways to write and spell. Our job is to encourage our children's writing so they will enjoy putting their thoughts and ideas on paper. At first, your child may begin to write words the way that she hears them. For example, she might write "haf" instead of "have", "frn" instead of "friend", and "Frd" instead of "Fred." This actually is a positive step in developing her phonemic awareness. Keep practicing with her, and model the correct spelling of words when you write. As your child gets older and begins to ask more questions about letters and spelling, provide her with the help she needs.

Practice, practice, practice
Writing well takes lots of practice, so make sure your child doesn't get discouraged too easily. It's not easy! Give her plenty of opportunities to practice so that she has the opportunity to improve.

Read together
Reading and writing support each other. The more your child does of each, the better she will be at both. Reading can also stimulate your child to write about her own family or school life. If your child has a particular favorite story or author, ask her why she thinks that story or that person's writing is special.

As you read and write more with your child, you will be building an important foundation, and taking steps that will help your child to become a better reader, writer, and student. Your efforts now will make a difference — and it may be just the difference that your child needs to succeed!

References

U.S. Department of Education. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Archived Information. "Help Your Child Learn to Write Well." http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/Writing/index.html.

U.S. Department of Education. Parent Section: Helping Your Child Become a Reader. "Write On!" http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/reader/part5.html#write.

Reprints

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact [email protected].

Major support provided by our founding partner, the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.

With generous support provided by the National Education Association.

From scrawl to handwriting: how to develop writing skills in a child - Parents.ru

Development

Photo: Getty Images/Moment Open

teacher

Famous teacher Vasily Sukhomlinsky wrote: "The origins of children's abilities and gifts are their fingertips..." It has long been known that the development of fine motor skills is the development of the corresponding parts of the brain, the training of muscle memory, perseverance and attention, and preparation for learning to write. But here it is important not to miss the moment and do everything necessary to make it easy for a child to study in elementary school. Vladimir Bekhterev suggested teaching children how to hold a pencil correctly from one and a half to 2 years old - otherwise, in his opinion, graphomotor skills (movements of the writing hand) could be incorrectly fixed and potential abilities would fade away. When does it really need to be done?

Good handwriting is formed not by those who learned to write capital letters before others, but by children whose hand and perception were correctly and in time prepared for learning to write!

There is a time for everything

The formation of hand movements begins gradually during the first six months of a child's life: the hand, tightly clenched into a fist, straightens, the fingers try to perform the simplest movements to grasp objects. However, before a child's hand begins to resemble the hand of an adult, a rather significant time passes.

From 10–11 months to , actions become functional: the child tries to use the object for its intended purpose. During this period, the actions of the hands are improved: the cam is unclenched, the fingers act more independently.
In the second year of , the baby does not just manipulate objects, but wants to find out what actions can be performed with them.
The third year is determined by the fact that the child actively and purposefully begins to use objects for their intended purpose and experiment with them. The child's hands are in constant motion, at work.
At the age of four years old the child finds himself in a kindergarten among many games and didactic materials. With his hands, he begins to master sensory "standards": size, length, shape, surface structure. The baby goes from sensation to perception, from perception to representation, from representation to understanding.
In the fifth year of life, previously acquired skills are improved, new interests appear. The kid is happy to demonstrate crafts made by his own hands, and talks about how they were made. If a child’s hand has been developed from birth, then he improves his “manual” skills: he masters more complex methods of folding, bending, winding and pouring, uses fabric, paper, wire, foil, auxiliary and natural materials, uses various tools and materials. An attractive activity is stenciling numbers and letters. This is the last step in preparing the hand for writing.

Photo: Katarzyna Bialasiewicz Photographee.eu/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Children under the age of 4-5 should not be given pens and felt-tip pens: in order to get a point or a line with them, you just need to lightly press. Drawing with pencils requires some effort, which forms the pressure necessary for further writing. It is best to use simple and colored pencils, brushes, wax crayons at an early age, and postpone pens and felt-tip pens until elementary school.

Where are your pens?

Writing is one of the most complex processes that a little man has to learn. The ability to write requires not only good development of the small muscles of the hand, coordination of movements, but also perseverance and patience. The development of these particular skills should be given special attention before moving on to writing capital letters, syllables and words. The better the child's hand is prepared for writing, the easier it will be for him to master the process itself later. What can help you?

Games for the development of tactile perception "train" the sensitivity of the fingers, helping them learn to identify such qualities of an object as softness and hardness, shape, weight, temperature, texture. “Recognition” by the child of objects by touch in the future makes it possible to hold the hand correctly, regulate the strength of its grip and improve muscle tone, which makes hand movements more accurate.
Massage is one of the types of gymnastics. It has a general strengthening effect on the muscular system, increasing the elasticity and contractility of the muscles. Hand massage helps to relieve motor tension in the muscles of the hands and develops the flexibility and mobility of the fingers.
Finger games play a special role in the development of fine motor skills. Finger games are the performance of rhyming stories and fairy tales with the help of fingers. They allow you to correct the movements of each finger individually and relative to each other, train the accuracy of motor reactions, develop dexterity, the ability to control your movements, and concentrate on one type of activity.
Work with the designer and mosaic is also aimed at improving the coordination of hand movements and the development of touch.
Modeling from clay, plasticine and dough develops fine motor skills well, strengthens the muscles of the fingers, develops “fine” hand movements, strengthens the skills of tactile examination (during the modeling process, something constantly needs to be kneaded, rolled or flattened).
Drawing improves the coordination of finger and hand movements, helps to overcome uncertainty and stiffness of movements. This activity is very useful and loved by all children! After all, you can draw in different materials and ways.
Physical exercises are good for training the small muscles of the hand. They are based on grasping movements and the dosage of hand strength and contribute to the development of accuracy of movements. Here are some examples of such activities. Games with gloves. Sew fabric Velcro onto the glove so that the thumb can stick to the others. Alternately "glue" the thumb to the rest of the fingers of the hand.

"Dry Pool" . Fill a large container with cereals, beans, peas, beans, pasta, plastic stoppers, felt-tip caps, etc. Ask the child to put his hands in the "pool" and let him find the small toys hidden there.

Spool of thread games

Sock games
- Fill small socks (or bags) with different grains. Let the baby crumple them with one finger, two and the whole palm. Such an activity is well suited for the development of tactile sensations;
- sew large beads onto the socks, put the resulting massager on your hand and move it along the palm (back) of the child.
Toothbrush games . First rub the pad of each finger with a toothbrush, and then slowly lower to its base. At the very end, massage the entire palm.

Games with buttons, beads
- Show your baby how to string large beads and buttons onto a fishing line, alternating them;
- Play "skiers" by placing your index and middle fingers in the recesses of the large buttons and move around the table like a skier is walking.
Lace play . Offer your child multi-colored bright shoelaces: let him tie them, twist them, lay out shapes, letters and numbers from them on the table.

Photo

Lacheev/Getty Images/iStockphoto

little tricks

. You can start from 2–2.5 years old, when the child can already fix and remember the correct position of the hand. There are several simple and effective ways that allow the baby to master the correct position of the fingers and hand for further writing.
1. The first are specially designed pencil tips. Thanks to them, it is simply impossible to take a pencil wrong! Such “simulators” are available for both right-handers and left-handers. Similar nozzles can be found in various colors and in the form of animals or cartoon characters.
2. The second is exercise. For example, ask your child to hold a napkin with their ring finger and little finger, and take a pencil with their free fingers - the correct grip is formed in a natural way. Option for the little ones: offer the crumbs to “put” the pencil to bed. What are we doing? We put the pencil in the “crib” - on the middle finger, under the head “pillow” - index, and on top of the “blanket” - thumb.
3. Third - the use of triangular pens and pencils, which, due to their shape, allow children's fingers to take a natural and correct position (grasp the pencil from three sides). If we talk about the thickness of the pencil, then the younger the child, the thicker the pencil should be. The skill of writing is just beginning to form, and it is much more difficult to keep a thin rod (and even more so to manipulate it!)
How to determine at preschool age whether a child's hand is ready for writing? The accuracy of graphic actions depends on the development of fine motor skills, dexterity of fingers and hands, and the coordination of their movements. The development of fine finger movements can be judged by observing how the child draws or paints over the details of the picture. For example, if he constantly turns the sheet, that is, he cannot change the direction of the lines with the help of subtle movements of the fingers and hand, then the fingers are poorly developed. Svetlana Voronina, a methodologist, and Lyudmila Nogina, a psychologist at the Chudo-Sad Center for Children's Hospital (St. Petersburg), offer simple tests.

Hand writing can be assessed by testing at home.
- Invite your child to shade the shape or outline of an object. Normal: the strokes should be even, parallel, spaced at the same distance from each other, not going beyond the boundaries of the image.
- Have him color the object in the picture.
  Normal: the strokes should be even, made with medium pressure, without gaps, taking into account the outlines of the borders.
- Offer to continue the given pattern in a notebook with a large cell.
  Normal: the child sees the cage, its dimensions, performs the task carefully, strictly according to the model, if there is an inclination, it also makes an inclination.
From dot to letter

You can start learning to write with ordinary strokes or sticks that the kid will draw on a blank sheet of paper the way he wants. No need to try to control the shape and size of the squiggles! Let the baby get used to the position of the hand, which is necessary for writing, and learn to control its movements. Gradually, you can move on to drawing "patterns" on a lined sheet of paper - such an activity perfectly trains the eye and helps to form a sense of the boundaries of the line.

In the future, in mastering the first writing skills, you will be helped by:

Coloring

Coloring pictures is one of the most favorite activities for children. Coloring books can be offered to the baby from the age of three. You just need to choose them according to the age of the child, his interests and preferences. The younger the baby, the larger should be the pictures that he will color. When his hand has mastered the basic movements necessary for coloring, complicate the tasks. For example, show how you can color a picture using the hatching method, and ask your child to do it on their own. Let him shade the details of the picture with a slope to the left, to the right, from top to bottom, from bottom to top, from the center to the edge and vice versa.

Photo

Photodisc/Getty Images/Image Source

Drawing

It is useful to draw with your child images that combine different lines: vertical, horizontal, straight, wavy. Try to connect graphic elements (using arcs, lines, zigzags) and draw ornaments, patterns. This is a good exercise for training the eye and developing the skill of uniform hand movement on paper.

Copybooks

Work with children's copybooks is a good addition to coloring lessons. In such notebooks, instead of letters, the baby is invited to trace different shapes, contours, images, curls and dashes.

Letters

At the age of 5-6 years, you can start learning how to write letters. Here it is important to explain in detail and show the child in what sequence the elements of the letters are written, with what proportions. It is best to start with the simplest letters (“o”, “s”, “a”, “l”), gradually moving on to more complex writing. Reinforce the skill by regularly asking the child to write his name (for example, on notebooks, educational books and magazines, etc.), sign a postcard to his sister, grandmother, aunt, etc.

Starting to teach a child to write, tune in to the fact that not everything will turn out right away. Most likely, at first the successes will be modest: the kids squeeze the pencil tightly while writing, and the fingers get tired very quickly. Do not force the child to write for too long and regularly (after 3-5 minutes) do relaxation exercises (squeeze and unclench fingers several times, lightly massage the forearms and hands). Do not scold the baby and do not compare his achievements with the successes of other children. Having beaten off the desire for learning in this way, it will be simply impossible to teach him to write beautifully in the future. Save all children's work and after a while compare the results, noting clear progress.

teacher at the Aristotle educational center, teacher of the Art of the Word program for schoolchildren

Seize the moment

Elena Razukhina, teacher at the Aristotle educational center:

— Should preschoolers start learning capital letters? Some will say: "Yes, it will be easier at school." Others will object: "No, it's still early." How to proceed? Of course, it is necessary to develop the movements of the writing hand (and learn to write), but first the child must learn, put in his memory a graphic image of printed letters. Capital letters are much more complex elements for an unprepared perception and an unprepared hand of a baby. With a child of older preschool age, who already knows how to print block letters with a pencil, you can work with coloring books that have separate elements of capital letters, and use a notebook in a ruler.

There is another point that explains why you should not immediately move on to a full-fledged letter. Mastering each specific letter on paper, you must strictly follow the rule of writing it and connecting it with other letters. Few parents know or remember what those rules are. Imagine such a situation. You have already taught your child how to connect letters and write words, and in the first grade, the teacher will explain to him differently how the letter “o” is connected to the letter “b” (or “o” to “m”). For a first-grader, how the teacher evaluates his work plays a big role, and then he finds out that he writes incorrectly. Of course, unnecessary experiences will follow. Who needs it? It is better to check with the teacher directly in the course of training in the first grade which recipes to purchase for homework, and slowly, after school, practice with the child. In addition, in children who learned to write too early, handwriting often deteriorates due to the fact that the hand has not yet been trained and gets tired quickly.

More useful materials about child development - in our channel at Yandex.Zen .

Evgenia Karpovskaya

Development of writing skills in a child

Writing is one of the most difficult skills that a child has to learn.
The ability to write requires not only a good development of the small muscles of the hand, coordination of movements, but also perseverance and patience.
It is precisely these skills that should be given special attention before moving on to writing capital letters, syllables and words.
The better the child's hand is prepared for writing, the easier it will be for him to master the process itself later.
The formation of hand movements begins gradually during the first six months of a child's life: the hand, tightly clenched into a fist, straightens, the fingers try to perform the simplest movements to grasp objects.
However, before a child's hand begins to resemble an adult's hand, it takes quite a long time.
From 10–11 months to a year, actions become functional: the child tries to use the object for its intended purpose. During this period, the actions of the hands are improved: the cam is unclenched, the fingers act more independently.

In the second year, the baby does not just manipulate objects, but wants to find out what actions can be performed with them.

The third year is determined by the fact that the child actively and purposefully begins to use objects for their intended purpose and to experiment with them. The child's hands are in constant motion, at work.

At the age of 4, the child usually finds himself in a kindergarten - among many games and didactic materials.
With his hands, he begins to master sensory "standards": size, length, shape, structure of surfaces. The baby goes from sensation to perception, from perception to representation, from representation to understanding.

In the fifth year of life, previously acquired skills are improved, new interests appear. The kid is happy to demonstrate crafts made by his own hands, and talks about how they were made.
If a child’s hand has been developed from birth, then he improves his “manual” skills: he masters more complex methods of folding, bending, winding and pouring, uses fabric, paper, wire, foil, auxiliary and natural materials, uses various tools and materials. An attractive activity is stenciling numbers and letters. This is the last step in preparing the hand for writing.

Until the age of 4-5, do not give a child pens and felt-tip pens: using them does not require pressure, but drawing with pencils requires some effort, which forms the pressure necessary for further writing.
Pencils, colored pencils, crayons should be used at an early age, and pens and markers should be set aside until elementary school.

What can help prepare your hand for writing:
Tactile perception games "train" the sensitivity of the fingers, helping them learn to identify such qualities of an object as softness and hardness, shape, weight, temperature, texture. “Recognition” by the child of objects by touch in the future makes it possible to hold the hand correctly, regulate the strength of its grip and improve muscle tone, which makes hand movements more accurate.

Massage is a type of gymnastics. It has a general strengthening effect on the muscular system, increasing the elasticity and contractility of the muscles. Hand massage helps to relieve motor tension in the muscles of the hands and develops the flexibility and mobility of the fingers.

Finger games play a special role in the development of fine motor skills. Finger games are the staging of rhyming stories and fairy tales with the help of fingers. They allow you to correct the movements of each finger individually and relative to each other, train the accuracy of motor reactions, develop dexterity, the ability to control your movements, and concentrate on one type of activity. Finger games, as it were, reflect the reality of the surrounding world - objects, animals, people, their activities, natural phenomena. During finger games, children, repeating the movements of adults, activate the motor skills of their hands.

Working with the construction set and mosaic is also aimed at improving the coordination of hand movements and developing the sense of touch. Details of the mosaic and the designer come in different shapes, sizes and colors. At first, you can offer your child simple tasks (sorting the details of the mosaic by color, size or shape, laying out horizontal or vertical tracks, simple patterns), then learn to build images according to the model and independently.

Modeling clay, plasticine and dough develops fine motor skills well, strengthens the muscles of the fingers, develops “fine” hand movements, strengthens the skills of tactile examination (during the modeling process, something constantly needs to be kneaded, rolled or flattened).

Drawing improves coordination of finger and hand movements, helps to overcome uncertainty and stiffness of movements. This activity is very useful and loved by all children! After all, you can draw in different materials and ways - on paper, cardboard, snow, sand, a misted window and asphalt. You can ask the kid to circle the stencil or translate the picture through tracing paper, color it or draw it yourself.

Physical exercise is a good exercise for the small muscles of the hand. They are based on grasping movements and the dosage of hand strength and contribute to the development of accuracy of movements. Here are some examples of such activities.

Games with gloves . Sew Velcro fabric onto the glove so that the thumb can stick to the rest. Alternately "glue" the thumb to the rest of the fingers of the hand.

"Dry pool". Fill a large container with cereals, beans, peas, beans, pasta, plastic stoppers, felt-tip pen caps, etc. Have your child put their hands in the "pool" and let them find the little toys hidden there.

Lace games. Offer the child multi-colored bright shoelaces: let him tie them, twist them, lay out figures, letters and numbers from them on the table.

Handwriting readiness can be assessed by testing at home.

Invite the child to shade the shape or outline of an object.
Normal: strokes should be even, parallel, spaced at the same distance from each other, not going beyond the boundaries of the image.

Offer to color the object in the picture.
Normal: strokes should be even, made with medium pressure, without gaps, taking into account the outlines of the borders.

Offer to continue the given pattern in a notebook with a large cell.
Normal: the child sees the cage, its dimensions, performs the task carefully, strictly according to the model, if there is an inclination, it also makes an inclination.

Starting to teach a child to write, tune in to the fact that not everything will turn out right away. Most likely, at first the successes will be modest: the kids squeeze the pencil tightly while writing, and the fingers get tired very quickly.
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