Help Your Child Improve Writing Skills

The first mark our child makes on paper is a surprise. To make them learn writing skills they need  both interesting and visually appealling things that excite them. Then they want to follow, capture or copy those skills. Also, every child takes their own time to develop a skill. Yet we can motivate our children to learn writing skills. Let’s understand the various stages that children go through in learning writing skills.

1. Chalks & Crayons It is the best option for children to prepare for writing. They get attracted to  the crayon colours as well as they are easy to hold. Motivate the child to make any mark they want on flat surfaces, black boards or on slates. They start with random scribbles. In this way, accustom their arm muscles to the pressure they apply on the surface with chalk. Once they start liking it, give them a box of colourful crayons to start their writing journey.
2. Make a Pencil Grip A pencil grip can help child to learn how to hold pencil and create marks. Children have soft fingertips that need to get adapted to hard surfaces of a pencil. We can wrap a cotton cloth or clay around a pencil and help children get a grip on the pencils with their fingers easily. Don’t bother how our child is holding the pencil, just make them comfortable by exploring various options in which they use to choose their grip.
3. Colouring Books Give your child colouring books in which they can use colour on various pictures and shapes with colours of their choice. This process gives them idea of outline. They will also learn to grip pencils and crayons easily. The clearer and more precise they colour and outline the pictures the better they advance towards writing their first alphabet. Do allow them to scribble as much as they like in the beginning. It is a part of the process on the way to writing nicely.
4. Tracing After child gets comfortable with pencil grip, help them to trace alphabets, by giving them writing and tracing alphabet books. Start with bigger tracing so as to allow free movement of your child’s wrists and fingers. Gradually, reduce the size of the alphabets for advanced hand movement. While regular practicing they can easily write alphabets. To check the gap between multiple alphabets if they are writing by keeping a uniform space between multiple letters, they trace alphabet, introduce to them two and three letter words.
5. Word and Sentences After children develop writing skills, help them to identify the words by hearing them and writing them without helping them. These will help them in learning spelling along with writing. Their effort to learn spelling as per their understanding will help them to develop a sense of identifying spelling. Be patient and calm as a child learns words and sentences at the age of 5–6 yrs. Gradually to scribbling few sentences, by continuous practice. They easily learn writing and enjoy the process.