Here are some activities that will help your child develop writing skills. Remember your child needs to enjoy the activity for it to be effective and learning to take place.
Plan for your child to succeed. Try to encourage your child to write on vertical as well as flat surfaces.
Use a variety of implements:
• Fingers
• Crayons
• Textas
• Chalk
• Sticks and rocks
• Magna Doodle”
Use a variety of surfaces:
• Paper
• Cardboard boxes
• Sand
• Pathway
Drawing ideas to try to with your child include the following.
You can give your child dot to dot books and puzzles that require drawing through mazes.
You can also encourage your child to trace around objects and hands.
Playing with playdough and manipulating small objects all help to strengthen fingers and develop skills for writing.
Have your child make pictures with stickers or stamps.
Vertical and Horizontal Lines
Suggest your child might like to draw candles, grass, a cage (to keep an animal in), a fence, a ladder, a hat, railway tracks or rain.
Circles
Suggest your child might like to draw glasses, a caterpillar, oranges, grapes and apples or truck wheels.
Oblique Lines
Suggest your child might like to draw a spider web, an Indian tepee, a mountain or a snake.
Coils
Suggest your child might like to draw a person or a cat.
The information in Learning Links’ Tip Sheets is prepared by experienced early childhood professionals. Each child is unique and this material is not necessarily suitable for every child, parent or carer.
We recommend you discuss this information with your child’s therapist or education professional
prior to using these tips.
