Being able to independently write ideas down is crucial for a child to demonstrate their learning.
1. Oral stories: Create stories together by each saying one sentence to add to the story. Take turns who starts the story and work on adding details to make your story more interesting. Here are a few story starters to help you model for your child.
2. Practice writing in real life situations. Ask your child to write a grocery list, gift wish list, birthday card or to send a text message to a loved one.
3. Write a story: Show your child a great picture from the internet or even better an adventure you went on and get them to write the story telling about it. Here are a few to get you started!
4. Factual Writing: Have your child learn more about what is important to them. If they love penguins; research penguins together.
5. Spelling: We use the "GUM IT" strategy for spelling at school. Give it a try. Underline it and Move on! Our goal when students are writing at school is for them to get their ideas out. So often a child stops to wait for an adult to spell a word.
We also provide No Excuse Wordlists for quick reference to help them spell grade appropriate words correctly.
6. Dictate a story or message: Learning to clearly and accurately dictate is an important skill to build independence for a child. Today all devices have voice to text options. On phones or tablets, the microphone is often on the bottom left of the keyboard. On computers, programs like Goggle Docs have voice typing.
Practice speaking a complete thought in a clear voice.
Use words to add periods, exclamation marks etc.
Stop after each sentence to check for accuracy.
Use words to add periods, exclamation marks etc.
Stop after each sentence to check for accuracy.
7. Printing skills: Many children struggle to print legibly.
A few strategies to help your child:
-build the small muscles in the hands by creating with playdoh or plasticine, building and taking apart Lego
-build the large muscles to support printing by hanging from monkey bars and doing push ups
-stabilize the page by laying on the floor with paper in front of them or hold paper at eye level against a wall
-start printing big then slowly as muscles develop work on printing smaller and smaller
-remind your child that letters start at the top
A few strategies to help your child:
-build the small muscles in the hands by creating with playdoh or plasticine, building and taking apart Lego
-build the large muscles to support printing by hanging from monkey bars and doing push ups
-stabilize the page by laying on the floor with paper in front of them or hold paper at eye level against a wall
-start printing big then slowly as muscles develop work on printing smaller and smaller
-remind your child that letters start at the top
Independent letter formation practice:
8. Write with fun pens, markers, pencils on special paper, sticky notes or in a diary. Children are excited to try new materials that make it special.
Enjoy reading your child's stories!