Writing Letters

Try connect the dots but with colors. You could create your own or use the computer.

We also have this thing from Leapfrog called "Letter Writer". This voice explains how to write a letter with instructions. For example, for A he says "Start at the top and draw a line down to the left. Go back to the top and draw a line down to the right. Now make a line across the middle. You wrote the letter A!". There is a little screen you can watch him draw each line and then a little writing area where the child can give it a go. I think I got it for $24 at Target?

To be honest, the connect the dots was more effective and fun for my son than the Letter Writer. Good luck!

Something that's great fun is to give the child a cookie sheet filled with rice to write the letters in, or you can put a little vanilla pudding in a gallon baggie squish it flat and he can write letters and erase them over and over. I used both of these techniques when my daughter was learning. I also purchased a small white board and some markers and let her use that to write her letters on. You can use a permanent marker to make the solid and dashed guidelines for him to use when forming the letters. You can also get him a laser pointer and let him make the letters really huge on the wall or ceiling. These techniques usually have kids begging to practice their letters! :~D There is a wonderful handwriting curriculum called Handwriting Without Tears you may want to look into... http://www.hwtears.com/
Have a Wonderful Day!!!
A. :~D

S., I used to help my kids make their own practice sheets and pretend to be having a time of my life making them and tracing the letters. You can go to http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/ to create and print whatever words you want. There are a lot of tools like this online but this was my favorite.

Try having him draw letters in sand, or a shallow pan of dried rice... Steam in the bathrom mirror is fun too...

You can write the letters on fine sand paper and have him trace those or you could have him write them in sand (a little messy). You could also make them dot to dot with numbers and that might handle two areas at once. The more you can make it to be a game the better. As a former teacher you definitely don't want to make it like some form of punishment.

I'm working with my 4 yr old daughter on the same thing. I went to the teacher supply store and bought a poster that shows all of the letters with arrows on which way to write them. I also picked up some of that lined practice paper but it's special because it's little strips that you can use a low odor dry erase marker on and use again and again. The markers I got are as close to normal pen size as I could find. They also look like a razor with the eraser part on the pen. I get one and she gets one so I demonstrate writing the same letter several times across my strip and then she traces mine with a different color marker. The first few times I had to guide her hand and make sure she was going the right direction with it. Then she tries it on her own. We say the sound the letter makes each time she writes it. We started off with the letters of her name and I pumped her up by telling her she's learning to write her name all by herself. Lots of high fives and crazy energetic praise are definitely involved.
Best wishes.

Try letting him copy his letters not trace them. Let him play with shaving cream to make letters in the foam, trace in sand or use playdoh. My daughter have loved using her magna doodle, it has really encouraged her to draw and write. I have several that she has worn out since she used them so much at home and have also bought travel size ones for her to play with in the car. You can encourage him to write letters to friends and family. Make sure he's doing it free hand by copying what you have made, tracing does not teach them because they start depending too much on a tracing model to make letters. Good luck and have fun!

Montessori uses sand paper letters with great success. You can probably buy some online.

Great suggestions so far, also remember, it takes fine motor skills to hold the writing instrument correctly..

If his fingers and hand are not strong enough and balanced, this can also affect the outcome of writing..

To strengthen this part of his hand and fingers, have him use clothes pins to pick up items like his clothing, to carry them to the laundry room. Have him sort and then stack coins. He could also roll little balls of playdo using just his fingers. Have him use really small cookie cutters to cut out shapes with the playdo. Make a chain out of a whole box of paper clips.. Not all at once.. he will go round the bend, but maybe 20 at a time.

HI. My daughter is going to be 5 in June and I bought her those workbooks at Walmart called School Zone. They are by the books in the kids section I believe. Anyway she knows how to write her letters,name,numbers and draw some shapes. I love them and she tells me that she needs to do her "homework" so I know she likes them. Good Luck!

You didn't mention, but I assume you are trying with your 4 year old. You got a lot of good suggesitons on how to make letters fun. Sometimes paper and pencil are the least fun of all.
Have patience! Many boys develop fine motor much later than girls or even other boys. My youngest, when he was 4 years old, never wanted to do letters at home (b/c he found it frustrating.)
But he loved Thomas the Tank and loved to draw trains and bridges. We did a lot of that instead, then I let a teacher take over the manuscript writing when he got to K.

I found a dry erase board at office depot. It helps him with his letters, numbers, shapes, & adding & subtracting. He likes the idea of using markers and getting to erase it. He has done really well with it. We do it every night for about 15 minutes and I find out thru his pre K teacher what letters & numbers they are working on that week so he gets extra practice at home.

My twins have had the medium and small sized doodle pads since they were 15 months old. I often had them sit next to me or in my lap while I wrote whatever letter they picked.

I would then write their names so they wold recognize them. Suddenly...One day, my son started copying what he had seen me do. This was so incredible to me as he was not quite two and he has been writing ever since.

Good Luck... ;-)

Start with the easiest letters first, I, T, H and so on. Take him to the grocery with you and make it a scavenger hunt with your list. When he gets home, write the first letter of things that he helped you find real big, then let him rainbow write, tracing over the letters with every color of the rainbow!, don't forget to teach him the sound that each letter makes! Have fun!

I absolutely love Handwriting without tears curriculum. Here is the link. http://www.hwtears.com/ Good luck!

My 3.5 yr old wanted nothing to do with writing at all until I explained it differently - I did individual lines instead of tracing, and each line had a "thing" to do. So when he drew an "R," it was high in the sky and down to the ground, then we put a big Santa belly on it and a kicking leg. He loved how each letter had these funny things going on. It took a while to figure out fun things for each one, but once he got the hang of it he was ok to do tracing.

S.

I have a son who is dyslexic and as a result he needed things to be visual AND hands-on. I used a cookie sheet with Jello powder and he practiced writing his letters in the powder. You could porbably use sand (craft sand) cheaper. Also get a set of the magnetic letters and have him practice "tracing" those with his finger. Good Luck!

Try using stencils and highlight letters, and let him trace over it. If that does not seem to help, do hand over hand with him.

A lot of times kids really want to write big at first. I would set up a big pad of paper on a easel for him or use a big chalk board or dry erase board. He'll get the hang of it, then can transition when he's ready.

The Occupational Therapist in the school I teach in advises NOT doing the dotted line letters and having them "connect the dots" for writing. She says that then they don't see the letter as a whole, but rather just look from one dot to the next. Instead, she writes the desired word with a highlighter marker--yellow or orange work best--and then has the child "trace" inside the highlighted area with a pencil/pen. Other possibilities....shaving cream on the table, pudding, sand on a cookie sheet, sidewalk chalk. Don't worry....he'll get there!

Tracing is about the best way. How did the 7 year old learn to make letters? Why not get him to help?

I got some of the foam bath letters that stick to the shower walls. I'd put the letter up on the wall, then teach her how to copy it with her finger, on the steamy glass.

Good luck!
M.

Well when I first thought my daugther to trace letter she was about 2 1/2 ro 3 and I started with her name and using simple words like this: firs we make a standing stick then a liyig down stick for a T and another example is for letter M I will say we make a little house and then we atach another little house.

Somenthing like that just using simple words.

G.L.

I bought some workbooks at the "Dollar Store" that are for preschoolers - $1 each, with Disney characters that have one page for each letter that you can trace. I also went to Borders and bought a Kumon writing book (less than $10) that has exercises to teach the actual writing skill - how you teach to hold a pencil, tracing exercises that teach drawing lines in different directions. My daughter liked the Kumon book alot, but wasn't really interested in writing out her letters until she was at preschool. She turned 4 just before school started, has attended 3 mornings a week. She is 4.5 now, and writes out her name, copies letters, and writes out some 3 letter words. For my daughter, seeing other children do something has been encouraging to her. We practice writing letters with chalk on the sidewalk, on a chalkboard, on a white board with markers. She likes to use pens rather than pencils and she still doesn't like crayons as much, but that is getting better. We play "Tic tac toe", because you have to draw X and O. She loves to play that with her daddy. Since you have a 7 year old, maybe he can play "teacher". Every child is different. In my daughter's preschool class there is huge variation of the children's handwriting skills between 4 and 5 years old, so I wouldn't stress too much. Above all, make it fun, not a chore at this age. I personally don't push it at home too much, if my daughter wants to practise writing letters, then I encourage her, otherwise I feel that she will have plenty of school work when she gets to kindergarten. Encourage drawing skills and holding a crayon or marker the correct way. Good luck.

You might want to try handwriting without tears. You should be able to find it at a teachers store or online. It is a program for both printing and cursive(when they are ready)that many schools use, with great sucess.

This is kind of like tracing, I'm afraid, but more fun. I used to write the letter very large on a peice of white printer paper and then give my child crayons or markers and ask her to turn it into a rainbow. Later on, this works great with spelling words, too. Good luck!