penmanship

I have part 2 teaching handwriting when homeschooling the early years. Also, look at my page Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum and The Dynamics of How to Homeschool Easily and Smarter for more tips.

When I shared Teaching Handwriting The Early Years Part 1, it was important that you understand that handwriting is a natural step.

It’s a step to what your child wants to do next, which is communicate.

Even before a child can speak, they are starting to understand written language.

Those scribbles and shapes (i.e.letters) on the page communicate some kind of message.

The next natural progression then for a preschooler which a lot of parents unintentionally skip is to work on developing fine motor skills. 

Guess what? 

Developing fine motor skills at the preschool age and earlier is not done by teaching letter formation.  Not at this age.

Too, I did the first thing most new parents do.

And that is stick a crayon and some coloring books in their kids’ hands. 

Strengthen Fine Motor Skills During Preschool and Kindergarten

I soon found out that I had a couple of boys that hated coloring. 

Problems loomed on the horizon.

Sure all of my boys knew their alphabet by 3 years old but that has nothing to do with being able to pen the letters.

Understanding that developing fine motor skills is absolutely necessary to beautiful penmanship is the first step to teaching handwriting.

I cannot stress that enough in this blog post today. 

NOT writing on the lines, not forming their letters correctly, not writing their letters or even understanding that we write from left to right are more significant at this age than being able to strengthen their fine motor skills and core of their body.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing fun activities for letter recognition and teaching them how to read.

But formal handwriting does not need to be pushed.

It takes time to awaken those fine motor skill muscles through use each day.

(Mr. Awesome and Tiny working on fine motor skills by using edible peanut butter dough.)

This time period in your child’s life is called pre-writing. 

It is called pre for a reason and that is because it is the time they need to work everyday on fine motor activities that come BEFORE formal handwriting.

Little did I understand that asking Mr. Senior 2013 at 3 years old to write a letter and on the line (horrible, horrible) was like asking him to run a marathon before he could walk. 

Like running, muscles have to be strengthened first by stretching, walking and just general use each day before anybody could expect to run a marathon.

On top of that I learned right away that boys lagged behind girls in fine motor development. 

Pre Means Before Writing NOT Same Time

There is nothing wrong with most boys, mine included as I found out years later. 

There are just differences between the way boys and girls learn and early on I noticed it too at this tender age.

Having to think outside of the crayon box (corny I know) I had to come up with activities that strengthened my boys’ fine motor skills as well as capture the fun element to learning.

(Mr. Awesome “sewing” with yarn and making a puppet.)

Because of the explosion of pre-writing activities on the world wide web now, it is easier to find them.

Choosing things that kids like to do naturally like build and play is the secret to finding activities that your children can do each day without the boredom factor.

(Working with their hands and fingers each day is key.)

Your imagination is the only limitation to finding and using things around your house too.

Here are a couple of places that will get you started on fine motor skills.

You must scoot by Heather’s blog as she is a wealth of information for learning about developmental milestones for motor skills. 

She offers a free printable for developmental milestones because sometimes you just need to know whether or not your child is progressing normal and if you need to intervene to seek professional help. 

Also, check out the post I put below because it has cool DIY toys for fine motor skills.

(Picture Attribution: Lalymom)

50 Cool DIY Toys for Fine Motor Skills

Don’t repeat my same mistake by pushing ahead and skipping over this very important and significant level in the handwriting process. 

When penmanship is sloppy in the later years, many times it can be traced back to this very fundamental step that was overlooked. 

This is not just play, it is schooling at this age.

More Homeschool Handwriting Curriculum Tips!

• Which One is Really the Best Homeschool Writing Curriculum (a comparison)
• 5 Creative Ways to Boost Handwriting in Older Kids
• Cursive Matters; Handwriting Style Doesn’t + Free Resources
• Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 1
• Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 2
• Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3
• Faith-Neutral Homeschool Grammar and Writing Program
• 3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)
• Why It Is Hard to Teach Homeschooled Kids Writing But Not Impossible
• Homeschool Writing Program For Middle and High School Students
• A Reason for Handwriting Workbook & Teacher Guidebook Level K

I am not quite ready to talk about about formal handwriting yet because I want you to be able to recognize the signs of writing readiness. 

I will share about that next and then after that I will be sharing some work of my boys’ penmanship at different ages.

Sometimes you just need to see that your child is on target. 

And yes, yes I will be sharing some resources that I like too.

Teaching handwriting when homeschooling the early years. After the topic of teaching a child how to read, there is probably no other topic that can worry a parent more than writing. Also, look at my page Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum and The Dynamics of How to Homeschool Easily and Smarter for more tips.

Having taught all three of my sons from the beginning how to write, I am eager to share what worked, what was fun and oh yes, what was flat out dumb too.

Instead of jumping right into the ideas though, I think it’s important for you to understand some basic background information about the process of writing that I learned the hard way.

Educating yourself about the process too will help you to avoid confusion as you talk about it with others, research options and generally try to educate yourself about this beautiful and intricate developmental process. 

Do You Make this Mistake in Teaching Penmanship

It is hard to appreciate this process too unless you stand back and take a panoramic view.

Handwriting must not be confused with composition. They are two different skills which are talked about as if they are one. They are not.

As your child grows older, handwriting could be a tool that either burdens or beautifies a budding writer’s creative process.

Composing thoughts becomes a life-long skill, but there is a very small window of time for you to seize the opportunity to teach him how to write. 

Eventually, a writer uses both the physical act of pushing a pen and the mental act of arranging thoughts in a well-laid out system. 

In the earliest stages, it’s all about the physical act.

Then there is much information floating around about whether we should teach our kids print first, cursive first or if we even need to teach handwriting. 

How to approach a very basic but important skill almost seems like a guessing game when teaching it. 

In this series, I’m sharing tidbits about those topics so you can make an informed decision of how you are going to teach handwriting.

Don’t “Fix” What Children Like to Do Naturally

What I have learned in teaching my sons and helping many other new homeschoolers along the way is that we need to trust the natural bent our children have to pick up a tool, and yes to even use their fingers to scribble.

I have never forgotten what I read by John Holt.  It resounded with me as I have had what seemed like major highs where I could accomplish any task after teaching my first son his  letters and having tears pour down my cheeks too when I felt defeated.

John Holt said, “The infants at home were bold adventurers. 

It soon became clear to me that children are by nature and from birth very curious about the world around them, and very energetic, resourceful, and competent in exploring it, finding out about it, and mastering. In short, much more eager to learn, and much better at learning, than most adults.

Babies are not blobs, but true scientists.”

Understand first that your child has a craving to communicate through scribbles. 

Unless there is a developmental delay, your job will be to guide him to the next stage.

Don’t make this harder than it has to be.  Like childbirth and I’m going there today, you simply assisted your body, so to  speak, at the time of delivery. 

No amount of worrying was going to speed up the process as if you were in control of it.  Of course complications and delays are quite different, but again I want you to know that you just need to be prepared.

When it comes to penmanship, your children will present signs of being ready.

More Homeschool Writing Tips and Curriculum

• Which One is Really the Best Writing Curriculum (a comparison)
• 5 Creative Ways to Boost Handwriting in Older Kids
• How to Teach Cursive and Composition With A Fresh Perspective
• 3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)

Will you be ready?

Coming up in some other posts, I will be sharing some signs and signals of writing readiness by your children, ways for you to plan (and not worry) about the penmanship process, pre-writing activities, and other ways to gently guide your pre-writer through this process.

Here are the other posts in this series to see how the process unfolds:

• Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 2
• Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3

Hugs and love ya,