Tips to teach your child to write beautiful alphabet?

[Fiona2011231]

May I ask for your kind advice on this?

My 4-year-old son is able to recognize all the letters and can write them. However, I have to say the writing looks terrible. And I suppose it is fair to say the teachers at school would not have time to show the children to write beautifully.

Is there anything I can do to improve his way of writing?

My sincere thanks,

Have school not provided you with letter formation worksheets to practice? My daughter is in reception and correct letter formation/improving her handwriting is one of her ongoing targets.

there's plenty free online if you google " letter formation", and also plenty of kid's magazines which have practice pages (e.g the alphablocks magazine and similar)

Hi,

Yes, they give us the letter formation worksheet to practise, but the teachers do not seem to care if the child's writing looks terrible.

I want to know if it is normal at this stage and that the handwriting policy will become stricter from Year One. Or is it common that the teachers would just let your child write the way he wants.

He's 4. Of course his handwriting going to be terrible!

Schools spend a lot of time practising letter formation and writing. You can encourage this at home, but make sure that you follow the technique taught at school (ours do cursive from day 1).

He's 4 so his writing is going to look terrible, just use his enthusiasm to keep practicing in a variety of ways. Not just paper and pencil.

As a PP has suggested, there are lots of worksheets and teacher resources online if you do a quick search for handwriting practice. Try and find one that you think will work well for your son, or that would grab his interest. Alternatively, there are workbooks you can buy in WHSmiths (or other book stores) which are nice because they usually have star charts at the back which can give children a sense of accomplishment as they go along.

I would also mention, though, that at 4 he is most likely still be developing his hand-eye coordination which will put a limit on how neatly he can write. Doing any 'fiddly' activities like making models or drawing will probably help him to develop the accuracy he needs with holding a pencil to get neater hand writing.

Because of his young age and my previous point, I don't think you need to worry too much that the teacher isn't concerned about his handwriting yet, I'm sure the school would work on it at a later point - but there's nothing stopping you from practising at home.

Leappad 2... wish they had them when my son was in nursery/reception. It's not cheap, but wow, my 3 year old (4 in April, so at the end of 3) can say the alphabet, write the alphabet, sound out most of her consonants. Not perfectly, but I am impressed. I haven't had any input. The leappad 2 has this game called Letter Factory. She LOVES it and has totally learned from it. My son really struggled and they really pressured them in his nursery to write caps and lower case letters before the kids entered reception which I found way too pushy. He's 11 now so that's years ago. But hey, even if you don't do a thing, seriously your LO will get there in the end. They all do, honestly. Try not to fret.

At 4, really?

I think your a bit OTT, but just for fun I thought I'd give you a few tips. Lots of craft, playdoh, icing cakes, making mud pies, playing pretend tea party with poring water in cups, play with sand and build sandcastle, playing with anything that will encourage hand control - Lego, megablocks etc - drawing, colouring in, it all helps to improve pen control and fine motor skills. Take it easy though, at 4 your expectations sound a bit strange.

He is 4!! Beautiful writing will come with time, age & practice.

Placing too much emphasis, pressure & criticism will kill whatever intrinsic motivation he has, when really you need him to WANT to practice.

Instead focus most on developing his hand strength & fine motor skill. Activities such as clay, plactercine, playdough, climbing frames/jungle gyms, threading, lego, stickers, finger painting etc... will help.

Talk to the teacher about what style of writing they are teaching (printing, precursive) Then ask if they have something like this www.conventprimaryroscommon.ie/images/file/infant%20script%202012.jpg to show correct starting points & formation. That way you can support him whenever he is writing at home. Also if planning some practice time- please make it something fun like sending a postcard or writing a shopping list, not a boring old worksheet!

Give him lots of opportunities to develop his hand strength and co-ordination through things like Lego, threading, tweezers, tearing paper etc. etc. etc. and the ability to write with control will come later.

A poster, mrz, has a brilliant list of activities to help develop fine and gross motor skills if you can search for it.