Can you see that I took this picture out the window? I'm staying inside in the lamplight! |
Ah! You know the feeling!
Lots to do.
A quick (haha) check-in with some more thoughts on writing. You want me to tell you how to make a creative, rational writer of your child. I say, lay the groundwork. Last week we talked about reading, which is absolutely indispensable.
Today begins the O! Antiphons that prepare us for the last week before Christmas. The wisdom of the Church is so wise. We don't really need to do crafts with these antiphons. We just need to pray them! But as you discuss them with your children, you might be surprised what they come up with.
When you light your candles tonight, you might sing “O! Come thou Wisdom from on high…” to the tune of “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” (This version I've linked to, though in Latin, has the right “chant” tone and style. Enjoy the harmonies, copy the melody.) And each day from now on has its own antiphon. I am linking to O Night Divine and Jennifer Gregory Miller's blog post for its excellent resources on this tradition.
What does this have to do with writing?
As I listen to moms worrying about whether their young children can write, I ask what they mean by writing.
Do you mean acquire the mechanics of actually using a pen and pencil on paper in an efficient manner? Or do you mean pour out their creativity and ability to synthesize and analyze in three pages?
Start with the former.
Many older children — ones who have reached the developmental stage I like to call “having something to say” — are handicapped by one thing that is easy to identify: An inability to efficiently — to physically!– write; and one thing that is more subtle: An unfamiliarity with models of good writing.
Even though every generalization has its exceptions, it's good to know the basics of child development so that you can be realistic about what to expect. I look at it this way: If my child exceeds the developmental level exhibited by most his age, then I consider that a bonus and take the day off. If he's pretty much there, I coast. If he's below, I try to figure out if the lag is due to my lack of diligence.
Often it's just that he's tearing ahead in some other area, so I try not to worry, but I do keep in mind ways to unlock anything latent.
Schools used to be amazingly confident about what to expect from children. There was a collective memory that was passed along, and according to my recollection of my own school years, teachers did not get bent out of shape if some children fell behind. They expected it, and they knew something else was going on. They knew that some children aren't that good at school, but in the end, they will find their niche if encouraged.
What they expected of us in first, second, and third grade was to practice the skill and mechanics of writing — first printing, then cursive. We worked at it for at least a half hour a day, and I for one enjoyed it!
Nowadays, and I won't go into why because sigh, this post is long enough, people both expect way more of children at inappropriate levels (for instance, comparing the themes of three books in an essay — in seventh grade — an example from real life!) and foment anxiety in parents when a child fails to rise to those levels.
So everyone is in a panic, but no one is actually learning anything. The children who can carry out the tasks asked of them I suspect simply have a natural ability to do so, and sometimes I further suspect that the school is cleverly identifying those children by means of their unreasonable demands, so that they can push them on and claim the rewards of achievement.
Both of these traps — not teaching children the mechanics of writing and not giving them good models — can developmentally, appropriately be addressed by simple, time-tested techniques.
First, decide on what kind of handwriting you want your child to learn.
Isn't this beautiful? A place-card by a professional calligrapher. |
I went with the Getty-Dubay “Natural Writing” method because of an article in Newsweek I read when my children were quite small, although I had learned the Palmer method myself. What I liked about it was that it made sense to have the printed form be transformed easily into cursive, since I remembered being frustrated by having to learn completely different ways of forming letters to make the transition to cursive as a child.
It's harder to find the Palmer method for homeschooling — maybe you have a source?
When I found that Bridget didn't cotton to italics, I found this one by a homeschooling family, the Picards, which combines plain Palmer with lots of good copy material.
{I'm not a fan of the D'Nealian method, for the reasons mentioned in this Wikipedia article and because I find it unaesthetic. Unfortunately, most of the online resources use it, so yes, doing italics or Palmer is harder to pull together in the curriculum.}
If a child is truly having trouble with writing mechanics, you can help him by introducing the typewriter and some clever typing software on the computer. Typing has helped many a child learn that he can put his thoughts on paper. Later, as his hands develop their find motor skills, he can go back to holding a pencil and working on printing and cursive.
In any case, my goal for this post is to encourage you to fuel your child's future writing ability with today's writing practice. Use a good, attractive, learnable method.
And then supply them with good things to copy and model.
We can go into that more later, but to get back to the O! Antiphons and the busy-ness of today, why not have them lovingly copy, in their best handwriting, the antiphon of the day? You can find them (and the verses to sing) here on the O Night Divine blog on the second page of the prayer companion.
From O Night Divine. |
You can print out this page of images. The younger child can try drawing part or all of the symbol of the day (show them how to make the oval within the circle, which is likely to confound them, or have them just do what is inside – the eye of God for wisdom, the key for David's key, etc.). The slightly older one can just write the beginning of each antiphon or really work at copying the symbol in its complexity. The quite mature, patient one can write out the whole thing with illuminations. It's never too late to get used to writing!
Let them do their best to copy, even trying for many days in a row. Copying trains the eye in an invaluable way.
This isn't a craft, it's a work of art and devotion, and in the process, a learning experience! You can put the results on a string with clothespins or displayed on a wall. In future years, who knows, you might use this work to supply your family with the correct verse at family devotions — that would be nicer than the photocopied verses I have to pass out. Hm, maybe I should put Bridget on this right now!
Do tell us in the comments if you've found a good handwriting method to use with your children.
{Read the other writing posts here.}
Elise says
Here is a great resource for printing out cursive worksheets of your own making:
http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/cursiv…
Today,I will use the resources you provided, copying the text of the O Antiphons, and make one worksheet per day using this website's paragraph cursive worksheet option.
_Leila says
Elise, that is a great idea!
Michele Quigley says
Hey Leila, great post! Just a quick note; the link you have to O Night Divine are to posts written by Jennifer Miller not Mary Ellen Barrett. It's Mary Ellen's blog but there are several contributors. I just wanted to be sure proper credit was given to Jennifer for all her hard work. 🙂
_Leila says
Oh, thanks!
Mary Ellen Barrett says
Leila, Thank you for linking to O Night Divine and crediting Jennifer. There are lots of wonderful Advent resources there thanks to the generosity of my contributors.
Kathryn says
Just wanted to say thank you for the valuable information!
Anitra says
My oldest is just learning how to read, and so “writing” at this point is solely copying, and almost entirely self-driven. Sure, she sometimes gets letter-of-the-day worksheets at preschool, but they are boring (even if she does still need practice forming certain letters). Copying out a song or a page from a book, that's interesting.
I need to find her more sources to copy from that don't use a serif font.. that really trips up children at this stage.
Woman of the House says
We skipped printing with our second child and dove right in with cursive. I read somewhere that that's how they did it in Europe, and I couldn't see any sense in learning to print only to give it up later for cursive. She did learn to print on her own (I never taught her). I think my big mistake was in stopping formal handwriting practice too early. Her handwriting is not beautiful and I wish I had stuck to daily, formal practice longer. Our older learned traditional stick-and-ball at home (because we didn't know any better than to use that method), and then she went to school for a few years and learned printing and cursive, but I can't recall what they used. They both did lots of copywork practice, which was an excellent way to kill several birds with one stone.
Janet says
I want to second this. As an ESL teacher, I would say that most of the rest of the world teaches cursive first, at least at elite schools. They also use fountain pens from the very start , BUT children are not expected to start writing so young. Fountain pens train children to put the pressure on the down-stroke and exert an even light pressure, leading to more legible handwriting and less muscle train. The ball-stick-bird method of manuscript printing was developed to teach retarded children and used in conjunction with readers printed in the exact same style. Without the readers, it has no point, and is not an efficient method for normal children to learn to write in any case.
I have also seen that nearly half the boys in public school [middle and high school level] have handwriting that is so poor that they cannot take notes or efficiently write a first draft. If you are sending your kids to school, do not assume the school is teaching hand writing, even if they have workbooks. No one will check to see if children develop a proper pencil grip, for example, or forms the circle for an “a” counter-clockwise form the top right–there simply isn't time. And it is very difficult to unlearn bad habits later
Deirdre says
Woman of the House, as a former art teacher and penmanship advocate (haha), I'd like to weigh in to say that it's not too late to have your daughter improve her handwriting! Many people give up on their handwriting after a certain age (and I'm sure that it's true that the formative years are crucial and habits do set in), but it's actually possible to improve your handwriting at any age.
I used to teach calligraphy to 7th grade boys, and the manual skills training and attention to detail helped them to develop better handwriting. One of the parents came to me at the end of the term and just gushed to me about how his son's handwriting had been transformed thanks to the training.
I'd say – get out the practice sheets and have your daughter get back into handwriting training! It can't hurt! Any copying exercises in art will help, as well.
amyrobynne says
I'm using Handwriting without Tears with my boys. They did Zaner-Bloser at their school until I pulled them out this sumer (after kindy and 2nd) and I've been using this to make copywork sheets for my 6 year old: http://www.zaner-bloser.com/media/zb/zaner-bloser… The basic parts are free and that's been enough.
Patty says
Also using Handwriting Without Tears. The printing flows into cursive very nicely, although I hadn't thought about it much until you mentioned it. After seeming some of the available styles, though, I'm not sure it's all that beautiful. The kids like the workbooks a lot though because there are things to color in addition to just the handwriting.
Rachel says
No, the cursive is not beautiful. But everyone who has used HWT extensively says that the children form their own style of cursive and none of it looks like the book, yet is very legible. Hopefully? Because it surely is the EASIEST method (and does focus on the method….like how to hold your pencil, etc.).
Ngofamilyfarm says
Could not agree with you more on these writing posts! I taught writing at the university for many years, and was often shocked at how ill-prepared incoming students were when faced with a basic writing task. The “reading in order to learn how to write” concept was completely foreign, and many students had trouble with reading comprehension. These days, I'm seeing my nephew faced with developmentally inappropriate kindergarten writing assignments. Force them to “read,” which is basically just reciting a book from memory, and then expect them to write up a book report. In kindergarten!! Maybe it would be best to start with the ABCs first.
-Jaime
Natalie says
Ahhhh! Public school insanity…
Allison says
And this is why we homeschool our kindergartener. Our neighbor was proud –proud!– that her K daughter has an hour of homework each night from our local school and is doing all these advanced assignments. In my mind, that's just wrong! Let them be kids while they can!
I've been using Handwriting w/out Tears as well, albeit slowly, and like it so far. If I can stick with anything consistently…
Jessica says
I teach a college course online and have been so dismayed at the students writing. I'm not perfect by any means. The course is a science course
Camille says
My mother learned to write using Palmer and that's my preferred method, but it is SO hard to find. I have literally spent 2 years digging around trying to find a modern edition, but nothing that has a reasonable cost! I did find this older Palmer Method of Business writing, which is free. Palmer was the way children learned to write until really very recently in this country. It's a shame that they got rid of it!
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/te…
Jennifer G. Miller says
How nice to have a link to my post! I'm very flattered. Isn't the Church so wonderful that she matches our children's moods so well? Hurry up, do not delay!!!!
Have you seen Peterson Directed Handwriting? I have failed with my oldest, and we're immersing ourselves with this approach, which is closer to Palmer and Zaner-Bloser.
Anne says
” target=”_blank”>http://www.handwritingworksheets.com This is the same site linked above, but I wanted to point out you can do print worksheeps with it too. My four year old is SUPER excited to by copying O Come, O Come Emmanuel…”ALL the verses!” 😉
Julie says
I teach my children to write using a program called Cursive First. Here's a link so you can learn more about it. http://www.swrtraining.com/id17.html
shwell says
I grew up in NZand I don't remember ever learning cursive, so I have failed to see the point of it. I learnt to print and then in about 9th grade copied the handwriting of a girl whose style I liked. I don't know if she ever knew or not 🙂
My kids are using Catholic Heritage Curriculum and my oldest has just started cursive this year and is enjoying it so far, I don't recall what font they use.
Our BIG issue two years ago was that he did not want to write, it was physically difficult and he labored over each letter until they were perfectly formed, it was torture, so we took out as much writing as we could and still get the work done for a few months while I thought about what to do
Sheila says
I am convinced that boys really do have physical trouble writing until a bit older — say second or even third grade. Hand-eye coordination develops slower. So I really believe it's better to either have them dictate, or just type, rather than make writing a daily torture that they will always remember as something they were forced to do, to say nothing of the “shortcuts” they make to make up for their poor ability. I had a second-grade student who was actually “sketching” every single letter because his wrists didn't seem to have the fluidity to move from one letter to another. And even when he developed more ability, he still sketched the letters because it was a habit. I couldn't help but think it would have been better to wait before having him do much writing!
shwell says
Part 2
about that time I got an email from HSLDA with this information http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/sn_writing…
my son had taken a long time to pick a dominant hand and still is ambidextrous at age 9 but has chosen to be right handed, I think he should have chosen left….
the article lead to the website of Dianne Craft http://www.diannecraft.org/tutor3.htm
she recommends the Writing Eight exercise that she developed, and has the information in one of her books.
I happened to find a reference to it on a random homeschooling blog after a Google search which I now can't find.
I don't have a blog but maybe I can upload to LMLD Facebook page what I did
Anyway. We had FANTASTIC success with doing this. We called it Race Car Letters at our house (we only have boys). My boys are now writing very legibly and with great ease and even enthusiasm instead of groans at the mention of handwriting.
There! A very long winded response to Leila's passing comment of having an inability to physically! write
shwell says
I use the Crayola Floor Pad book of blank paper, jumbo crayons, and I trace around a cornelle cereal bowl
Sorry Leila, I have highjacked your comment page 😉
Dani says
One of my sons is quite dyslexic. His handwriting improved tremendously after using the “writing eight” exercises taught in Brain Integration Therapy. It helped him to learn to make the right motions in the right direction for printing the lowercase alphabet (writing instead of “drawing” his letters, finally, at 11!) and as soon as he could do that we moved right into cursive letters. There is something about the fluid motion of “joined together writing” that connects in his brain better than printing, and has corresponded with reading improvement as well. He has plenty to say, but until recently he has always dictated his ideas to me in order to see them written out and then try to copy them. Now he is gaining confidence in going from idea to written word without an intermediary, and seeing the fruit of his patience and diligence. Happy dance time for this mom!
Joana says
I thought a foreign perspective might be interesting. In Portugal (Europe), children do not learn how to write in printed form. Every child begins at age 6 to learn their letters and they are taught to recognize de various forms of each letter (printed, cursive, capital and lower case). However, they do not write in printed form, but rather in cursive (and have now, thanks to Leila, identified “our” cursive as the linked vintage Palmer. Everyone learns it and that is how they write all through elementary school. Of course, for the sake of ease, everyone later ends up writing in printed form of some half-way form. I had never questioned it, but now see the wisdom behind it: it doesn't overburden and confuse the kids in these early stages with two sets of writing forms, but appropriately demands the best from them graphically and thus in terms of fine motor skills. If they do learn cursive, and almost everyone does (granted, some very specific and special cases may warrant another approach), then they will later switch to printed almost as a matter of fact, since really the printed form is merely a simplified, less sophisticated and visually less pleasing form of cursive. When I started learning English at the age of 9, I worried that my English-speaking teachers might not be able to read my cursive, since they all wrote in the exact same printed form (even now, I have the feeling that there is a lot less variation in the handwriting of English-speaking people in general than in that of Portuguese people, but I might be wrong), and I therefore proceeded to switch to printed, which I did without much trouble.
Joana
Carol says
Auntie Leila,
Thank you for your mentoring in this area! I really need to focus more on writing around here. I have a 10yo whose low muscle tone issues make handwriting very difficult and frustrating (so it is a fight to get one line of writing out of her), an 8yo boy who would usually rather draw and has perfectionist tendencies when we do handwriting (making for stressful writing time), and a 6yo girl who is making up stories at lightning speed (including chapter books–the latest being “Jesus, the Host”–her way of thinking through the Real Presence) and will readily illustrate them, but isn't the slightest bit interested in writing the words. Sometimes I will write them down for her, but I can't keep up with the sheer volume of story ideas! I have wanted to institute a family writing time to sit and practice handwriting (me included), but so far have not been successful. I have also thought of changing that to family pen and paper time (reasoning that even if they are drawing or doodling they are fine tuning those small motor skills. Perhaps a News Years Resolution for us.
Thanks again for sharing your wisdom…I only wish you were next door. 🙂
mamabearjd says
I make handwriting worksheets using Zaner Bloser online. We also have some Memoria Press copybooks (latin prayers and scripture) that I like, but the style of handwriting is different – kind of unfair when you are learning! I like the idea of treating handwriting like an artistic pursuit – that might help my oldest.
We were transfixed by that version of Veni Veni last night – I found it by searching by artist on iTunes. My poor children rarely hear anything so beautiful. Our parish choir has been breaking out the tambourine more and more and it makes me so sad.
Thank you for linking to good content. It is really hard sometimes to find the blogs with true substance.
Mrs. B. says
My European experience was completely different from Joana's. In 1st grade we started with upper case printed letters ONLY – and it's obvious to me that was because they are the easiest to form at the very beginning: they are big and the strokes they require are broad and simple. Then we moved to lower case print, and only in 2nd and 3rd grade was cursive first taught then perfected. I have no memory of being confused by this progression: it made actually sense to me, as I saw the progression in my abilities followed the progression in the difficulty of handwriting. Starting with 2nd grade printed letters were not used at all: you need to learn them because that's how books are written, but once your hand can master cursive, no one writes in print (I agree with Joana that this is likely why people in Europe have much more personalized handwriting styles.)
Aside from the method, one tool was invaluable for me as a little girl, so much that I have adopted it now with my homeschooled kids: the use of graph paper at the beginning, instead of simply lined paper. My son has told me how much easier he finds handwriting this way, because he has a clear frame of reference not only for the height of letters, but their width too. He knows “a” is a circle inscribed in one small square, and he knows the lines on the paper will help his hand make vertical strokes straight. He has improved so much since I abandoned the lined practice book, which we now use only to learn how a letter is formed (we use the Seton handwriting book – I don't like their cursive, but I already plan to teach them what I learned anyway!). Once he's so familiar with the proportions of the letters that graph paper is not needed anymore, I'll move him to lined paper.
My two cents!
Sharon says
I use Peterson Handwriting with my daughter. It is what I learned as a child and they have a homeschool curriculum.
Katherine says
I did the Palmer method at my Catholic grammar school. My handwriting was so good it was used as a model for the class. Our school took handwriting very seriously and we had special paper, pens and guides to use. But it didn't help every student; there were still a lot of kids with lousy handwriting. Since my parents were printers, I was always interested in typefaces and tried to copy the different styles used in heading layout (they printed everything from menus to wedding invitations to rodeo flyers to business cards). In college I picked up a calligraphy pen and taught myself from examples until I became pretty proficient. Unfortunately, because of the computer I mostly type now and I think the quality of my everyday handwriting has declined. I used the Getty-Dubay with my eldest and he has beautiful handwriting. My other kids range from legible to cursive illiterate. Some of them didn't take to the GD method and I tried Palmer with them. They can do cursive, but it isn't beautiful. My dyslexic/dysgraphic son could never get the hang of cursive, no matter what method. He has poor fine motor skills and he doesn't even like to type. Now that he's done with high school, I told him he should at least work on developing some kind of signature for legal documents. So, my experience has been that my more visual and artistic kids have good handwriting and everyone else does whatever works for them.
ginger says
Has anyone heard of SmithHand? I quite by accident stumbled upon Dr. Smith's Writing Program.
I will say that this has been my favorite curriculum choice by far, primarily because Dr. Smith, a very
grandfatherly, fatherly type, answers his own phone and tries to “talk you off the ledge,” of teaching your child handwriting.
My first is a boy, and this is important, because boys in general are able to control themselves at later times….Tell us something we didn't already know!
Alicia says
There are lots of good suggestions for writing programs made already. Something that I have used while homeschooling our extended family and while working in schools was fountain pens. Penmanship is just not exciting. I have found that inexpensive fountain pens in colors of their choice works wonders for motivation. We use ” target=”_blank”>http://www.jetpens.com and dont spend more than $5 per pen. The short pens work well for small/short hands. That's important! I let them choose a pen body called a pen holder then they can choose any color ink they like. The most special color is chosen for penmanship practice. I generally let them choose 2 pens and colors to start so we can figure out the nib (extra fine, fine, medium point essentially) that works best for them.
I start all my kids off with cursive first because it is continuous for forming first letters then for forming words. All the lower case letters start at the baseline. I teach capitals based on the names of family and address information. These are things they want to write in general.
Hope that helps someone.
Alicia
Catherine says
Alicia, what do you do about mistakes with pens? We use pencils because you can erase. I understand that pens make it easier to write and the colored ink would be very fun, but I wonder how you handle errors.
Thanks!
Mrs. Pickles says
We use HWT to teach printing. I love their little gimmicks for remembering how to form letters, like the frog jump letters and magic c letters and the diver letters. I didn't like their cursive at all, though, so I switch to Catholic Heritage in the 3rd grade. Now my oldest is in the 5th grade and has nice writing, but she still needs practice and I've been having a hard time coming up with good copywork for her. Thank you for the link to the Picards' page! That might be the solution I'm looking for. I would also love to learn Spencerian penmanship but have had a hard time finding a resource for homeschoolers — anyone got a tip?
Motheringmarmalade says
I thought everyone might be interested in http://educationalfontware.com/. They produce cds with 33 of the most popular handwriting fonts, including Italics, Palmer and Spencer Cursive . You can use these fonts to create your own handwriting practice pages. I have not actually purchased it yet so I cannot fully recommend it, but it certainly seems that it might be useful for homeschoolers or for those who need additional practice at home.
Sheila says
When I taught second grade, I didn't have any kind of worksheet or textbook, so I just gave the kids wide-rule paper and showed them how to form each letter. We'd do practice of eah letter, and then a bible verse starting with each letter to practice their caps. It doesn't have to be complicated.
When starting out, I did some extra activities — forming their names in cursive with yarn, showing them how to “dance out” each letter by walking out the penstrokes on the floor. All stuff to help get across that cursive flows in one long connected line — to stop them trying to draw the letters separately and just draw tails between them.
The most important thing, though, seems to be not pushing too much, too soon. Boys especially develop hand-eye coordination a year or two later than the girls do. When the child is ready, writing shouldn't be like pulling teeth.
Julie says
Wow! I love this post. It is very helpful to a mom who tends to freak out about what her children may not be learning. We do copy work with our history lessons, but do not have an official writing curriculum. My oldest is 8 and is up for state testing this year.which adds to the general panic. My husband is a professor and we are often shocked by students who can spout off “facts” with incredible accuracy, but seem entirely unable to write proficiently. I look forward to more posts on this subject. I am also wondering about spelling and whether or not you have a curriculum suggestion. Thanks again for all you do.
Juiie
Jen says
Late to the game, but we use A Reason for Handwriting and upon further research they state that “the traditional palmer method is reflected throughout.” http://www.areasonfor.com/article.php?id=9 is the link. You must scroll down to see the handwriting questions. We've never used any of the other materials, so I cannot vouch for these.
christine says
Re-visiting this and have a quick question. Is there a source you recommend for knowing the “basics of child development”? I seem to find our groove and feel all confident about the way things are progressing and then panic! I'm not really sure of where to turn (that isn't modern and doesn't force more than necessary) on accurate developmental skills. This idea of mastering the sentence by 7th grade is scarey and freeing.
_Leila says
Christine, long ago I read the Giselle Institute's books on early childhood development and found them very helpful. They are not at all anything other than psychology-based — nothing spiritual there — but yet they do accurately depict milestones of development and behavior, as far as I remember. I remember being struck by certain details, like a 6-year-old will have stomach-aches, and when to expect them to like to hide under tables!
I have no idea whether these have been “updated” in later editions to be something unrecognizable, but in the form I remember, they were very helpful for someone who really never had seen young children until she had her own!
For those of you with children whose small-motor skills seem lagging, take a break and focus on running, jumping, playing musical instruments, and in general refining the larger muscle groups first. Then go back to writing. Writing is hard!!
Joana says
A few months ago, at a meeting in school, it was explained that the reason why cursive is used first to learn to read and write is because it prevents the confusion – so common for many kids, especially early on – between certain letter pairs, such as p and q, and b and d, since they are so much more different in their cursive form. I found this very interesting and immediately thought about our little discussion here.
Not so sure anyone will read this after all this time… 🙂
Mama says
Has anyone tried Michael Sull's American Cursive Handwriting? (http://www.spencerian.com/)” target=”_blank”> http://www.spencerian.com/)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.spencerian.com/)? I own a copy, but we're only just about to start using it. It's beautiful.
I do recommend ordering it from a third-party retailer. We used Paper & Ink Arts (http://www.paperinkarts.com/books—dvds-instructional-books.html)” target=”_blank”> http://www.paperinkarts.com/books—dvds-instructional-books.html)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.paperinkarts.com/books—dvds-instructional-books.html).
Lindsey says
I know this is an old thread, but I am re-reading now that my 4 year old is interested in writing. I have been hesitant to do anything too formal in relation to reading and writing till this point, though we spend lots of time reading, playing games with letters, pointing out different letters throughout the day, etc. She sees me writing a lot with pen and paper, and now is very interested in writing her own words. Almost every day she asks me how to spell a word or something that she wants to write out like Mommy. She has basic recognition for almost all of the uppercase letters, and some of the lowercase. She can write some letters on her own, and asks me to show her the others, which I will point to on a nearby book or something, or print out on another piece of paper for her. I guess my question is, when do I start teaching her how to do all this properly?? We haven’t really gone over how exactly to hold the pen/pencil (though her grip is not too bad), or how to form the letters properly, or any of that. She just copies down what she sees in whatever way seems easiest for her. She won’t start kindergarten till next fall (we are considering homeschooling), so is this an ok age to start some of this more formal training?
Also, for the newcomer to all of these methods, is there a difference between cursive and italics?
Thanks so much to anyone who might read or reply to this. 🙂
Leila says
Lindsey,
Just keep doing what you are doing! Go with it. Every once in a while you can make a suggestion. “Here, try holding the pencil like this.” But don’t force it.
Did you see this post? http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2011/06/what-you-need-to-teach-child-to-read/
If you look at the comments, you will see that someone found the phonics program I was referencing — the one that I sort of hacked for Rosie when she was doing all the things you are mentioning.
The program is Scott Foresman, but it’s meant for classrooms and is very expensive – unless they’ve come out with a homeschool version – worth checking!
The commenter linked to a program written out by a teacher, using the same idea of having the child memorize spellings for vowel sounds. Seems like overkill but it’s not! An interested child really loves the decoding process — it makes it possible for them to spell out the words they are looking for.
Here is the program she mentions:
“I’m sure this is not the system you are referring to but it looks/sounds very similar. It was created by a First Grade Teacher and is free to use (you would need to print out a good bit, so not truly “free’). http://soundcityreading.com/scrwebsite7-11-09_002…”
When I did this, I really just made little cards with the sounds – very sketchy/stick-figure-esque. But it jump-started her understanding of how sounds get translated to letters. Try it!
Also, read the comments here for more insight on cursive and italics differences.
Lindsey says
Thanks! Yes, at this stage she is eager but also easily pushed “over the edge” by too much instruction. I am re-reading the posts on reading and writing and sorting through all the comments. 🙂 That link doesn’t seem to go anywhere anymore, but I will see what I can find through Google.
Ann says
I was searching for some Advent copywork for my third grader and stumbled upon this post. I downloaded the Ebook version of the Spiritual Crib Handwriting Project. How lovely! Just what I was looking for. Thank you!
Stephanie says
Auntie Leila,
Thank you! This is so timely. My son is at a school that operates on the university model (we’re Catholic, though, and the school is not). Anyways, he attends Kindergarten with 7 other kids Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (just a half day that day). They are “classical and Charlotte Mason-inspired.” I love Charlotte Mason and would actually prefer to homeschool full time, however our support network here is just not robust enough, read: life would be very, very lonely if we weren’t able to plug in somewhere.
We did not do any formal preschool prior to this. My son turned 5 in May. He’s never gravitated toward drawing, coloring, painting, so the learning curve has been a steep one for him. The school is using this program: http://swrtraining.com/swr/ as well as Handwriting Without Tears. My son is definitely “behind” the others, though, who have either done preschool or have older siblings whom they have seen “do school” for a few years now.
At this point, I don’t know what to do. How can I tell if he is simply not ready yet to work at the level that is being asked or if he just needs to keep moving at the school’s pace and catch up? He’s significantly slower than the others and started crying today after their work period. He wants to do well, he just… can’t. We read a lot and he’s articulate and on par in other ways, but the mechanics of writing and letter and number recognition are just not there.
I’m rambling now and how I wish I could just sit down and discuss this with you, but alas! I would really appreciate any words of wisdom. Thank you for all you do!!
Christina A says
My kids with birthdays late in the school year have struggled a bit. One ended up doing kindergarten twice, one is doing alright at grade level, and our youngest guy with a June birthday did preschool when he had already turned 5. I did SWR when we homeschooled for a couple years, and we did very little beyond the phonogram flash cards and super basic handwriting in kindergarten. We sent our kids to a small, recently-founded school for a couple years before homeschooling, and now that we have them back in a different, more established school, I can look back and see that the “younger” school was overly ambitious in their expectations for an average kindegartener. All that to say, if your child repeated kindergarten at this school, no biggie! I had a really hard time when my son repeated kindergarten, but looking back it really isn’t a big deal, especially for those kids with birthdays near the end of the school year. 🙂