By Nancy Olsen-Harbich, MA
All writers begin as scribblers. Early scribbles contain the lines, shapes, dots, and loops that make up our alphabet, and “just scribbling” is good practice for using letters later. Help your child learn to use a variety of writing tools by having pencils, chalk, crayons, paintbrushes, and markers available. Many young preschoolers will hand parents a paper full of scribbles and ask them to “read” it. Express enthusiasm for this process and ask your child to tell you what the writing says.
Include Children in Everyday Writing Tasks
Include young children in the writing you do every day so that they see it as a valuable way to communicate.
- Let them add a request to the grocery list as you write, or a message to grandma when you e-mail her about vacation plans. Write a few lines on their picture as they describe it. This reinforces the message that your children’s thoughts and words are valuable and can be communicated to others in writing.
- As children learn to write the letters that make up their name, they will often incorporate these letters into their artwork and look for the letters in their surroundings. Peter might point out the “P” in the pizza sign. Encourage this initiative and take it a step further by noting that a “P” could end a word, too, such as the “P” in the stop sign ahead. Talk about the sound that the letter makes.
- Provide magnetic letters to arrange on the refrigerator, rubber stamps of letters to create words, and different types of papers, markers, crayons, ribbons, fasteners, tape, and envelopes to create cards, signs, and books.
- Let children use their fingers to make letters in shaving cream on a tray, or in sand at the beach, or have them trace letters on your back while you guess what they are.
- Encourage your children to use writing while playing. Waitresses at a pretend restaurant can write down orders. Explorers can make maps. Builders can label the stores in their town.
- Write out words children can copy, and point out places where they can “get” words they know—labeled picture books, picture dictionaries, food containers, and other sources where the picture and the word appear together.
Writing Relies on Physical Skills Too
Writing relies not only on thinking skills, but motor skills as well. At its most basic level, writing is a physical activity and preschool children need to develop and train their “writing muscles.” Play that provides good training exercises for the upper arm and shoulder includes painting on an easel, climbing, and throwing. Building with Legos or blocks, squishing clay, or making paper clips chains can help the small muscles of the hands develop strength and coordination needed to write letters.
Armed with enthusiasm for communicating through writing, an understanding of its purpose, and muscles primed to do it, your child will be ready for more formal instruction in the mechanics of writing in “real” school. Motivation precedes skill development.
Nancy Olsen-Harbich is Program Director and a Human Development Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County’s Family Health and Wellness Program. She can be reached at 631-727-7850 ext. 332 or at no18@cornell.edu.