Writing opportunities for your child

Writing is a means of communication. As soon as your child is able to write words, encourage your child to use a pencil or crayon to write or draw. It could be as simple as writing Mummy, Daddy and drawing pictures or writing the names of everyone in the family. Writing is a means of expression. It is a way for children to express their inner feelings and wishes.

DD wrote her first letter to Santa tonight while Mom wondered what she wanted from Santa. Glad to see she can write sentences now. Had to tell her to add the silent 'e' in come and remind her that Santa begins with a capital S and also the 'ea' in please. Was a good writing exercise for her, after the 23 cards she made for her friends and teachers at school for Christmas. Unfortunately didnt remember to keep a copy of it.

Thought her first card to Santa was very precious and want to keep it in my memory bank as long as possible.

It reads...(Sorry about the handwriting)...
Come Santa come,
Santa please come,
Santa I want present
From DD

Barbie,
Gold Crown (the crown must be her size) she specified and not for Barbie.
Below she has written to Mom and Dad (Does that mean Mom and Dad have to do the job???)

Handwriting practice

DD loves drawing and making cards for everybody. Don't be surprised if you are greeted with a post-it note with some scribble on it saying, "its a card for you" when you meet her. We made good use of this practice the other day by helping her improve her writing skills and draw while she enjoyed the same activity.
Here is the picture of the card she made. The glamorous Aunty is Shina Aunty with her two children, one a newborn. They came to our house for a playdate. Behind the card were everyone's names. Everyone got their respective stickers. There were high heel stickers for Aunty,  sunglasses for the boy and princess items for the girls.

handwriting practice

If you haven't broken your neck already trying to read what she has written, here are some pointers on how writing skills can be improved without having to break your neck trying to make them sit and write the same old alphabets:

1) Use writing as more of a fun activity for writing on cards.
2) Make loads of lists. List out the name of the people in your family, the name of her dolls/cars, his/her favourite list of things colours etc.

3) The numbers of your mobile phone.

4) Pretend play of taking orders of your breakfast/lunch/dinner.

5) Writing the body parts and sticking them on a human body chart.

6) Writing the name of his/her school etc.

Speaking of handwriting, I feel it is very important for parents to stress on correct formation of letters right from the beginning so that they dont fall into a habit of writing the letters the wrong way. A same letter can be written in various ways to form the same letter by putting the later strokes first and the starting stroke in the end. This can be a problem in the later years when you get into a habit of writing it the other way round. Hence, it is important to sit with your child while she practices her writing and not leave it on her to finish the work and just see the end product.

Until they get into the keyboard world, you can encourage them to write as much as they can. A blank page of a handwriting book sounds as much boring to me now as much it was when I was my child's age. I was always inspired by my parents' and grandparents' handwritings as a child. I loved watching the beautiful formation of letters when a postcard from my grandparents came home.

Enjoy writing with him/her. Let her see how you write. And let her fall in love with her own handwriting.