PLEASE NOTE: You can listen to this article in podcast format over here!
Most research on early writing has focused on lower primary-aged children which means studies on younger children (from 2-5 years) are a little thin. One of the causes of this was the long-held philosophy that very young children would learn what they needed by merely playing within a print-rich environment.
However, research has since shown that this is not enough. The print-rich environment is still a great idea, but children also need explicit instruction. After all, how many children manage the following activities correctly without guidance?
- holding scissors and cutting
- holding a pencil correctly
- tracing the alphabet
- brushing their teeth
On the one hand we’d love to be able to say to parents, “don’t worry, your child will learn everything they need to know once they start Kindergarten.” And it’s true that the large majority of Kinder teachers do an awesome job helping their little ones transition into school. But it’s also true that preparing children for Kinder can be a huge help and confidence booster.
After all, learning and skill development is a process and usually a long one. According to recent studies the foundations for writing start well before Kindergarten and play a major role in a child’s long-term writing success.
I’ll stop writing here and invite you to read through the infographic below. You might like to pin it to keep for later.
The prefrontal cortex
Getting the brain working in this area sounds like a good idea since it’s responsible for self-regulation and executive functioning (attention, impulse control and working memory).
This has led researchers to suggest that:
- early writing difficulties (if associated with executive functioning) may be an early indicator of broader cognitive concerns
- handwriting, or handwriting readiness, may improve executive functioning
The building blocks for writing readiness
Hand and finger strength: writing is tiring and can discourage children from persevering. Try using play dough, squeezing tweezers and pegs.
Crossing the midline: being comfortable to reach across to the other side of your body. Does your child switch writing hands or kick a ball with both feet rather than showing one foot/hand dominance? Try: dance moves where arms and legs cross the body or painting at an easel using only one hand.
Pencil grasp: needs to be correct. I’ve done a separate post on this HERE. It includes a free poster showing the correct hand position and the song to go with it! There are also great ideas on my Writing for Early Learners Pinterest board.
Hand eye coordination: where your eyes and hands work together to accomplish a task such as catching a ball or jumping to touch bubbles that are being blown.
Bilateral integration: using two hands together where one hand is the lead and the other helps. For eg, opening a jar, sharpening a pencil or cutting paper. There are activity ideas and an accompanying free printable HERE.
Upper body strength and postural control: A child’s neck and trunk need to be stable to support the other limbs and prevent fatigue.
Object manipulation: Children need to be able to effectively use their toothbrush, hair brush, crayons, spoon and fork. Encouraging independence will give kids a lot more practice at using their hands with growing efficiency. You can find free line tracing activities (with increasing levels of difficulty) HERE and HERE and HERE.
Visual perception: the brain needs to interpret what our eyes see. You’ll find free activity cards HERE.
Hand dominance: the development of a preferred hand for most activities such as drawing or cutting.
Hand division: this is when children only use their thumb, index and middle fingers to manipulate something, and keep fingers 4 and 5 curled up within the hand. Try sorting marbles, buttons or small shells into groups by colour or size. This is clearly a precursor to learning to hold a pencil! There are free hand division mats for kids HERE.
Spacial and temporal vocabulary: words that are often used when children are learning to write letters, such as top, go up to, go down to, around…
Looking for activities?
Here are some free line tracing printables and free 10 cutting activities. I’ve created a Tracing Lines for Fine Motor Skills pack that incorporates all the lines and shapes in the graphic below.
Check out my review for these hands on weekly activity plans that will give your kids an activity a day for 6 months.
Visit my Fine Motor Skills Pinterest board for ideas!
This post from Powerful Mothering has links to 25 Fine Motor Skills Pinterest boards that will inspire you with hundreds of fun and practically free ideas!
Where does writing start?
Want all these shapes in one handy pack?
Due to the large number of requests, I’ve created a teaching pack that includes all the strokes above. No more need to search around! You can find it at my TpT store.
What’s the fuss?
Lots of children develop these skills in their everyday life without thought or intention. More and more children are entering child care / preschool in the years prior to Kindergarten where their carers make sure children are developing their fine and gross motor skills. Some children move through the development stages easily, but others do not. Two main reasons come to mind.
1. The child is experiencing developmental delays: which means they need more attention, encouragement and intentional engagement. For them, these foundation steps are critical as they will need more time for mastery and to gain confidence. Consulting a paediatrician and occupational therapist early can make a huge difference towards positive long-term outcomes.
2. The child has not had the opportunity to engage in developing pre-writing skills. Children who arrive on the Kindergarten doorstep who have not developed fine motor control will find school a lot more frustrating and tiring than others. Every time they use scissors, hold a pencil, make a craft or draw a picture will take more focus as their mind and body works to make those connections between brain and hands.
Often it’s easier and quicker for adults to do specific tasks for their children: pulling up zippers, doing up buttons, brushing hair, picking up toys, turning pages, putting on shoes and jackets… there’s an endless list of kid-related jobs, isn’t there! But most children can be more independent than we realise, they just need time and opportunity. If we are able to slow things down and wait for a child to at least have a good attempt at one button, we will be doing them a great service.
Some children don’t want to do these tasks themselves because they find them difficult and I’m suggesting that the more a child tries to get out of such a task, the more important it may be that they are encouraged to do it. Of course, start with easier skills first with activities your child enjoys to work on all those building blocks above.
After all, a strong foundation is best way to build a house and being ‘ready to write’ is a great gift to a child.
A final word
There are many ways to prepare children for writing but it’s good to remember that the research is showing that it’s the actual act of putting pencil to paper, writing those strokes and practicing those letters that really gets the brain geared up. For eg, children who largely type letters are much slower at recognising and writing individual letters than those who largely write them. So while computers can be great for kids, don’t neglect that pencil and paper!
Here are my other research-based blog posts.
Research and Credit
The material in this post has largely come from the following sources.
Laura H. Dinehart. (2015). Handwriting in early childhood education: Current research and future implications. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. Vol 15(1), 97-118. DOI: 10.1177/1468798414522825
http://www.childdevelopment.com.au/
What’s your favourite ‘ready to write’ activity? Please share in the comments!
I think you should take a look at children who are enrolled in a Montessori preschool program. Everything that you discussed above is a normal day for children who attend a Montessori school. Fine motor skills, independence and self regulation are all common practices at Montessori. The children of these schools are extremely successful and confident individuals and are able to think outside the box.
You’re right, Herm. Montessori preschools do have excellent child-centred programs, my own daughter went to one when we lived in Malaysia. For 3 months last year I worked in 6 preschools teaching and collecting data on language acquisition. 1 was Montessori-based. I have to say that all of them had wonderful programs and I’d have been happy to have my own children in any of them. It was actually a very positive experience to see the quality of care, regardless of their educational philosophies, across all 6.
We are fortunate as parents that there are some options now so that we can look for preschools that resonate with us. The difficulty is that it is also expensive and can be difficult to get in. All the preschools I visited had waiting lists and I know, in Australia at least, that some women find it more cost effective to leave work than pay for full-time care.
Children that benefit the most from early educational care are those from lower economic backgrounds and yet they are often excluded due to cost. When it comes to writing-readiness, it’s those very children that will be struggling in Kindergarten because they had less opportunity to prepare themselves. Here’s a news article about this very issue.
I may have gone off-topic! Equal access to early education is a passion for me!
This was so helpful and I totally agree with you on access to education. We have twins and could not afford to send them to a 2 year program. We sent them this year as they are going to school next year and I felt it was crucial, but it has been a huge financial strain paying fees x 2 all at once. I am sure there are many parents who just don’t send them at all. I try to do lots of activities with them at home. However, I do feel as though certain times they learn much better from a teacher or anyone who is not me he he!
Yes… it’s hard enough paying for one! It’s a huge decision to send kids to preschool when it causes financial strain. And I, too, appreciate that my kids will often learn better from someone else. Even though I’m a teacher, it doesn’t mean my own children will listen to me!
A fantastic article. Thanks so much for publishing this.
I hope it’s helpful for your families, Simone. I took a look at your website http://www.readystepgrow.org.au/ and am so impressed with your focus on premmies and their families. What a gift for those children to be in an environment that understands them so well!
Thanks for sharing this research. I plan on sharing your post with my parents.
That’s great, Penny. Thanks for letting me know!
When a kid starts going to preschool, teachers take a good effort for the intellectual development. Programs are conducted according to the brain development of kids. Preschool is the initial stage of learning for kids where they get prepared for kindergarten.The tips in the post is quite helpful . Thanks for sharing.
http://www.callingallkidsagain.com/ .
Excellent article! I’m a teacher in Costa Rica and it’s really helpfull. Thank you!
You’re very welcome, Ana!
I love this post and infographic. You have taken a complicated topic and made it easy to understand. I am going to share this on my facebook page- I think it would help a lot of parents (it has helped me!).
Thanks so much for your comment, Lauren! ‘Translating’ research and putting it into everyday terms is one of the goals of my blog. There’s so much helpful research and it needs to be seen by teachers (and parents) who can actually do something with it!
Thank you ver y much for sharing this amazing way to teach our kids. I’m a little disappointed with the pre-k system in this country. Only kids that get free lunch are accepted in Public pre-k and private pre-k are extremely expensive when you have twins 🙁 I guess I’ll try to figure out how to teach my kids by myself. I hope you are okay with if I translate your post to Spanish. So Latinos wye learn new ways to teach their kids too. Please let me know. Thanks again for the article.
Thanks for your comments MarLyse, private education can certainly be difficult to afford. Which country are you from? I’ll write you an email regarding the translation.
Great article! We are having so many of these issues in my pre k class right now! I love all the research and the solutions to these problems! I also love all the links to other sites that give simple, hands on, easy to do ideas. Thank you so much! I am going to follow you and all of your wonderful ideas! I wish more of our parents understood the importance of these “play” ideas and that children are learning what they need to know for the future, with these everyday tasks! Thanks again.
Natalie, it’s difficult sometimes to get across the importance of play, and the many play activities that are actually setting our kids up for later success. That’s one reason why I love to point to research, because hopefully it can carry more weight in parents’ minds… and teachers, too. And stop us feeling guilty for allowing our kids to just get outside and run around, or engage in unstructured play, or go crazy with play dough!