Preschooler Writing Help

[fireheart]

It could just be something that he'll get on his own later, in his own time.

This too.

I have a class of kindergarten students at the moment on prac. Several of the children can write their name independently (without needing a name card in front of them to help them), but there are still a number of them who can't. These kids are not necessarily the special needs ones either: our most challenging child (global developmental delay) can write his name pretty much independently. A number of the kids who can now write their name independently came in at the start of the year unable to write anything period.

[boringscreenname]

My son is 5.5 years old and has fine motor skills delays. He showed no interest in tracing. We have him enrolled in private occupational therapy and he receives it at school. They have had a lot of success by letting him use writing and tracing apps on the IPad.

When they make him use a pencil and paper to write they use a slant board to ensure that his arm is supported and in the correct position. It also works to keep his attention on the paper instead of looking around.

They have also found that he will independently write letters if they just trace them with their fingers on their desk, then he will do the same with pencil and paper. I don't know why that method works for him but it does. He went from writing no letters to writing 3 letters of his name very legibly.

[NorthernZel]

My son has Autism and also a lighter delay in motoric skills + he's left handed. Using "stumped" pencils + triangular grip pencils helped a lot, along with patience.

[fireheart]

Another activity to try: get him to practice tracing out his letters in something like a sand or salt table. He can use a stick or his fingers.

Just get a tray, stick a coloured sheet underneath and pour a helping of salt/sand on top. He can then practice drawing it out.

[KiaKat]

I totally forgot about the sand table! That was part of the treatment for my dysgraphia.

[fireheart]

I totally forgot about the sand table! That was part of the treatment for my dysgraphia.

We do other activities as well with the kids around their fine motor skills. Things like weaving, threading, puzzles etc.

[Chromatix]

It was mentioned above, but worth repeating - there are triangular grips available to attach to normal-sized pens or pencils. I can't predict whether they will help, but they are another tool in the arsenal. Soft, round grips might also help, by making it more comfortable rather than simply discouraging a fist-grip.

I'm going to throw something out of left field, as well - Japanese writing. Most of the Japanese hiragana and katakana (which are used for the local equivalent of spelling words out) look completely different from the Roman/Latin alphabet, and so could be useful for practicing motor skills as a separate activity from "learning to write".

The katakana are simpler and more geometric, which might make them a better starting point than the more flowing hiragana - but you will also need to watch out for several pairs of characters which look almost identical, and develop a way to ensure they remain distinct.

アナコーリ - that's "Anakhouri" in katakana... well, technically "a-na-kou-li", phonetically speaking.
あなこうり - that's the same in hiragana.

There is a prescribed stroke order and direction for each character, which derives from the traditional Asian practice of writing with a brush rather than a pen. Each character is written within a unit square, which should make it easy to find practice paper. Don't be intimidated by kanji - it's not necessary to teach that; even Japanese children don't start learning to write kanji until they're noticeably older and have mastered the kana.

[Seshat]

Ooooh. I didn't think of that.

He could also try some of the arabic and hebrew writing systems. Or if you can get/make a triangular shaped stick or press, he can do cuineform into play-dough.

[Chromatix]

Along the same lines, Korean 'hangul' writing is also geometric and based on the unit square:

아나코리 - that's "a-na-ko-ri".
한굴 - that's "han-gul".

Each symbol represents a syllable, made up of a combination of a leading consonant (a circle if absent), a vowel (usually based on a vertical or horizontal line), and optionally a trailing consonant (here a circle would mean 'ng'), each of which are distinct symbols, packed into the square in a prescribed manner.

Unfortunately, Korean as a language is even more difficult to learn than Japanese, which rather offsets their considerably simpler and more logical writing system.