Is the enough handwriting for a K'er?

[curlygirlzx2]

I'm not using a formal handwriting program with dd so I'm not sure if she is getting enough handwriting in. I bought a Mead story tablet that has space to draw a picture and write sentences. She draws a picture and then will write on the average a 7 word sentence about her picture and does this on a daily basis. Is this enough?

[happyhomemaker25]

Yes. I think so. I don't do a lot of handwriting in K. I focus more on reading. My evaluator has a fit because the Ks at her school do handwriting. But I found starting it in first grade does not put them behind or anything.

The picture and sentance sounds like fun. That's what K should be.

[yslek]

That's more than D is doing. :) She's slowly working through the HWOT grade K workbook. Sometimes she works in an ETC book, and that includes a bit of writing, too. We don't do handwriting every day; I'm also focusing more on reading.

[Mama2two]

That sounds about what my son is doing. He already knows the letter formation from HWT and his practice is ETC and some simple labels for when we do lapbooks or other projects.

[DawnL]

Gosh, my son isn't doing a lot with handwriting. I am having him trace a lot of things for copywork and such. He is a 6 year old kindergartener and I feel he just isn't quite ready. I know it will suddenly kick in when he is the right age, so we are just practicing until he gets there.

[Melenie]

That is more than DD6 is doing, but then she never liked handwriting much. We do one page of HWT K per day and that is much less than you are doing.

[lollie010]

Handwriting for my K'er is what kept me up all night last night. We have HWOT and some other resources, but he is just not into it. And honestly neither am I. It is like torture. If my ds could write a seven word sentence and draw a picture, I would be thrilled.

[Tracy]

I would agree with the rest. In K, usually they are just learning how to write their letters. If yours already can write letters, then one short sentence per day is more than enough. But I would recommend that it be copywork so that she can still see what it is supposed to look like and gets used to seeing how words are capitalized at the beginning of a sentence, as well as the punctuation. My K'er has been asking about how to use apostrophes since she saw it in her copywork. I would never have considered teaching this to her if it weren't for her asking.

 

I would caution you, though, that if writing even one short sentence per day becomes too laborious for her, you may want to cut it down to just a word or two a day. Even when a child "can" write, she may still lack stamina (both physical and mental). Have her write only what she can do in a few minutes time.

 

Tracy

[Dmmetler]

What I've found with my K'er is that, once she could write, she did. So we went from hating to write and struggling to write even a few letters at a time to her writing her own, multi-page story books with a couple of sentences per page, within about 6 months time. I'm still trying to pick less writing intensive materials for 1st where there's a good choice, and leave formal writing for copywork, plus whatever free writing she wants to do, simply because so many of the written exercises in workbooks don't seem to give enough space for a young child to write.

 

So I'd say, teach letter formation, but don't force writing. A sentence a day sounds great!

 

And I totally agree with children picking up on skills from copywriting and reading. My DD also has started using apostrophes in her writing, just from seeing it done.

[SilverMoon]

That sounds like more than enough for K. I expect mine to be able to write their name well, and work on the rest of the letters. I don't start copywork or any actual writing expectations until first grade.