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Your favorite pre-writing/beginning writer resources


AimeeM
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Sell me on one, lol.

We have MP's alphabet books, but my guy's fine motor skills aren't up to par with his brain yet (I believe he'll read well before he is able to write legibly, at this rate, lol).

 

I'm looking for something fun for an active boy who does NOT like to get dirty (i.e. no sand drawing, no finger paints, no tracing in shaving cream, lol).

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You can see PAL's letter stories from the sample files in IEW's website. They are cute! I started my son out with a dry erase marker and a wall-mounted white board. Writing that way practices gross-motor rather than fine-motor skills. It's also so easy to erase mistakes. I let my son make the letters as big as he wants. Actually, PAL recommends this. First work on letter formation, then work on size & proportion.

 

To work on fine motor strength, I have him do mazes, dot-to-dots, and cutting/pasting activities. He dislikes coloring. I think the R&S preschool books are super boring, but I love Evan-Moor's Never Bored books. As his hand strength has increased, he is able to write with pencil & paper - but he is older than your kid (almost 5 1/2).

 

Does your DS like playdough, or bread dough? You could make letter pretzels.

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You can see PAL's letter stories from the sample files in IEW's website. They are cute! I started my son out with a dry erase marker and a wall-mounted white board. Writing that way practices gross-motor rather than fine-motor skills. It's also so easy to erase mistakes. I let my son make the letters as big as he wants. Actually, PAL recommends this. First work on letter formation, then work on size & proportion.

 

To work on fine motor strength, I have him do mazes, dot-to-dots, and cutting/pasting activities. He dislikes coloring. I think the R&S preschool books are super boring, but I love Evan-Moor's Never Bored books. As his hand strength has increased, he is able to write with pencil & paper - but he is older than your kid (almost 5 1/2).

 

Does your DS like playdough, or bread dough? You could make letter pretzels.

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Coloring, play dough and clay, drawing, cutting are all important for fine motor development. HWT is a great program as well.

I hear you and I agree. I do not, however, want to make him hate writing... and he can't stand "paper play" (i.e. coloring, drawing, etc).

Now, he'll do it on the white board, lol, but not on paper.

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A friend of mine is an occupational therapist. When she heard I'd started DS1 tracing letters, she recommended some exercises to do instead.

 

We had some little plastic rings that came on the top of a batch of bakery cupcakes. It became our game to pick them up with the very tips of his fingers and drop them into a plastic cup. ("AUUUGHHH, don't put me in the cup! AUUUUGHHH!")

 

I found one of those old TickleBee games with a magnetic pen. I picked up a cheap knockoff Magnadoodle at the Dollar Store.

 

Like Kleine, she suggested I get a pair of child's hinged chopsticks, and let him practice using them to drop things from one place to another place.

 

We did those sorts of things for about a year before we tried doing pre-writing exercises on paper or markerboard again, when we got about 3 months away from his 4th birthday. My friend is of the opinion that in the US, we push kids in that direction too early... she'd prefer it if we waited until age 5 before we started tackling writing. But of course, limiting ourselves to dropping things into cups and playing with the Magnadoodle for so many years would be too hard. :laugh:

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I think you're asking mostly about handwriting, but to take another perspective on "pre-writing," I think Story Cubes and many of the activities in Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye are good for kids when they're pre-writing. Also, even at age four, narration - especially letting them narrate their own stories and writing them down, are great things to do.

 

Of course, all the small motor skills stuff is extremely useful and necessary as well.

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My kids learn to spell first using a movable alphabet. I teach them letter sounds/names and how to orally break a word into its separate sounds (starting with recognizing the first sound, then first and last, then all). After that we break out the movable alphabet. We move from there to AAS. My oldest started using a movable alphabet a few months before she turned 4yo, ds was 5.5yo, and younger dd will be starting soon (and could have started sooner, I'm just so busy!) at 5yo.

 

ETA: My kids spell their way into reading. So at first it is easier for them to spell than to read.

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