Handwriting questions, 4.5 year old

[BonnieLK]

For the past month or so I've been asking my son to trace letters (manuscript) and he has some trouble with them, partly fine motor and I think partly because I'm asking him to trace without any directional instructions. Part of my upcoming year's school is a daily calendar exercise where he traces the letters of the day of the week and the number of the date, and I'm trying to get him to practice writing his name (tracing).

 

Basically, I'm winging it.

 

Should I not be winging it?

 

And then the issue of manuscript/print vs cursive. Reading up on print vs cursive and the benefits of cursive first make a lot of sense to me but I'm concerned about making a muddle/confusing matters with my kid who has only ever known print letters.

 

I believe at this point he needs writing practice even in small, familiar amounts (days of the week, his name) so I want to move forward but I don't want to badly screw it up.

[Susan in TX]

Do you have an ipad? If you do there is a great app for teaching letter and number formation. It is called LetterSchool. I think winging it is fine but you should probably give him some direction of how to trace the letters, for example start at the top and go down, when to lift the pencil, etc. A simple penmanship workbook might be helpful. Also, I like these wipe off books: Pen Control, and Letters.

 

Susan in TX

[ReadingMama1214]

From what I've heard here, it's best to teach a proper formation because they do have muscle memory and it's harder to correct the more set in their way they get.

 

We love letter school on the iPad.

 

We also do Handwriting Without Tears. My daughter is 4.5 and writes a lot. If I notice she forms a letter funny, then I make a note and we go over that page in our handwriting workbook.

[Sarah0000]

My son didn't confuse the letter formation between cursive and manuscript, but I did have him practice reading cursive first before asking him to write it. Cursive has been easier for him.

[BonnieLK]

Thanks everybody! We don't have an iPad unfortunately, just a Kindle Fire. My FIL wants to build him a computer for Christmas but I'm thinking I should ask for an iPad.

 

Anyway, at the moment I've decided to put off handwriting stuff. Since he's in occupational therapy for fine motor development (gross motor development) I'm going to spend the warm months that are left this year doing stuff outside, doing math, reading a lot, encouraging him to color and draw and helping him make letters when he wants to write. I'm going to look into HWOT when the weather starts to get too dreary to do outside stuff and we'll be looking for inside activities anyway. I appreciate all the suggestions.

[ExcitedMama]

FWIW I was not at all impressed with HWT. I think the Kumon books have a lot more pages for practicing the letters which my DS needed.