Hey folks I'm brand new to homeschooling, but not new to education. I was a 4th/5th grade teacher before I had my kiddos. I've got 2 little ones (boy age 4, girl age 2) and we've been having lots of fun with preschool. I have to say, that all this primary stuff and introductory learning is so new to me, and I'm finding myself looking for a starting point. We use lots of ideas from "letter of the week," and what I'm looking for is some prewriting instruction ideas for letter formation and beginning handwriting skills. So, what do you use? What did you love and dislike about it? What worked and didn't work for you?? I'd love to hear all about it! Educate me
Welcome! I've heard Handwriting without Tears is a really good program! I'm not sure about it as I got my kids out of school later - they already had handwriting by then.
Thank you; I've been looking into this one, and have heard good things about it. I'm considering getting a few of their books, but am still researching and deciding.
It's been a long time since I had to teach a young child handwriting skills . In the book "The Writing Road to Reading" by Spalding (it's available at christianbook online) there is information on how the child should hold the pencil, the formation of each letter of the alphabet, etc. For example, All letters sit on a base line. Letters or parts of letters are of two sizes. They are either tall or short. Tall letters or short parts are half as high as tall letters. This book shows you how to use the points on the face of a clock to instruct the child how to form the letters. For the letter "c" you begin at 2 on the clock go up and around the clock and stop at 4. Although I found the handwriting instruction in this book to be helpful, it is my least favorite book to use for phonics instruction. For handwriting practice, I purchased workbooks called "A Reason for Handwriting" . These are also available to purchase at christianbook online. They worked well for 2 of my children but one of my children struggled a lot with handwriting so I switched to "Handwriting Without Tears" for cursive for her and she progressed using that program. For prewriting and prereading skills I used "Get Ready for the Code" "Get Set for the Code " and "Go for the Code". They are also available at christianbook online. "Book A, Get Ready for The Code, teaches consonants b, f, m, k, r, and t. Get Ready for The Code, Get Set for The Code, and Go for The Code, which all introduce the consonant letters, comprise a three-book series of primers for the Explode The Code series. The exercises are designed to develop visual, auditory, and kinesthetic perception of the letters. Activities include tasks such as visual tracking, matching, tracing, copying, and identifying the letters and their sounds. Special emphasis is given to discriminating between similar objects and letters, to developing the motor control necessary to write legibly, and to developing the listening skills children need to follow directions carefully. By the time children finish the series they will have learned all of the lowercase consonant letters as well as their sounds and written forms, and will be ready for Book 1 of the Explode The Code series. For teachers guide to listening exercises - " Here are some of the other things I did with my daughter when she was young Writing the letters in a pie tin with some corn meal in it with her finger Painting the letters with her finger using finger paints Making the shape of the letter she is working on out of cookie dough and baking it I also made two sets of all of the letters of the alphabet, lower case and upper case, out of sandpaper and put them up on the refrigerator. I had her go over the sandpaper letters with her finger in the same direction that you would write them and say the sound the letter makes. We played a lot of games to learn the letter names and sounds. I can get back on here later to share some of them with you.
One book I loved is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 easy lessons. Not only does it have reading lessons but it also includes parts on learning to write the letters so they're learning the alphabet and the sound at the same time. AND you can do all this in 15 minutes a day.
We started using A Beka Cursive in Kindergarten. The curriculum was part of the package so we used it and it worked wonders for us! Ems has been handwriting since. She prefers it over print.
Right now I'm teaching my 4yo dgs how to write his name. I tried printing his name on regular "kindergarten tablet" paper with the big wide lines, for him to trace and then to copy. But the full-size sheet was overwhelming to him. (I can't do all that!) So I used my school fonts on a page oriented in landscape, in two columns, and put his name in dotted letters for him to trace, then a blank line, then another one to trace, then two blank lines to write, and gave him only half a sheet at a time. I have him use a marker because it's fatter than a pencil and his little hands just aren't that strong yet, so he doesn't have to press so hard to make a mark you can actually see. I do the same things with letters - the top line has his name, then A, B, C, D, E on the next five lines, then two blank lines to do his name again. We'll get more seriously into it with kindergarten next year, but for now he's happy.
For K, my son used A Reason For Handwriting K...one side is practicing the letters, the other side was a related picture to color....A on one side, Alligator on the other type deal. He doesn't like to color at all but he did LOVE his handwriting worksheet and even happily colored the picture (most days). It was the same style (more like Zaner-Bloser) that his sisters had used previously so I didn't research HWT or other methods...mostly I looked for what I thought would work for him so he wouldn't be confused with the way he wrote versus his sisters writing on their school work.
We used peterson directed handwriting (it was printing actually) and it worked great for my littlest schooler, my older child was bored with it.
With my oldest, I kinda let her do as she pleased for a first few years - 3, 4. She wrote a lot of capital letters and such. By kinder, I tried to formally teach her. We were using Starfall to teach reading so I followed that pretty much. For 1st grade I created a journal page every day for her to trace. it had the day, date, her name, her address and our phone number and then a sentence or two about that day...what we were doing that was special, etc. She did this all of first grade. By 2nd grade, she wanted to learn cursive. I got the Horizon's penmenship. i also used dollar store workbooks for the transition. My oldest has beautiful handwriting. I followed a similar approach with my middle, but he HATES writing. He does a lot now. I used Horizon's to a point, he got really bored with it. I've been working on cursive with him this year using www.donnayoung.org 's materials. He has nice handwriting when he takes the time. My youngest, I started with the donnayoung.org pre writing stuff. She's doing okay with it, and finished the first section. We're moving onto A Reason for Handwriting because I got the K book, and the parent's book for free through paperbackswap.com . She's doing okay, but I'm letting her sorta drive the bus. She's 4 and turns 5 in March. I'd love for her to reading, and writing pretty well by next school year so we can kinda take off together a little. Hope this helps.
We're also using A Reason for Handwriting K. When the kids are ready, I'm really enjoying Getty-Dubay Italics with my middle schooler (late on the small motor skills thing). We'll go back to ARFH when he's ready for cursive. A lot of folks use a method called copywork - just have the kids copy real literature onto paper. McGuffy's Primer is available for free online, and that's what we did before ARFH and the kids loved it. This is up the "A rat and a cat" alley, for right as the kids are learning to read such words. The A Reason For goes through letters, and 1st grade starts Christian copywork. Fit it in in whatever order works!
I've used A Reason for Handwriting K, as well as Sing Spell Read and Write (k-1), and spent some time with Handwriting without Tears. I think, for the younger ones, Handwriting without Tears is the best choice. It has so many different ways to learn the letters well, with great ways to make it so your little ones can develop their fine motor skills for writing. They can learn to form the letters using the manipulatives even if they don't have the fine motor skills for writing. You can buy the bits seperately, which is great, or even make some of them yourself. And it's just fun
We use a multisensory approach. We use lakeshore letter builders http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca|searchResults~~p|2534374302099356~~.jsp have him build the letter, trace it with his fingers, trace it with a small thomas train we have. We have letters that can be laced, sandpaper letters, and we have even built letters with playdoh by rolling snakes and making the letter. Then we do our workbook or worksheets that I have created for the specific letter we are working on.
Glad I could help! You can buy tactile sandpaper letters or you can create your own. We made ours with index cards and dollar store colored sand for about $3. The ones you buy are much more expensive. We add phonics into our approach as well by having him do letter of the day activities. Our letter of the day activities include everything I have posted in addition to eating foods that start with a specific letter, reading a book about a specific letter (leapfrog and sesame street both have books that are letter specific) locate and put post its on items in the house that begin with that letter, etc. Be creative, we have painted letters, done a letter lapbook where we find items in magazines that begin with a certain letter and cut it out and paste it on the letters page. Make cookies that are shaped in your letter of the day. I truly believe the key to learning, especially during the younger years is to make it fun. If you are looking for any more ides, feel free to ask.
