I have been looking at a lot of different phonics programs this week and some really stress the fact that they don't have handwriting with their phonics because the child just really needs to focus on learning to read. Of course others have the selling point of learning both at the same time. IF the child is ready for both, how do feel about this, one way or the other, IYHO? Thanks!
If the child is ready for both, then why NOT do both? Why NOT learn to write - or encode - the same letters he's learning to decode?
All three of mine are pretty much past the age of phonics/decoding, but I have heard that years ago, schools taught cursive as young as first grade, without ever teaching printing. At the same time, the children were learning to read. I am not an expert, by any means, but the schools seem to have been successful.
The phonic ones that don't do writing are saying that you shouldn't combined the two at the exact same time like Explode the Code does or like CLE Learning to Read does. These are just two examples.
I agree if a child is ready for it, do it! But, for some kids handwriting takes a bit longer to grasp.
We do writing at the same time as phonics. I can't see a reason not to at this point. We are doing d'nealian handwriting instead of ball and stick in order to transition to cursive in 1st grade.
we practice handwriting from pre-school up but it is separate from our phonics. And thus far I've one son grasp phonics much faster and easier than writing and the other has grasped writing faster and easier than phonics. That is to say just the act of writing and forming letters - not writing an essay or paragraph - but the actual act of forming the letters properly.
My personal opinion is that MOST children are ready to learn to read *light years* before they are ready to write. Honestly, even if they are truly ready to begin writing, I don't think it matters at all. You really can do it either way and have great success. In my experience, the longer you wait to teach formal writing, then the longer amount of time the fine motor skills have to develop (which makes learning to write much more efficient--you spend less time teaching b/c they just pick up on it so much faster). Sorry long sentence. That's just my experience. I've learned that really the only mistake I can make with my kids is "pushing" something on them when they are not ready. Not that you are, that's just me. It never hurts a thing to try a little of this and a little of that to find what works. If the child is ready for writing, then you could go for it and see what happens. If it's not working so good then set it aside and try again in 6 months. Aaaahhhh.......I so love it that homeschooling can be full of "do-overs", don't you?
Just echoing what others said, if the child is ready, then yes, go for it, do both! If he's not ready, then the concentration he puts into holding a pencil correctly, forming the curves properly, etc, can seriously distract from the joy of figuring out HOW to read the words he is writing. If it is a choice, then do the reading first. In my experience, children are very excited when they can finally decode the words.
