Why is handwriting important for children

Fortunately there are a number of ways you can help encourage the acquisition of these skills in your child: Play together: physical activity will help improve their hand-eye coordination, develop stamina, and strengthen their upper body muscles. Read with them: regularly reading together and showing your child the book will help them to recognise letters and their formation.

Encourage them to draw pictures or paint: this gets them used to holding a small object in their hand, which they will then learn to grip and control. You could likewise do this with cutlery, teaching them to feed themselves with a spoon or fork.

Fun workbooks: ones with dot-to-dot exercises or those where you have to draw lines and shapes. These will help your child develop fine motor skills at the same time introducing them to the basic strokes for letter formation. The Kumon worksheets are designed to subtly develop a child's handwriting skills.

Students are asked to point and count shapes and objects on the early maths worksheets to foster their motor skills, whilst the Z levels in the English programme encourage students to develop their pencil skills by colouring, drawing lines and joining the dots. Help your child to recognise and write their name by helping them to trace over the letters of their name.

Help your child learn the alphabet sequence. A fun way to learn is by clapping your hands in a steady rhythm while you say the letters together. Doing this with music or singing the alphabet together can also help. Give your child opportunities to write and draw with other materials. For example, your child could draw lines in sand or mud, trace over letters on signs with their finger, form 3D letters from playdough, and so on.

Take photos of these drawings if you want to print them out and display them. Handwriting education at school During the first two years of school, your child will learn to: form letters recognise and spell frequently used words put spaces between words write letters and words in a similar size and in a line write about familiar events.

This can help your child practise at home. To help your child learn to form a letter, write it lightly and correctly yourself and get your child to trace over your letter. Show your child where to start drawing the letter by putting a green dot at the starting point and a red one at the finishing point.

Use everyday opportunities to practise writing. For example, get your child to add items to the family shopping list, write notes to grandparents, help with birthday and other cards, or make labels with post-it notes.

Make it fun. Use a stick to draw large letters in the ground or at the beach and fill the letters with pebbles or shells. You could use non-permanent markers on a window to trace a letter over many times. Bath crayons are also good for this activity. Signs of handwriting problems in early school-age children Learning to write involves a combination of skills and abilities and an understanding of language. Your child: still swaps hands while drawing or handwriting during the first year of school.

Pencil grasp: When it comes to how a child holds a pencil, there are correct and incorrect grasps. The correct grasps—in which the index finger and thumb hold the pencil against the middle finger—result in comfortable and efficient handwriting, while incorrect grasps can cause poor letter formation and fatigue.

A student with a poor pencil grasp may benefit from using tools such as a pencil grip or from wrapping a rubber band around the ring finger and pinkie—not too tightly! Formation: This refers to how a student goes about forming letters.

Handwriting and dictation activities are the cornerstone of any multisensory phonics instruction program, as requiring students to consistently practice forming the letters while connecting them to sounds will serve to better embed phonics concepts in the brain.

For students who struggle with letter formation, explicit instruction is particularly important. We believe in setting children up to succeed through play and fun. As part of the Creative Curriculum in our classrooms, we work on drawing, coloring, and grow into handwriting as we want to encourage creativity in each child as well as foster a love of writing.

To learn more about our preschool and after-school programs , call us at our Spring Forest location at or our North Hills location at to request a tour of one of our North Raleigh child care centers!

Or fill out the contact form below. Director Holly Bryant, Asst.