Studies show that reading at a young age can accelerate the learning capacity of children and improve their ability to write more quickly, so it’s a good idea to encourage children to start reading as soon as possible. That said, you will still need some learning strategies to help.
Surface Tracing
Learning to write is an imaginative exercise; we all acquire language through learning it, and it becomes a permanent part of the brain. That’s why it is useful to start learning to write and spell with surface tracing. Surface tracing helps to embed the form of the letter into the young minds.
Show the child a picture of the letter and ask them to close their eyes and imagine the shape. Then show them how to trace the letter on the desk, you can help them to trace it with your hand as well. Slowly build this up until they can easily trace the shape themselves on the desk.
Stencil Practice
After the child has an abstract idea of the letters, it’s time to move on to more concrete ideas and practice with a pencil and sheet of paper. Stencils are an excellent tool for learning letters; they have all the letters in upper and lower case so that children get familiar with the difference.
Allow your child to spend some time with the stencil in a playful capacity, don’t put any pressure on them to create words if they are new to learning. Simply drawing the letters in the stencil is enough to strengthen their initial idea of the letters as well as their ability to write with a pencil.
The Sand Method
When the child is a little more advanced and has the ability to hear a sound and write a letter, you could consider the sand method. The sand method is not only excellent for learning to write, but it’s also enjoyable because children love to play with sand, and it is something different.
You only need a small amount of sand for this method to work successfully. Call out a letter and ask the child to write it in the sand, you can also ask them to draw it in upper or lower case. If there are any inaccuracies, you can correct them before wiping the sand away and restarting.
Label Symbols
Learning letter abstractly is a good way to become familiar with the different forms of the letters, but you will have to move on to more concrete words at some point. That’s when labels and symbols come in. Start collecting labels from the local area, such as business logos and signs.
When you have a small collection of brand names from the local area, you can mix them up and use them for teaching games. Call out the letter that the brand name starts with and ask them to select the correct symbol. If they are a little more advanced, they can listen for the entire word.
Match Sounds
An advanced version of the labelling activity is a sound matching activity. This one is essentially the same as the labelling activity, but instead of using symbols from the local area, you can extend the range of objects to include other familiar items in the home, classroom, and locality.
It’s useful to keep the objects familiar at first, but as their abilities advance, you can introduce more advanced vocabulary. In the classroom, you can have a selection of letters cut out in upper and lower cases, show the picture and ask the child to find the image that matches best.
Switch Activities
If you haven’t noticed already, children have short attention spans and can become bored very easily, for this reason, it’s a good idea to switch activities regularly. You can switch between different writing activities or mix things up with a focus on writing for the entire school day.
Start with a sedentary activity that introduces the subject for the day. This can simply mean reciting the alphabet together or doing some simple word exercises. Then switch to a more active situation to keep them interested and awake. Have a resource of activities you can use.
Alphabetic Principle
The alphabetic principle refers to the connection between sounds and letters. This is a key aspect of language acquisition, and something children will need to understand as they become better with their letters and sounds. Consider some alphabetic practices when more advanced.
A good way to start teaching the alphabetic principle is to use magnetic letters on a whiteboard. Try to teach children to recognise the first letter of a word. Call out the word and ask them to choose a letter and put it onto the board. You can also play the beginning, middle, end games.
Practice Writing
When children have established a strong causal relationship between letters and sounds, it’s time to start writing practice. Writing practice might seem boring for them, but it’s important for building up the strength and understanding of the words and letters and understanding letters.
It’s one thing to teach the causal relation between words and sounds; it’s quite another to understand when to use these letters in the correct way. Children often learn uppercase letters more easily, but lower case ones are more common, choose words with both to practice with.
Immersive Exercises
Everyone has a different learning style; some people learn better through visual stimuli, while others learn better with audio or kinetic stimuli. However, they all have one thing in common, immersive experiences. Everyone can learn through immersive exercises like gardening.
Set up an activity in your home or classroom. Ask the children to go outside and look for plants and flowers they have on their worksheets. Prior to the activity, you can label the plants and flowers so they can read and write the object and return it to the class. Turn this into a game.
Observe and Write
Finally, the children should be advanced enough to observe and write simply. This can mean holding up a picture and asking the children to write it down on their worksheets; it can also mean speaking the word, although this is only realistic for more advanced students.
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