Handwriting: how your child learns to write

Educationalists generally agree that before a child is ready to hold a pencil and form letters correctly, they need to have developed fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. This means that the brain has to become accustomed to working in conjunction with the muscles in the hand. Activities that encourage this include:
 

• Threading
• Picking up beads with tweezers
• Sticking
• Building with construction toys such as Duplo or wooden blocks
• Playing with playdough
• Using ‘easy to hold’ crayons and chalks

Angela Webb of the National Handwriting Association stresses the importance of fine motor experience at an early age. “Fine motor experience is essential as using a pincer grip between thumb and fore-finger is a pre-cursor for using the tripod grasp for holding a pencil later,” she says.

There is a concern that some fine motor tasks that were once an inherent part of day-to-day tasks for children, such as tying shoe laces, are now a thing of the past thanks to more contemporary trends to make life ‘easier’. But when should you begin teaching ‘correct’ pencil grip? “Children develop the ability to make and maintain the tripod pencil grasp between 3-6 years of age,” Angela advises. “Forcing them before that is counter-productive. Once they are ready, one way of making sure they use the correct fingers is to give them stubs of wax crayon or pencil for colouring and writing. This way, the full-finger grasp cannot be used.”

You can mirror this at home by providing fun paper and pencils, dotted around the house. Key to this approach, which promotes independence, is instilling in the children the confidence that they can write. They may not be able to spell words perfectly – it may be that they can perhaps write the first sound of each word, or just all the sounds they can hear. Perhaps they just use pictures and some lines. All of this is still writing. If they can read back what they have written, and if it serves their purpose, this is writing; positive praise and confidence-boosting encouragement should be offered in return.