7 Basic Skills To Speed up Hand writing in Kids



Handwriting is an essential skill for both children and adults. It is a skill that should be introduced to learners at a very early stage. Once children have counter –productive habits such as poor pencil grip, wrong letter formation. It may become difficult to change.

Now, let’s look at some of the importance of handwriting.

1. It activates the brain and enhances critical thinking.
2. It arouses imagination and foster creativity.
3. It builds self confidence in children.
4. Learning handwriting at early stage sets children up for success.
5. Practicing writing helps a child to learn words, sentence structure, spelling and story structure.

These are just a few importance of handwriting.

BASIC SKILLS AND ACTIVITIES NEEDED FOR PERFECT HANDWRITING IN YOUNG LEARNERS.

1. Hand Exercise
Lead learners to exercise their fingers, hands and shoulder muscles to enable them move freely and accurately.

ACTIVITIES : Scissor cutting, molding with play dough, wriggling etc.

2. Good Posture: A poor sitting position can affect handwriting. Teachers need to ensure that the child’s sitting position is appropriate to guarantee good handwriting……..sitting straight with extended back.

3. Eye-hand coordination
Learners need eye-hand coordination to guide their pencil between lines and ensure their letters are placed in the right position depending on the letter type.

here are some activities for a better eye-hand coordination.
ACTIVITIES: Threading of beads, stacking cards and building blocks etc.

4. Good pencil grip: 
Giving young learners chunky crayons to scribble develops their grip and prepares them for formal writing. Bold crayon used for writing should be held with the thumb, index and middle fingers (tripod grip). 
ACTIVITIES: Pegging, lacing flash cards etc.

5. Letter Formation
For learners to write neatly and legibly, they must be taught how to form letters correctly and from the right starting point. They must be acquainted with the different types of letters (monkey, giraffe and tortoise) and their formations.

6. Tracing
    Tracing is a great way for children to practice letter formation. Provide lots    
 of opportunities for leaners to trace lines, objects in sand trays or on the   
 board before doing it in their books.

7. WRITING: 
   There are different styles of writing…….but my focus is on the NELSON HANDWRITING – Print and Cursive.

After all the above listed preambles,  young learners should be introduced to writing with NELSON PRINT to help them write legibly in CURSIVE as they progresses
Print writing is basically for learners from Pre-Nursery - Primary 2. Nelson Cursive should be introduced in Primary 3 as the case may be. This is to enable them have a broad understanding of Print before introducing cursive.

Be part of the National Hand Writing Competition Coming up in January, 2019.
Call: 07035300546

Related Topics:

The National Handwriting Competition 2019 Winners Award


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