Encouraging Writing at Home for Younger Kids.
There are lots of ways to encourage early writing and these are just a few... Some of them might seem pretty obvious and simple, but I thought it’d be helpful to have some tips all in one place for us busy parents to look at. Simple suits busy, right?!
- Let the kids see you writing in your every day lives. They will be curious and encouraged to copy what you’re doing...
- Celebrate any early writing and don’t worry about if it’s spelt correctly or if it even looks like a word or not. Praise is so important.
- Provide areas where the kids can write - any surface will do and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Besides, kids + pens = won’t look nice for long!
- Provide tools for writing, from the very basic pencil and paper, to cool, stylish stationery and funky pens or post its.
- Get them reading! See if they can spot the ‘special’ letters in their name when reading books or out and about reading signs etc..
- Use painting as a way to familiarise themselves with the letters in their names. Paint the individual letters and eventually their whole name. You can do the same with chalk outside…
- Use a plate of flour for them to trace the alphabet with their fingers.
- Keep a notebook/paper/pencil in the back of the car for them to use on journeys.
- Check out the ‘role-play’ ideas in my blog here for more fun ways to encourage writing at home.