Second time moms... Any advice on 4 year old? Learning to write tips

Question

Hi!! My daughter is 4, and has been through one year of preschool.. Currently on summer vecation. I've been trying to get her to practice writing her name and abcs.... She barely even try's and for an unknown reason gets all upset and throws a tantrum. I try to make it fun. Most success I've had is writing on sliding glass door w dry erase markers, but it still doesn't last long. I've tried setting a room up so we can play school... Doesn't work.... Ideas on how to make this fun please!!!

Answer

She has 2 years until she has to write so dint be worried she might not be ready. I'm a school teacher and we usually start by drawing circles or straight lines and then combine them to make letters.

Answer

Handwriting can be really tricky so it's important she has good prewriting skills. She should be comfortable making circles, straight lines and zigzags. Spend time with these first of all (if possible as a game?) Rule of thumb is a child's attention is their age plus one in minutes.... if they are interested/motivated. If she isn't then plan for how long you think she can manage before she gets distracted. Then try to follow with an activity she loves to do. The important thing though is not to feel under pressure for her to do this straight away.

Answer

My eyes lit up from this post. I'm out of classroom now but started as an early childhood teacher. I won't get on the whole thing, but she doesn't REALLY need to know the names of letters-she needs to know their sounds. Ok, now that I got that out of the way, pencils are so boring. Let her try with sidewalk chalk or finger painting. Let her pick out a marker or crayon set with really cool colors. Once she's ready, write the letter big on a page with a bright colored highlighter. As she traces, have her say the sound of the letter, and use like 5 different crayons to trace. So every time she traces B, have her say /b/. You can even make a book out of it. Start with the letters in her name, don't just go a-z. Also, she'll be using more lowercase letters than uppercase, so I always started w teaching those first.

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My daughter would have her fits as well because she was a perfectionist (and still is 😂). The most success we had with her practicing was to get those books that she could trace the letters in. Maybe purchase one and give that a try?

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My son is 6 and he doesn't do the same for me as he does his teachers so we found a teacher who retired that works with him once a weeks and I read and do math with this throughout the week

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She's still really young. Don't push it yet, you want her to want to learn not hate it. Play is so important at that age.

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Check out Pinterest for ideas. Maybe like a bingo stamper and letter patterns to follow. Sand writing and on the sliding glass were great suggestions. Make one of those "finger painting" bags and let them draw letter shapes. There's some apps on the phone where kids can trace letters on the screen.

Answer

Have you tried bath crayons? My daughter loves them, but then again she loves to write (although she's only 2 so it's just scribbles lol). She sees me writing all the time because I write short stories with my friends and do NaNoWriMo in November. While I write, my daughter calls out the letters I'm writing (I write slow just for her to be able to do this lol its torture for me when I have an idea but it has really helped her learn). Maybe your daughter has to see you writing to think it's "cool"?

Second time moms... Any advice on 4 year old? Learning to write tips

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