Tips to develop writing skills and work towards school readiness

To learn how to write, a child has to develop fine and gross motor skills in a consistent and predictable pattern through infancy, and all the way to elementary school. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, between 36 and 48 months of age comes a critical moment for the development of skills needed for mastering writing.

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Here are some of the things you can do to boost your child’s writing skills before starting  kindergarten:

• Play A-B-C bingo by either making your own or choosing from the ones available online.
• When your child draws a person, ask and notice different body parts like the hair, arms, and legs.
• Write a big and clearly traced letter on cardboard, put it inside a Ziploc bag and have your child trace over it with a dry erase marker that you can wipe afterwards.
• Notice letters in signs and texts your child sees every day.
• Play I Spy drawing games by asking them to draw something they are seeing.
• Make a game out of copying shapes and figures.
• When in the playground, invite your little one to make letter shapes in the sand using their finger.
• Have your child make strings of play-dough and then help them make the vowels. Spend some time making the sounds of each letter.
• Think of rhyming words and make funny sentences with them, noticing how they sound similar because they share some letters.
• Give them plenty of opportunities to interact with writing tools and hold them appropriately using their middle finger, index, and thumb.