At What Age Do You Start Handwriting

[sonya_post]

My little fellow picks up crayons and pencils but he is mostly scribbling. I know he needs to get motor control. He is 24 months now.When did you start handwriting practice?

[annisis]

It was around this age that we started to introduce the "idea" of handwrting. And what I mean by that is we got Kumon's My First Tracing Book and My First Book of Mazes and put them in pocket protectors within a binder. We used dry erase markers over the pocket protectors to make them reusable, If you are interested in using the cursive sheets I am putting together, I very much recommend the my first tracing book as it was a big part of my inspiration.

Now, we just got the books and put them together. It took him some time to really get the hang of it all. But we practiced together hand-over hand. He was doing the Tracing book correctly in a matter of months. However, it is only in the last few months that he has become interested in using the Mazes book correctly.

[sonya_post]

Thanks for responding. It was your thread that got me thinking about his. Pretty much my son just wants to eat the crayons.

[aangeles]

We started with the Kumon workbooks (Tracing, Mazes, Cutting, Pasting) at 2 years and a few months old. We didn't do it regularly or anything and it took us almost a year to finish them. Then we started the Pre-K workbook of HWT when she was around 3 years 4 months, again taking our time and just doing it whenever she felt like it, maybe once a week or every 2 weeks.  At the same time, we did a lot of pre-writing fine motor skills practice using play-doh, beads, chopsticks, etc. We only started "formal" handwriting lessons at 3 years 10-11 months, at her insistent request. She has since mastered manuscript and has pretty neat (and fast) handwriting for her age. I plan to start cursive in a few weeks.

[Kerileanne99]

This is something I have been working on with Alex for a while.  There was a thread a few months back with lots of great ideas:

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-other-topics/how-to-start-writing-with-28months-toddler/

[linzy]

Same here. At 2 we start with the Kumon books.

[Krista G]

We formally start writing at 3 in out home.  My last child began holding a pen and writing much earlier than this.  For some great ideas I recommend Young At Art.  This is a great book that gets kids doing art EARLY, and the art involves the same coordination as writing.  If your kids likes to write, have fun with it.

[Tanikit]

I think it depends what you mean by handwriting practice - my DD was given prewriting activities at her nursery school from 2.5 years of age and managed fine with them. I let her scribble all she wanted to and also gave her pages to colour in to strengthen those muscles. We did plenty of fine motor control activities which also helped. She was 4 years old however before she really began writing letters and numbers - her cousin showed more interest and was doing this from about 3 years of age. Now at 5 years old my daughter writes fairly well though needs to build some stamina and she has days when her writing is very neat and other days when it is far from neat. I think the skills involved in handwriting do take time to develop and more than other skills (like reading and math) they seem to be age related because of the fine motor skills involved. That doesn't mean they can't learn to write earlier - you just have to adjust expectations, get them to use more gross motor skills by writing large and perhaps use other instruments rather than a pencil to practice with.

[CVMomma]

So far we do lots of prewriting activities and lots of free time scribbling or coloring.  She always has a pencil and a piece of paper at her own desk and she can spend a lot of time making her own "designs".  Occasionally she actually makes something recognizable which causes great excitement!  "OOOooo!  I made a circle/a 'r'/ or a diamond!!!"  She can't make any letters or numbers yet on her own. 

Just recently, she started tracing.  She can trace all of the letters or numbers if they are large enough.  She also does a lot of matching with my homemade math papers.  I make a column of numbers on one side of the page and a column of objects on the other side.  Then she draws a line matching things up.  That seems to help her control her pencil or color better.

I am planning to follow her lead as to when we start formal handwriting.  Unless of course, she balks long past the time when she is able to do it; I just can't see that happening since she is so excited about writing. 

We use pencils, colors, dry erase markers, and pens so far.  I have a recipe for finger paints that I want to try, but haven't yet. 

[Tamsyn]

Good question!  Handwriting is something that I struggle with myself.  I have done Kumon workbooks with my kids, and they love the tracing and mazes.  My oldest has had very little interest in actual writing though, so this year we are starting our writing almost from scratch.  He is five.  I have done a lot of hoe-humming about what kind of handwriting I wanted to teach, ball and point vs cursive, and when I decided on cursive, whether I wanted to start with italics or D'Nealian script.  I learned italic cursive myself, but it was mostly according to Tamsyn.  (I was homeschooled and I wasn't exactly a model student).  My own handwriting is very legible, but not very pretty, haha.  After a lot of research (way to much, actually), I finally decided to go with "Teach me Joy".  I like that it is a download that I can use for all of my kids, and I like how my children can trace the letters kind of like a maze.  My son struggled with letters made with dots because he wanted it to be a dot-to-dot activity.  He also struggled with light-grey letters.  So far, the three lessons we have done with "Teach me Joy" have gone well.  I'm a newbie, not an expert!  I will definitely look into some of the other resources shared.   

http://teachmejoy.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=5&zenid=fed4b36117d3441320cc0d79b96b5f2b

[sonya_post]

Hey thanks guys. We aren't anywhere near writing yet and so was wondering when to just begin. We put out paper and crayons, pencils and other material every day. Doesn't mean he uses it. Usually I just find stuff in the couch, He also uses them as a baton for directing. Just tyring to get an idea. I started teaching my oldest son (now 17) with print. It was a nightmare. Switched to cursive. Breeze. He loved it. We will do cursive only. I'm not a huge fan of Abeka curicula but their handwriting material is excellent. Just thought I'd pass that along.

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