Pre-Writing and Writing

[Maquenzie]

What are you using and has it helped?

[hypatia]

Kumon workbooks, and I pasted plastic on the pages to re-use. It's well done and save me the hassle and costs of looking around for sheets and printing them.

[ShenLi]

If you have an iPad or iPhone, I have been using the app "iWrite Words". We also use Kumon workbooks (not so successful) and other similar activity books based on subject of interest. For instance, my son was crazy about Thomas and Friends at one point so we bought him Thomas activity books that featured activities teaching children how to write alphabets. It was marginally more effective than the Kumon workbooks.

For pre-writing, activities that develop fine motor skills like play dough are great. Colouring books encourage practice holding a pencil. Montessori activities that require the use of the "pincer grasp" also help to develop the fine motor skills.

I also use opportunities to encourage my older son to write, such as writing cards and short messages to family members, which are generally more effective than practicing on workbooks because there is more owership to the activity - he wants to do it rather than me asking him to do it.

[Krista G]

I always have a dry erase board handy for my kids.  I keep different colored markers on hand and they can draw or write whenever they want to.  My 4 year old loves to get mail and has begun writing to her Gramma almost everyday.  Granted, it is the same letter every time, but she is very inspired to write when she gets mail.  We also do copywork, which can be as simple as copying their name to start out with.

Dear Gramma,

I love you.  You are the best.

Love,
Gabriella

[Tanikit]

Once my daughter was ready to start letters I found this site http://www.first-school.ws/t/alpha1/r.htm the most useful because of the size of the letters. She still needs to write things quite big. We just did a worksheet when she was ready and the laminated them and stuck them on the wall. She would often choose what letter she wanted to do. Since then she has tried to write the letters on her own choosing to copy whichever she chooses.

[zoe22]

I bought the iwrite app yesterday morning after reading this post and I can't sing it's praises enough!! My daughter's coordination has improved so much in 2 days. When she 1st started, she couldn't really make a straight line - but in two days, she has mastered it and she draws her lines and curves really quickly.

Also for the 1st time today she could use the touch thing (sorry not sure what it's called) on the laptop to navigate the arrow to play a game. It seemed to have really improved her hand to eye coordination.

Thanks a lot ShenLi. Karma to you!

[LDSMom]

I got the iwrite app as well and my son is really enjoying it so far. REally hope this helps with his writting.

[bella]

we just go an ipad . my specialneed daughter got it from my family for her 18th birthday . I have an amazing family , i love them so much .
Now what to do with it . can you believe i got it last sunday and still didn't use it. I am a bit overwhelmed not sure where to start . of course i will be using it with her younger brother and sister . so i have to go back and check all the previous recommendations on ipad applications for my 3 and 5 years old .
for writting practice is anybody aware of cursive writing application on ipad ??
also would apreciate a shortcut of how best to start using my ipad .
for my 18 years old , it will be mainly ebooks , and special applications for communication , music and movies .
viv

[zoe22]

What I do from time to time is go to the app store and search a category eg education and look through the different apps.

A useful app to get is kindle, with that you can buy ebooks from amazon for your 18year old, even for the younger ones. I believe there're free ebooks as well.

Also if you search past forums here, you'll find threads with useful iPad/iPhone apps people use for their kids.

[Ayesha Nicole]

Hi there.

Dr. J. Richard Gentry's book has a lot of wonderful and practical information for reading and writing:

http://raisingconfidentreaders.blogspot.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Confident-Readers-Teach-Write/dp/0738213977/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274994696&sr=8-1

[PY]

Guys here is a WONDERFUL post about how to help your children to read and write:
http://montessoritraining.blogspot.com/2011/02/montessori-insights-and-reflections-of_15.html
py

[carpe vestri vita]

We decided to use homemade worksheets. I purchased a font package with the cursive my husband and I liked. We printed out the letters in 200pt dashed. I hand drew in a baseline.

I have my kids trace 3 letters per day. Obviously 3 yo DD is doing the best, but 21 mo DS is doing surprisingly well. The two year olds just are not into it. One won't even draw. 

I did a lot of research into letter formation and potential issues, which is why we settled on doing cursive first (not the program cursive first though).

[bella]

can you give me link for the font your purchased please
viv

[carpe vestri vita]

http://educationalfontware.com/

We chose SV Cursive to use. However you get all 300+ fonts when you buy. If we decide to switch script styles in the future we have plenty of choices.

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