5 year old and writing?

Question

My son is nearly five. He'll start formal schooling in September. He knows his letters and have started to read small 3 lettered words. But i feel that his pencil grasp is still poor. The fact that he hates colouring isn't helping, so i think that pencil/crayon grasping, which is a fine motor skill isn't well developed. I'm making him write some numbers and letters everyday to make his fingers stronger. Any ideas? What do you think about this. In my country, schooling is very much based on writing, so he'll be expected to do that often as from next september.

Answer 1

My daughter also had this problem.  As a teacher and a parent I was stuck in a rut with what to do, I didn't really care what her grasp was, nor my students as long as I could read what she wrote.  Her writing was legible and her pencil grasp was akward.  What is a very good thing to do to help the pencil grasp is to have them hold a cotton ball while writing.  It is very hard to describe, but it works with almost all of my students and my daughter.  Have your son hold the pencil with his thumb and then his pointer, if he needs extra support also his middle finger.  With his other fingers have him hold onto the cotton ball, and tell him not to let it drop.  Make a game of it and it will become second nature to him.  Hopefully it helps!!

Answer 2

Play- doh/ modeling clay

cutting

tearing paper w/ hands

putting pegs in holes

Lacing cards

small Lego's IE Mosaic Lego's

Answer 3

I could read and write when I was four before I went to school.  I didn't go to nursery or pre-school. You have to let him take his own time. If you make it hard work it will hold him back. My mother always made it fun. If it's fun it comes easier. I've known many a genius who's writing was atrocious. He has a lot of writing ahead of him, let him be a 5 year old.

Answer 4

He is only five...he still needs lots of fun!! Make it Fun and not gruesome work. Also affirm him..."Wow, you really did that curve in the "D" that time in the right direction"...vs. " don't do it in that direction, do it this way."

Also for his fine motor skills, playing with clay while you make "meatballs" and "spagetti" and shapes like that and painting fun ideas with brushes. These will all help his motor skills. How is he with buttoning and zippering? These everyday activities help in the long run.

Good luck!

Answer 5

preschool is now called peeschool!!!

Answer 6

Writing is not the only thing that will improve his grip or pencil control.  If you push writing to hard you run the risk of frustrating both him and yourself.  Reading three letter words is fine for an almost five year old.  Let me give you a few tips for finger grip.

1) for general hand strength you could offer him modeling clay.  (not playdoh, Clay)

2) puzzles with k***s require the use of the same grip as holding a pencil

3)playing with tops requires the use of the same grip as holding a pencil

4)Educational supply stores have cheap plastic things that you slip on a pencil to ensure a correct grip.

When he starts formal schooling in September, you want him to be eager to go to school and learn.  Don't make writing and coloring an area of stress for him.  When it ceases to be fun; Stop. Try something else.  He is not behind and you don't have to push him.  Be in frequent communication with his teacher to make sure that you two are both on the same page as to where his reading skills are and where they should be.

Answer 7

his teachers will help if you make the aware of this when he starts.  they'll also probably be able to give him things to practice with your help when he is home from school.

Answer 8

he needs to engage in activities to improve his fine motor skills...some kids love doing things like connecting paperclips into chains then un-connecting them...there are lots of materials available like learning links, legos, working with scissors...go to a teacher store and find materials he might like

Answer 9

Cutting activities really help with their fine motor skills.  At the very beginning of kindergarten, that's something that we really work on because the hand muscles need to develop and grow stronger in order to transfer it to writing.  Practice cutting on straight lines, wavy lines, bumpy lines, castle tops, and zig zag lines.  He might not be able to at first but don't be hard on him.  It's something that IS NOT easy for them to do at first.  Practice makes perfect.  You can do some art activities that involve cutting, glueing and coloring.  It might seem very uneducational but trust me, he will be learning many skills while having fun.  

Have you tried giving him coloring pages with cartoons that he likes?  Spongebob, super heroes, Cars, etc.

Answer 10

Everyone is right on!  It's just his fine motor skills that need to be developed.  I think less focus on making him write daily and more focus on fun fine motor activities.  Cutting with safety scissors, playing with silly putty...better yet make silly putty or playdough with your preschooler!  You can do double duty skills and let him sort small objects -coins, beads, beans, legos, any small object that he has to use his fingers to grasp.  Have fun!  Good for you for being so involved!

Answer 11

I would be very careful about MAKING him do writing as he may see it as a chore and not learn the fun and enjoyment-if it seems like you are forcing him he may see it as a negative experience and back away even further.

Try making it fun: wet sand in a tray-use fingers to make marks-dont have to be letters can just be squiggles-can also use shaving foam, thin layer of ketchup etc.

                            : Role Play-does he like s****., spiderman etc-can make writing into a game or buy stationary with characters on it. Also times like birthdays/xmas where you're son can make a list of things he wants-doesnt matter if you cant read it its actually enjoying writing which is the aim.

Other things to do is work on other strengthing of fine motor skills-scissors, peg and boards, pegging washing on lines, actions song eg: Tommy Thumb, lego etc.

Good luck for September-a lot can happen in the next 5 months!

Answer 12

Get you son into colours.  Go out and buy some cheap water colours and a few brushes of different sizes.  Get a large artists' drawing pad and get painting.  Anything will do, simple up and down strokes any colour and across sideways stokes etc.  Let him go wild with the brushes and colours.

IF AN ELEPHANT CAN PAINT, SO CAN WE...

YouTube - Painting Elephant

This elephant paints pictures of other elephants http://www.kootykinz.

com/webkinz/webkinz-velvety-elephant.h... m.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FGEJKQza...

Answer 13

You can buy him some pencil grips to help him hold his pencil correctly, make it exciting and he wont want to stop writing. good luck!

Answer 14

The biggest thing that help with pencil grips are puzzles with k***s on them.  If you look up "Montessori materials" and look at the puzzles, you'll be able to find many that have k***s perfect for the pencil grip.  Many can be purchased on EBay for far less than you would get them at a Montessori material store.

Other things that help:

--Transferring beads (though he's possibly a little too old to care about that right now)

--Tonging activities

--Penny shining

--Any activity that incorporates the pencil grip with the fingers.

Answer 15

have him tear paper - great small motor activity

Answer 16

i no alot of people have replied but i thought i would say keep an eye on this, my sons wasted picked up until really late, they said he was lazy, he lacked fine motor skills, and couldnt hold a pencil correctly. id tell the teacher who will be his teacher next year, so they know that you are aware of this problem, my son had other learning and behaviour problems so things were much different for him, what i found helped my son was getting those pens with the grippy bit on them, once he was doing it that was he really developed well, they even got in special pens just for him, 2 help him out, good luck and im sure everything will be fine

Answer 17

hmm try to get him to do finger exorsises or get him a lil game boy advanced ds and he can play on it with a game pen. but be sure he doesn't get too addicted

to gaming just try and get him to devolope one letter at a time

from a-z and 1-9