Homeschool World Forum

[Tanikit]

I am teaching my four year old to write and she is doing fine, but when teaching a 4 year old some things do need to change simply because they do not have the fine motor control that older children have. The main key is to teach BIG - he should not be tracing anything at this stage as most tracing worksheets are too small. Start by teaching him to form the letters big in the air - make sure you stand behind him and guide his entire arm. When he can make the letter in the air by himself get him to make it with just his finger on a piece of paper or standing at a large whiteboard. And finally give him the pencil and watch every single letter he creates to correct any bad formation - at this stage you should not be worrying about sizes of the letters or word spacing or anything but that he forms the letters correctly. Then print out some copywork on landscape with a very big space underneath and again warch the letter formation only and work on word spacing if everything is going well. Doing everything much bigger is the key.