How to make your child understand writing in their early years
When your child is young, here are some tips on making them understand writing.
India Today : Can young children be writers? Can scribbling or drawing be precursors to writing?
Children as young as two make dots or lines and move on to scribble or draw on every surface they can lay their hands on. They do so long before they learn to hold a pencil or a chalk piece. Are these activities useful? And are these baby steps to writing?
Children often resist when parents coerce them to write. Consider this relatable exchange with my friend.
My friend, a mother of four-and-a-half-year-old Arav, instructs him to practice alphabets and words.
Ria : Arav, write the letters A to E, each letter twice. Then I will make you spell words
Me : Why are you putting pressure on him?
Ria : He is engaged in drawing all the time but doesn’t want to write. Handwriting is also dirty.
Me : Let him enjoy drawing, he will eventually learn to write
Ria : His teacher says that if he doesn’t learn to write well, it will be difficult to secure admission to a good school.
Me : If you force him, instead of learning to write, he will start disliking writing
Like Ria, most parents turn anxious and concerned over their children’s reluctance to write.
INDIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM
The Indian school system focuses on rote learning and expects young children to master the letters, spell correctly, and copy-write sentences repetitively. Children are forced to take these tasks seriously with undivided focus.
Five-year-olds are seen practicing writing letters in silence. This approach fails to help children understand the meaning, relevance, or purpose of writing. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they often develop an aversion towards writing.
It is rarely understood that when children scribble or draw, they are expressing their thoughts or ideas in a written form. When we ask them to talk about their drawings, they might amuse us or leave us baffled by their stories, as objects in their pictures may have little or no correlation with the characters in their stories. Consequently, these skills are ignored and not considered essential aspects of writing.
SKILLS REQUIRED
Several studies show that these are precursors to developing writing skills. Writing is a gradual process that moves from scribbles to forming letters to invented spellings and eventually to conventional spellings and writing.
Besides cognitive ability, the development of fine motor skills is essential to help children write. Writing requires good hand-eye coordination and strong small muscles (wrists, fingers, and hand) to hold a pencil correctly and comfortably using three fingers – thumb, index, and middle fingers (tripod grip) and write without pain.
