In the younger years, children often lack strength in the muscles in their hands. This can be fixed with fine motor activities. Check out my post on brain bins.
As the strength in their hands increases, their ability to properly hold a pencil (tripod grip) and write improves. Ages 4-6 is the standard age to push for, but if your child isn’t ready yet just push for those fine motor skills!
Building writing stamina is important for young children. To write for longer periods of time without hand cramps, the muscles in their hands must be used and strengthened.
Start with stuff like highlighting and circling before moving onto writing words and sentences. The more opportunities children have to interact with writing, the better, but it doesn’t always have to be with pencils.
Here are 3 non-writing ways to improve writing stamina:
- Use letter tiles
- We use these ones from LOE but you can use any letter magnets, letter stickers, etc.
- The child grasps and moves the letters into formation on their own; this works pincer grasp.
- Consider having the child write every second word using letter tiles.
- Tracing
- Provide a tray and fill it with a thin layer of colored rice, sand, etc.
- Either provide a series of alphabet or word “play doh mats” for students to trace, or ask them to copy from the board onto their tray.
- Reinforces appropriate size and correct formation of the letters and words.
- Consider having each student write one word then trade with their neighbor to trace!
- Use prompts
- Not feeling connected to a piece of writing is a real problem! When using prompts remember we are not telling students what to write, but rather creating a platform and providing tools for them to unveil what interests them most.
- Fill-in-the-blank style stories make great prompts because most of the writing is already on the page but students walk away with a unique piece of their very own.
- Between cutting out the pieces & my progressive writing strategy, these 3 step picture prompts are a great way to build writing stamina!
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