Writing the Alphabet:
A Simple Secret Weapon
Q. What
should parents do with preschool children to help them be better readers
sooner?
Take a
multisensory approach. Reading may seem like a passive process, but actually,
it's very active, in a mental sense. As with any other activity, you can
practice the subskills of reading until they're second nature. Then when you
bring them all together, you'll be that much ahead of the game.
Build
skills in listening, seeing, speaking and fine-motor coordination for your
child with a simple daily practice: printing the English alphabet.
Why? To
create familiarity in your child's mind with the shape of the letters. It
figures that the more familiar a child is with the alphabet, the easier reading
will be, since of course, the elements of words are the alphabet letters. It is
striking how many children labeled "reading disabled" who can't recognize or
print alphabet letters very well. There must be something to the idea that
handwriting practice trains the brain to recognize which letter is which.
Writing
fluency may occur rapidly, or take months or even years. Every child is
different. The key is to keep at it until the skill is acquired.
It's like
teaching a child the elements of soccer: how to kick, where to kick, how to
throw in, where to throw in, how to do a corner kick, where to be on the field,
how to pass, and so on. After enough drills on these elements, the child will
start integrating them and will gain more and more facility with the ball. If
you put a child into a soccer game, the result will be a lot more successful
than if the child goes in there blind.
You want
your child to be able to visualize what an alphabet letter looks like, and be
able to record it on paper accurately and quickly. That way, when the child
later encounters that letter in a word on the printed page, the child has a
better chance of automatically and fluently reading it.
Being able
to print alphabet letters fluently also sets up your child to be able to print
words quickly, so that the child's ideas can be set down on paper quickly.
Children who are not practiced and competent with handwriting write shorter
sentences and stories and both read and write fewer words than children who
have had good handwriting practice.
Here's what
do:
Just as
soon as your child can sing or say the alphabet, sit him or her down for just a
few minutes a day - literally, five minutes a day will help - with some paper
and a pencil, and a chart of the alphabet letters to copy.
For small
hands, break a pencil in half or use a golf pencil.
The paper
doesn't have to be lined, but it helps.
You can get
a desk-size chart of the alphabet in laminated form from a school supply store.
It should include arrows to show the direction of the strokes.
Help your
child learn how to hold the pencil correctly, tilt the paper, and then go to
work copying the alphabet in print.
Make sure
you are teaching the child how to make the correct handwriting strokes to form
the alphabet letters. Strokes must go from top to bottom and from left to right.
Curves of letters such as "o," "e" and
"c" should go counter-clockwise.
An
excellent handwriting resource for this process is "Handwriting Without Tears"
(www.hwtears.com)
Encourage
your child to sing or say the alphabet letter as he or she writes it. You can
sing along if you'd like.
Kindergarten
teachers prefer that you teach the lower-case letters instead of allowing all
capitals, but you might want to start with capitals if it makes it more fun for
your child.
By
the time your child can write about 40 letters per minute, he or she may be
considered on the threshold of independent reading. Congratulations!
Homework: Retired
physician Robert Rose has done the most research of anyone on this topic. You
can contact him at: rovarose@aol.com
By Susan Darst Williams • www.GoBigEd.com • Show 'n' Tell
For Parents 105 • © 2006
