by Briar Miller

Created on: January 17, 2011   Last Updated: February 18, 2011

By the time children start primary school, teachers expect that most of them will have a good understanding of what reading and writing are.  They won't expect them to be able to write essays, but they should be able to write and name individual letters and to produce some facsimile of their first names, and possibly other simple words. This gives teachers a good base to build on and ensures that the preschooler will be up and running when their reading and writing lessons begin.  Writing involves a complex interaction of skills. These include fine motor skills, cognitive skills and hand eye coordination. So how can we enhance writing skills in preschoolers?

As with anything else at preschool age, writing skills will be enhanced through play, through fun exploration, and through observation and copying of adults. 

So let's start with the cognition necessary for writing. Preschoolers must first become familiar with the idea that these marks on a page represent words which mean something. The best way to do this is by reading to them. Books with simple stories and good pictures, with lots of repetition of simple words can be shared with children from a very early age. They will soak up the concept of reading and writing without even noticing they've learned something quite complex.

Preschoolers love to draw and paint. These activities are excellent for developing the initial concept of representation, as well as beginning to develop the motor skills and hand eye co ordination necessary for writing. To enhance writing skills, preschoolers need to be offered a wide range of art materials such as paints, including finger paints, crayons, felt tips etc. To guide them more specifically towards writing skills, younger children can be offered templates to draw around and older ones could be given simple pictures to copy.

Writing involves quite fine control and co ordination of the muscles and structures of the hand, as well as hand-eye coordination. These are developing all the time as the child grows, but there are specific activities which will enhance the preschooler's physical ability to write. Even before the preschool stage, from about age 2, some of the child's drawing and painting can be guided towards writing skills. Encouraging them to draw lines from left to right is a good start, progressing to zigzags and wavy lines. Tracing of simple pictures and dot to dots are also very good fun activities which will help build confidence

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