20 July 2022

Exercises to improve children’s handwriting

Establish a simple routine with your child to improve their handwriting with the activities that we are going to propose below. Not only will they improve your handwriting, but you’ll also have fun while spending time together.

Improving handwriting of kids is also improving their motor skills and brain coordination. Although it may seem like a simple task, using the pencil to write involves simultaneous processes that are not always automatic.

It is also necessary to clarify that the process of reading and writing depends directly on the muscular development of the hands.

Following this line of reasoning, it is not possible to think of correct writing without your child having acquired certain physical skills beforehand. One of them is the acquisition of the tripod tweezers position to hold the pencil correctly. In it is the secret to children’s handwriting Improvement and so that the lines are fluent.

As a general milestone, it is expected that by age 6, children will have gone through the pentadigital prehension until they reach the tridigital prehension . With this type of position, the writing exercises you will see below will be more effective.

1. To start, it is necessary that the tool is held with the thumb, index and middlefinger. Another important aspect is that the length and thickness of the instrument are appropriate for the size of the child’s hand. Also, the position should be firm, but not too much pressure.
2. One of the reasons that writing is difficult to understand, or not very aesthetic, is the lack of consistency. So, if you want to correct this aspect, it is important to use a calligraphy notebook and differentiate between upper and lower case letters.
3. Some activities that can help improve children’s handwriting are traditional games Connecting the dots in figures, making alphabet soup and the “hangman” will be fun ways to handle the pencil better.
4. As you already know, children’s fine motor skills depend on muscle development. Therefore, it is essential to exercise your fingers and wrists daily. Some simple ways to do this are: playing with sand, building blocks, using the cutlery on the table and coloring, cutting paper or modeling with clay.
5. That’s right: reading not only improves creative and cognitive development, but also favors the way of writing.The more familiar the child is with defined and proportional traits, the easier it will be for them to have more concrete mental images. That way, she can imitate the letters more easily.

Other important tips:

• Check for any hidden issues. Many children have problems with handwriting that go further and hide spelling difficulties or problems with attention. Unclear writing can also reflect a lack of interest in school matters.
• Provide a friendly and positive environment. That way, your child won’t think that practicing handwriting exercises is a punishment. Choose a place where the posture and lighting are favorable and allow him to exercise this skill without problems.
• Avoid putting pressure on them. Certainly calm and patience help children feel more secure and capable. Rushing them and forcing them to write well and quickly can be counterproductive and cause unnecessary frustration.
• Use primers with plans and templates. There are a large number of books with strokes and illustrations that exercise calligraphy. In addition, many of them also stimulate other fine motor skills, such as coloring, drilling, and drawing.
• Stimulate artistic skills. Painting or sculpting, for example, not only stimulates creativity , but also helps to improve coordination, a fundamental condition for children to be able to correctly trace each of the letters of the alphabet.

In short, improving handwriting of kids  is not an impossible task if it is constantly exercised. Applying the appropriate strategies contributes to the fact that writing is not a tedious activity, but a moment of sharing. Make acquiring this skill fun, and you will see wonderful results.