With all of the talk about memory techniques and knowing my sons lack of desire to write, I’ve decided to start a little journal with him to hopefully help him in both areas. We are talking pen and paper here which is a lot harder for me than rattling something off on the keyboard. I just wanted to share in case anyone else was interested in doing one with their child or has any experiences to share with others.
We are just sitting down before bed time and he tells me what to write about his day. Sometimes he gets really silly but mostly he does a pretty good job telling about his day. This is coming from the child who normally responds “I don’t know” when asking about what he did at preschool or whatever. So I write down whatever he tells me and he enjoys watching me write each word he says. We’ve only been doing it for a few days and already he is getting better at recalling. It has also been fun for me to look back and read what we wrote a few days ago. It’s amazing the things we forget so easily! We may read through some of the past writings on Sundays. I’m hoping he will eventually be interested in writing entries himself although I suspect that won’t happen for quite a while. We have also been keeping a book journal where we record what book he read, the date and how many pages he read. We aren’t really doing this for any specific reason other than I’m really interested in seeing at the end of the year how many pages he has read and I think it will be fun to look through his list later on to see his progression from Bob Books to whatever. Anyway, just some thoughts I wanted to share.
He is 4 1/2 and heading to Kindergarten in the fall and will be one of the youngest in class. He’s reading really well but isn’t so fond of writing. I’ve been trying really hard not to push him too much but want him to feel comfortable enough with at least writing letters by kindergarten. He’s also left handed and I wasn’t really sure how to teach him to write for a while. I’m glad to be a part of this forum with so many great ideas!
My son is quite a bit younger, but here’s my tuppence worth … I’ve been printing out text in a light coloured or dashed font and my son has really enjoyed writing over the top of it. I just put a video on my blog yesterday.
LDS Mom- have you seen these? http://tvteachervideos.com/ They’re very good! Very expensive but my biggest regret was not buying them SOONER. Lily’s interest in handwriting was there but not the technique since she was just starting out.
I <3 Miss Marnie. I didn’t do outside much of occasionally reinforcing the lessons, more so in the beginning. Lily now forms 8’s correctly which totally shocked me when I first saw it, but it was all Miss Marnie. Her program really works! A friend of mine says of all their educational DVD’s, Miss Marnie is her kids’ favorite. They sit down with dry erase markers and practice for fun.
What if my child is left-handed?
We have had many left-handed children use our program, all reporting great success. Letter formations should be made the same way regardless of which hand is used. Although “Miss Marnie†demonstrates writing with her right hand, the auditory chants we use (and those that will be recalled by each user), are entirely ambidextrous. Example chant of lowercase b: “long line down, bring it up and around, b.†As with all our users, we encourage parents and teachers to help guide the child with a hand-over-hand grasp to help the child formulate each letter until they feel comfortable attempting to write on their own.
but my biggest regret was not buying them SOONER. Lily’s interest in handwriting was there but not the technique since she was just starting out.