Teaching penmanship using large motor skills part 1
It took me a while to write this up because I wanted to take pictures of this 6 years old boy that I have started tutoring in September 2007. He is going to be the case study of how you can train penmanship using large motor skills.
(I did not show the child this sheet, some of you who knows Montessori well enough would know it’s not Montessori to “mark” the sheet or “correct” the answers.)
He has been to preschool since 3 years old, he cannot read and the above is what he had written down when I dictated 20 out of the 26 letter names. So, his problem is much more serious than the normal uncertainty of whether there are two or one “f” in Differin.
You would have expected most children to know how to write out the 26 letters from memory (without looking) since they have been writing don’t know how many worksheets. You will be surprised. It is quite common for children who have written hundred pages of handwriting practices and could not write a-z from memory. One of the things that went wrong was: the children were just copying the letters as pictures and there were no muscle memory and automaticity.
We want to train their muscles to remember because if they spend too much time trying to recall the picture memory of the letters, they would end up spending all their energy on that and none left to remember what they are writing.
Filed under Learning problem, Pre Writing Exercises, penmanship | Comment (0)Penmanship – Cursive for 3-4 years old?
I teach 3-4 years old cursive writing. You will be surprised how well they received it. To the children cursive is not any more difficult than print. The form of cursive that we choose has the advantage of starting from the same level for every letter. The children do not have sufficient small muscle skills to handle a pencil at 3-4 years old. How do you teach them penmanship when they do not know how to handle a pencil?
An indirect preparation for writing begins with Practical Life Exercises, which are presented to the children when they enter the Montessori classroom ideally at age three. These are a series of carefully laid-out activities involving those tasks the children see accomplished daily in their own homes and which, therefore, they spontaneously seek to imitate: the washing of hands, cleaning table, preparation of food, etc. The purpose of these exercises is not to learn the particular skill involved, although this accomplishment undoubtedly will aid the self-confidence and independence of children. It is rather to enable the children to develop control of movement, concentration, self-discipline, and the ability to complete a cycle of activity. Without this early experience with the Practical Life Exercises, any further exposure to the Montessori materials is fruitless, for the children will be unable to control their own minds and movements even when they wish to.
The direct preparation of writing begins with the use of sandpaper letters, and sand tray, as a form of kinesthetic/tactile practice for teaching penmanship before ever transitioning to paper/pencil. If a child cannot form the letters for himself in this media first, he shouldn’t be working with a pencil. The reason being: we’re working on motor patterns, not replicating an image we happen to call a letter.
At the same time, the muscular movement needed for writing is refined by the use of thumb and index finger to grasp tiny knobs used in much of the equipment. Control of a pencil is developed by tracing of metal frames with geometric “metal” insets such as a circle.
The child did practice writing, but I have no proof for it, because tracing on the sandpaper letters and writing on the sand do not leave any “proof”. Well, I am also running a business and dealing with parents who have little understanding about learning, left alone learning the Montessori way.
How? I have them do tracing on the paper after they know how to “write” on the sand(which is redundant, senseless work), but parents are happy their children know how to “write” now.
Well, I knew that!
I guess it’s hard to believe whether the teacher was bluffing or not when she said “We did, we traced sandpaper letters and wrote on the sand. :-)
It’s funny, the children who have been working on the motor patterns are so confident that cursive writing is a piece of cake and they love to trace that on papers with not so developed small muscles, and produced tons of “proof”. One of the 4 years old boys brought back more than 100 pages of cursive tracing at the end of the school year. Another 3 1/2 years old boys asked for extra sheets to trace during the school holidays.
Filed under Pre Writing Exercises | Comments (3)
