A blog post by our founder, Isabelle Baril

About the author: 
My name is Isabelle Baril and I am the founder of Mind Growth Education. I have taught for over ten years at the French Immersion primary level. I graduated from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, BC, with a Teaching Degree in Social Studies and Special Education, and also have an undergraduate degree in Geography and French from Laurentian University, in Sudbury, Ontario. I’ve always had a strong passion for helping others, that is why I became a teacher and an entrepreneur in the education world.

Good day!

Here are some general tips regarding teaching/practicing handwriting:

• Plan to do handwriting on a daily basis until your child can remember how to form the letters and do it reasonably well.
• Make certain that your child follows the examples (or writes in the correct direction) when forming letters.
• Be certain that you supervise your child because it is very difficult to un-teach something that your child has taught himself to do the wrong way.
• Some children can’t decide which hand to write with.
• Please do not fret over that, let him/her decide which hand he/she will write with that day.
• Someday he/she will settle on his preferred hand.
• After your child can remember how to form the letters and do it reasonably well, you should have handwriting classes as needed and you will decide that based on how well your child is doing.

You will know that your child is doing well….

• When all of the short lower case letters are of the same height.  
• When all of the upper case letters and tall letters are the appropriate height. 
• When his/her words are evenly spaced. 
• When the letters in the words that he/she writes are spaced properly. 
• When the letters have a similar slant. 
• When all of the letters are “seated” on the line. 

*The guidelines in the list above can be tackled one at a time.

Don’t feel that a worksheet must be completed in one sitting. Go gentle with the criticism; remember, there’s a lot of time for your child to practice and become better at handwriting. I recommend short classes. Five to fifteen minutes should be the maximum (depends on child’s age and capabilities).

Here are some early writing activities for children to do:

• Air writing (write large imaginary letters in the air) 
• Sand writing (writing letters in the sand or loose dirt) 
• Leaf writing (shuffle feet in fallen leaves to make large letters) 
• Sticks and strings writing (provide sticks [or toothpicks, pencils] and strings, use items to form letters 
• Write on a wipe off board or a chalk board 
• Tracing large letters that you’ve written on paper 

Here are a few hand-eye activities to improve his/her motor skills:

Activity	Click on image for purchase on Amazon
Playing with Legos® or other kinds of blocks
Lacing boards or stringing beads
Tying bows or tying shoes
Using scissors
Finger painting
Playing with Play-Dough
Working puzzles
Form letters or shapes with Wiki Stix

N.B. I am an affiliate associate with Amazon. If you click on the product image, it will send you to Amazon’s website where you can purchase the product, which means I’ll make a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you purchase through one of my links. Thank you for your support! Happy shopping!

**Do not forget to check out our blog posts about “Holding the pencil” and “Benefits of Cursive Writing” publishing soon!

Happy writing!
IB 🙂
Founder of Mind Growth Education