Writing Letters & Reading

The approach that’s worked the best for has been to teach the letter name, sound, and writing at the same time. Tracing letters worksheet style approach has not worked well, it’s frustrating because it’s limited space which requires a lot of muscle control (and that comes with a lot of practice to build muscle strength). So that was frustrating and he refused to do those types of letter tracing activities. So what we did was to give him a huge piece of paper and let him write the letters as big as he wanted and where he wanted. We did this by painting, on chalkboard, with markers, crayons, pencils and pens (those are all different grip for developing muscle strength). Outside he’d use a stick or his finger write letters, shapes, draw, etc. We started with his favorite letter to write and worked up from there. And over time, scaled down the letter size to be smaller and uniform (i.e. more controlled writing). At this point he can write the alphabet legibly. For reading, he started to identify letters when we read together, and we’d reinforce the phonetic sound. So now he knows the letter names (LeapFrog Learning Success Bundle helped a lot with that) and we’re working on the corresponding phonic sounds (prior to blending). I’m using the Logic of English Doodling Dragons for that (it really helps a lot that he’s big on dragons). Reading is a different creature. Writing has been easier because it flows over from drawing, doodling, painting. Reading requires remembering sounds and the process of vocalization. So building up to that. <br>