Sensory learning is the best approach to teaching in the early years.  What is sensory learning?  It is learning with all of your senses!  Think about that.  Can you smell it? taste it? see it? feel it? Hear it? Using each of the five senses is sensory learning. Teach like you are a scientist making observations!

Explore different ways to make learning fun.  For example, help your child make play dough snakes and have them line them up over the letters. Even if preschoolers can not make snakes they can begin to explore spacial relationships of letter making.  Or take a small mag light and pass it over the letters on a flash card in the way they would form the letters. Be careful as a parent that you don’t pass on bad habits of letter making to your children. For example, don’t trace back over letters. Teach them the proper way to grasp a pencil for forming letters.  Starting at the top and learning the correct sequence for letter formation is necessary for success.

Hand Writing Without Tears is a handwriting curriculum that starts in preschool with activities and with toys to start the child off right. They use techniques that children remember like learning your LEAP FROG letters, that will help a child to remember to leap up to finish their letter.

You know your child, and you as a parent know what they like, what motivates them, and you are their best teacher in the early years.

Check out Hand Writing Without Tears and look at some of the activities they use.  For example, using a wet finger on a chalk board is sensory learning; the child feels how the letter is made with his or her finger.  Next progress to a small piece of chalk or a small crayon and write on paper to teach the proper way to hold a pen or pencil when they are ready.  Tip: don’t throw away broken crayons. A crayon about one inch long is the best size for teaching a child to grasp a pencil or pen. Give it a try and enjoy your time with your child. That is one of the first steps for teaching children that it can be fun to learn!

Roslyn

Hand Writing Without Tears:  http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/parents