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Step 1
Practice. Whether you’re teaching your kids the alphabet or how to write a short story, nothing will improve their abilities more than making it a daily affair. You don’t need to overwhelm them, either: just 20 minutes a day is enough to reinforce the concept.
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Step 2
Make it a game. If you’re teaching your kids to write the alphabet, play “find the letter,” where you challenge them to find a specific letter as many times as possible in your surroundings. This works particularly well outside, where kids have a chance to look for letters in billboards, signs and street items.
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Step 3
Start with the basics. Cursive letters are much harder to master than block letters. If you want to teach your kids to write at an early age (before they start kindergarten), concentrate on block letters, either capitals or small ones. Giving them too many options will just make it harder on them.
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Step 4
Connect pictures with words. Kids are particularly visual, so showing them a drawing that represents the word you want them to learn can be especially useful. You can also help them create a memory book in which they can draw or glue photos of words that are especially useful, along with the written form of this word.
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Step 5
Buy a game or system designed especially to help kids learn to write. The LeapFrog TAG Reading System is a good example. The toy looks like a pen but when you roll it over words, it will actually read them out loud. This is a great way for kids to practice reading or to make their own writing come to life. Other toys that may help are wipe-clean books where children can trace letters over and over again as practice and the Hooked-on-Phonics read and write programs.
