How to Encourage a Toddler to Write

Make writing practice “fun” for your toddlers.  Put workbooks aside until and unless your toddler is really interested in them. You can easily inculcate writing habits to your young and toddlers. As you put the effort into them, they literally improve and make a mark in the writing world.  Read on the article and get to know various ways how writing practice can be inculcated through and through.

Start with their name

Make it relevant to them and what better than their own name. We want them to know that their name is actually important. They may not grasp all the letters, but it is an important writing exercise for them which impacts their preschool years and future. Children can also write their names in salt trays and can also do a drawing.

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Also, you can use clipboards to spark their interest. Other writing tools could be interesting markers, colored pencils, chalk, colored chalks, oil pastels, and different types of paints which could be used to begin the task of writing practice in your lovely toddlers. Tell them to make a grip on their fingers and help them your hands initially and once they learn, they are ready to take on the world of writing.

Letter formation can be practiced by cutting out the paper strips of letters and can be placed on paper with glue. On a sunny day, designs can be traced on a window and that is much helpful initially to learn this writing trick. Tell them to journal their day, favorite story, play, or movie. In the beginning, they will make pictures/drawings of it and that’s okay. Nothing has to be forced and whenever they want and like the way they like to write, let them write in the first step.

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Set up a writing station

Different types of paper or cards, scissors, glue, stickers can be kept at a writing station. And that’s the best part of having a writing station is children can come back to it any time of the day. It is kind of gives them thrill and excitement and they are ready to learn. You can give them colors or colored markers to create drawings and write letters.

Spray shaving cream on the kitchen counter or table and help your child write his/her name in foam.  After lots of practice, your child’s handwriting is sometimes unrecognizable.  Then, you can play some tricks to make your toddler remember the letters.

Put them in a group

Put your toddler in preschool where all peers are daily practicing the writing habit and after all, seeing them in the same age groups your toddler will also be able to learn and see the nitty-gritty of writing letters.

Make them learn to hold pencil grip and let them hone their motor skills by writing endlessly and doing more and more practice. You can spread mashed potatoes, sugar, flour, or shaving cream and tell them to go from left to right and bottom to up. And this way, you can make them write more accurately and they will learn very fast.

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Use raised lines or textured surfaces

Take the help of sandpaper to get that feel of raised lines and let your child’s writing bump into the raised lines.

Darken or highlight lines

As different letters are easy to remember when dark lines are put against them.  This way it is easy to practice written letters and this will also give them a hang of being in the lines or space.

Use space kid

And draw lines at the other side of the Popsicle stick (as an example) and write letters. It will help him grasp the concept of space and he/she will write letters and form them easily.

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So, all this way you can help your child nurture the writing practice all the while. Let him be interested in it and you make the most of it by spreading shaving cream or salt or sugar. All the tricks can be applied to let him go through his toddler years and let him get a hang of the written letters. And be patient all this while and have the ability to listen and communicate well with your toddler. Teach him with patience and leave no stone unturned. Who knows your children can possess the best handwriting skills ever in the whole classroom.