The ABC Writing Lesson is your child's first step to handwriting. By
now, your child can hold a pencil and draw short straight lines,
triangles, squares, and circles. Great! It's time to learn letters.
After writing letters becomes automatic, your child will combine them
effortlessly into words. Next, she will write words as they pop into her
mind, not thinking about the individual letters. She will focus on the
content and not on the hand movement. Handwriting and reading go
together. Developing handwriting skills will speed up learning to read.
The ABC Writing Lesson follows the alphabet and provides practice
pages for lower and uppercase letters, and numbers. Have your child use
a soft lead pencil, perhaps with a pencil grip. Remind her not to hold
the pencil too tightly and not to press it too hard on the page. For
younger children with less developed fine motor control, consider a
crayon; using a regular pencil or pen might be too difficult. You will
find the upper and lowercase letters are similar in size. At this point
only the shape is important; understanding of scale comes later. Ask
your child to trace the letters and copy them in the blank areas with
lines. Encourage your child to stay within the lines when tracing
letters but not be too strict about how she forms them. Only practice
and repetition matter at this point. Every child has a unique writing
style and follows their own path of motor development. Be patient, and
practice will work its magic. There is a dotted line around the main
picture; have your child trace it. The dotted pictures are also for the
child to trace and color for better fine motor control. If you need
additional practice pages, go to the expanded version of this book in
printable PDF format on our website, www.readinglesson.com. When ready,
move on to the Teach Me Handwriting book in this series. Happy writing
from the Giggle Bunny and the Reading Lesson team.
