Motivational PreWriting

I wanted to share a fun activity I've been doing with one of the kiddos I work with.

He's really into cars (as many kindergarten boys are) and he dislikes writing or practicing anything with pencil or paper (as many kindergarten boys do).

So, helping him with visual and fine motor skills for writing was a challenge. However, he loves chalk and pretending.

Chalk and chalkboards are an excellent tool to use for developing fine motor skills for writing. Having to maintain grasp on a small piece of chalk while pushing it across the board takes effort and helps build those little muscles in the fingers and hand. I recommend providing the child with broken pieces of chalk to work on increasing their pincher grasp. This will force them to use their finger tips vs using their fist or other compensatory strategies to avoid the effort of having to use their fingers.

Working on a vertical surface will help build shoulder strength but it may be more difficult for some children. So, do what works for your child or consult an occupational therapist for proper positioning techniques.

Here's the "game":

Start with a large chalkboard, chalkboard painted wall, butcher/poster page etc. Draw a person or animal on the left side of the board (dont judge my stick person).

Then, depending on your child's ability, make a "road" using curves or lines. If you're child is just starting out, draw the lines can be horizontal or vertical. Diagonal, curved and wavy lines are more challenging. The wider the road, the easier it is for the child.  At the end of the "road" draw a destination like a house (again, dont judge the art).

Have your child start on the left and use his chalk as a "car". Drawing inside the road from left to right. Here is an example of a narrative.

"Look, a giraffe! He's lost. Let's help him get back home using the magic road. Grab your chalk car and bring him home. Be careful not to fall off the road and don't go too fast or you could get a speeding ticket!!"

This is a great way to work on fine motor coordination and visual motor skills. Its teaching the child pre-writing movements necessary for letter formation. Its also working on fine motor control in order to keep that chalk car on the road! This will help the child write on the lines when the time comes.
You can also talk about how we start on the left and draw to the right. You can talk about top and bottom as well. These words (top, bottom, left, right) are important for understanding letter formation.

If you don't have a chalk board, try chalk outside on the concrete or crayons on paper. Using a white board isn't as effective because the dry erase markers slide across the board and don't give the same proprioceptive feedback to joints in the fingers as the resistance provided by chalk and crayons. Have fun with this activity, play around with story lines, use stickers in place of drawing if you aren't as "artistic" as I. ;) Enjoy!