In the methodology and activities

In the preschool and first school year of the primary school, children with impaired handwriting benefit from activities that:

stimulate prerequisites

• cutting

• pasting

• copying movements of fingers, hands and arms

• playing with small balls

• playing with pearls

• coloring lines, spaces, etc…

• making knots

support learning to form letters:

• playing with clay to strengthen hand muscles;

• drawing shapes on the sand using fingers;

• keeping lines within mazes to develop motor control;

• connecting dots or dashes to create complete letter forms;

• tracing letters with index finger or eraser end of pencil;

• imitating the teacher modeling sequential strokes in letter formation

• copying letters from models

• coloring using different instruments (i.e. fingers, paintbrush without color, paintbrush with color; big finger-tips; small fiber-tip; pencil; wax-crayon; crayon)

• coloring using different methods (coloring with dots; vertical/horizontal/diagonal lines; little circles; little spirals in anticlockwise)

help them to develop automatic letter writing,:

• studying numbered arrow cues that provide a consistent plan for letter formation;

• showing a letter; covering it and writing the letter from memory after interval that increases in duration;

• writing letters from dictation (spoken name to letter form)