From Crayons to Pencils
No matter where your child is in terms of hitting their developmental milestones - it’s often challenging to know when it’s time to step things up.
One of my most frequently asked questions is:
“How do I know when my child is ready to start handwriting?”.
The answer to that question isn’t quite as cut and dry as we’d like it to be. As with every other skill, handwriting skills are best addressed when your child is developmentally ready to succeed. Some children are ready to start working on letters at very early ages (3+), while other children truly aren’t ready to start working on those skills until they reach school age.
While there is no simple answer, this guide will help you decide if your kiddo might be ready to take the next step. ⠀
Fine Motor Skills - One of the most important components of handwriting is being able to control the pencil or crayon. Is your child able to use a mature grasp pattern while holding their coloring tools? There are many types of pencil grips that are considered mature and functional - we aren’t too picky! Here are some examples:
If you notice that your kiddo is still using one of the grasp patterns shown below, they might need to spend some more time building up their fine motor skills before they start working on letter formation. Please note - the following grasp patterns are all developmentally appropriate as children move through the continuum of grasp development. We just want to make sure they are starting to move beyond these grasp patterns before we ask them to start forming letters.
Coloring Skills - If your kiddo has mastered the art of the crayon grip - let’s take a look at their coloring skills. When you sit down to do some coloring with your child - are they touching the crayon to paper? Making random scribbles? Attempting to color within the lines? Or - perhaps they are a natural Picasso and can out-color you in their “My-First Coloring Book”. Typically, we want kiddos to at least be *attempting* to color within the lines before the start working on letters in any capacity. This attempt signifies to us that they are beginning to understand the concept of controlling the crayon, and are using that coloring tool for a purpose.
Pre-Writing Strokes & Shapes - Still with us? Fantastic! The next skill we want to look for is pre-writing strokes & shapes. Pre-writing strokes consist of the strokes needed to form all shapes and letters. These include: vertical lines, horizontal lines, and diagonal lines. Pre-writing shapes include a circle, square, triangle, cross, & ‘X’. The progression of these skills starts with imitation - can your child copy you as they watch you draw the stroke/shape? Once they’re able to do that you can move onto copying - can your child look at a picture of a circle and copy it? I’ll put a break down of typical developmental ages for these shapes below, but please don’t take this too literally. As with everything we talk about on here, rates of skill development are different for every child. So if your child is 1 year ahead of the curve - amazing! And if they’re a little behind - they’ll get there!
Drawing Skills - Now that your child is beginning to get the hang of drawing pre-writing strokes and shapes, are they able to connect them into a meaningful picture? This could be a picture of themselves or family members, a favorite toy, a train, their pet, etc.
As an example - let’s break down the task of drawing a person. We need a circle for the head, a circle/square/triangle for the body, horizontal lines for the arms, vertical lines for the legs, curved lines for the mouth & ears, etc. That’s a lot! Simple self portraits are a fantastic way to practice all of the pre-writing strokes & shapes that we spoke about above, and are a great pre-curser to beginning letter work. It’s not necessary for your child to have mastered all of the pre-writing strokes and shapes before beginning letters, but they should be able to copy a vertical line, horizontal line, circle, and cross.
The beauty of the way we approach letters is that we follow a developmental sequence. That means that we start with letters that have only vertical and horizontal lines (the first pre-writing strokes), and eventually progress to more challenging letters. Often times, children that we work with begin to master some of the more challenging pre-writing strokes (ex. diagonal lines) through our letter work together. Talk about two-birds-one-stone!
There is no correct time to start your child on their journey with handwriting - the most important thing is that you follow their lead and let them develop at the rate that is most comfortable for them.
Are you feeling like your child might be ready to join the handwriting fun?
If so, I’d love to help!
I recommend checking out my Kindergarten Prep Fine Motor Workbook! Using this book, children will be exposed to pre-writing shapes, capital letters, and various fine motor activities to begin their handwriting journey. There are also QR codes throughout the book that will link you to my Youtube channel for follow-along videos for letter formation.
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If your child isn’t quite ready yet - make sure you subscribe to our newsletter (below) to stay up to date on activities you can do to help them prepare for this exciting next step!