How do I teach my child to write?

Question

My daughter is 5 yrs. and getting ready to start kindergarden. I am a teacher and stumped on how to teach her to write her same. She is clearly amidextrose, and I can not teach her how to hold a pencil, because she favors her left hand and I am right. My specialty is not elementary. Any suggestions? Should I leave this to her teacher, the expert?

I meant teach her to write her name. I didn't have this problem with my other daughter and she makes straight A's.

Answer 1

Talk to your school's Occupational Therapist regarding lefties pencil grips, and writing skills.

Review your coursework child development books... she may have a slight delay in fine motor skills, and not quite be ready. Don't push too hard... you don't want her to hate writing!

Also, check these sites.

http://briem.ismennt.is/4/4.1.3a/4.1.3.4.left.htm

http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/acatalog/left_handed_children_handwriting.html

http://www.abcteach.com/directory/basics/handwriting/lefthanded_friendly_handwriting_practice/

http://www.zaner-bloser.com/html/HWsupport1.html

http://www.handwritinghelpforkids.com/expert.html

Answer 2

If she favors her left hand, she is not ambidextrous. Lefties are going to have a little more trouble. You might try sitting across from her or next to her (on her left side) so that you can help guide the pencil with your dominant hand while her dominant hand does the work.

Appreciate that she has to do about twice the work of other students just to stay even. She has to learn the shapes of the letters, how a righty does it, then translate that into a lefty pattern. There's a lot of confusion at that point. It is further confused a bit by what type of lefty she is. There is the hooking and non hooking lefty. Each write differently. Each has a different eye hand coordination.

She will figure this out eventually. Her brain may not have made the leap quite yet. Until it does, you can't teach her (or at least she can't learn). Once it makes the leap (which is driven by biology, not your effort), it will be relatively easy for her.

Ambidextrose would be a kind of a sugar. Perhaps you were hinting that she was a sweet child?

Answer 3

Well, leave it to her teacher, unless the teacher forces her to use her right hand. Forcing people to change their laterality is WRONG. If all else fails, you could teach yourself to write with your left hand (practice with it all the time, takes about 2-3 months for good penmanship to kick in), then teach your daughter.

Answer 4

call the school and talk to a kindergarten teacher about the manuscript models used(ie D'Nealian, block, etc) and get a copy of the models and hopefully the teacher can share the movement patterns used too! You want to teacher your daughter the forms she will be using so she will not have to relearn new forms when she gets to school.
Provide some tracing activities with her name and other letters too.
other activities: paint name on driveway or sidewalk with water and paintbrush, chalk and chalkboard(kids love this) or dry erase board

Answer 5

In a way you should leave it to the teacher but I had an experience as a child, I was born left handed but my kindergaten teacher changed me and as a result I'm left handed mentally but right handed physically. this is not a problem but in a way i still wish i was left handed.
You can teacher her yourself or you can wait until she is ready. Its entirely up to her and you!!!