how to teach a 3year old to write alphabets and numbers?

Question

My 3year old daughter has just started school and with alphabets and numbers, but i just cant get her to be intersted
in them. How do i get her to be good at them. Should i hold her
hand first or should i use dots or should i make her overwrite.
Pls help...tks

Answer 1

Write the letters as dots and have her trace the dots.

Answer 2

Before you start you must make sure your child holds a pencil correctly. A good practice for this is rubbings. Break a crayon in half, remove paper. You can purchase rubbing plates or use items from nature (leaves work really well). Allow your child to hold the crayon on its side and with paper over the leaf, rub the crayon to make an impression of the leaf. This is a perfect exercise for the hand to hold a pencil. You have to make it fun, not work.
Writing letters and numbers comes from feeling how the movement of the hand works. Try sandpaper letters, this allows the child to FEEL the letter and its shape. Always start with lowercase letters. Discuss the phonetic sound as you do this. Then progress to a cake pan with cornmeal or sand covering the bottom. Feel the letter, say the sound, write it in the pan using the finger. If you can leave both of these exercises available for your child to do when she wants to, you'll find she will PLAY at it more often than you think. Remember, reading is not just recognizing letters, but sounds that those letters make. It is especially important for the short vowel sounds.
The more you try to force her, the more resistant she will be. 10-15 minutes a day on these exercises will surfice but I think you will find her more intrigued. Reading to her, using silly songs etc are all excellent motivators.
My daughter just turned 5, never wanted me to show her anything. So I gave her notebooks, pencils, pens etc.; gave her things to trace, stencils. Used the sandpaper letters (a few at a time), swept up plenty cornmeal off the floor, once she knew the letter sounds, showed her how to use 3 letter word families. She currently has better penmanship than my 9 year old and reads on a 2nd grade level.

Answer 3

My boss's 3 year old has been in the office for the last year or so and around 2 /1/2 was asking us to write her name, write mommy, daddy, our names etc. So we did. We also got her an alphabet puzzle that we helped her with. She would pick up a piece and we would ask her what letter it was, and we would correct her if it is wrong then we would explain to her which letter it went next to and she would find the spot.

Now at 3, she picked up some of it, she knows most of the letters, she can write H, A, J, Y, and O without help and we just keep writing things she asks us to and she is copying or we will hold the pen with her and help guide it.

Biggest thing is remember learning is supposed to be fun. The closer it is to play, the higher chance she will be interested. If not, I wouldnt start worrying yet, most pre-k and kindergarten classes spend plenty of time on it and quite a bit is learned by just repetition and constant exposure.

Answer 4

Three year old attention span doesn't last long enough to teach the way you are interested. Stimulation is the key and of course repeat repeat...
Best way to get her interested is with some training videos with the Big Bird bunch or Little Einstein or even Dora the Explorer. With music and fun interaction she will be more interested in the whole idea. Another way to get her interested in writing is with a chalk board or erase board or even finger paints... The first thing that is taught after the alphabet is to teach her how to write her name. She hasn't made the connection yet between words, alphabet and language. Right now it just shape and color which you can use to get the connection across.

Answer 5

I would wait until she is 4 to start practicing numbers and letters, this gives you a year to work with her before she starts pre-school. In the meantime, you can show her the correct way to hold a crayon. When she colors, guide her hand and tell her to "wiggle, wiggle" the crayon. Trust me, it sounds stupid but it works. Not only is coloring fun for kids but it strengthens the use of their hand and will significantly help when you do start teaching her how to write.

Once she is older, purchase a writing book at the store with dotted letters and numbers. When you're sitting down to write with her, hold her hand in place to get her comfortable with the correct way to hold a pencil. Make sure she traces these letters correctly. If she's tracing the letter A, for example, make sure her pencil touches the highest point of the A first. If she traces as she sees fit, she won't be learning the correct way the letters are to be written. Once she traces the A, have her write one of her one on a seperate piece of paper (some writing books provide spaces for this.) They key is repetition, do this with her once everyday for a half hour or so, making sure to reward her progress with stickers and small toys she'll enjoy. She will begin to feel proud that she is doing so well and it will become exciting for her, not only because she is being rewarded but because she will finally start to understand how to write letters and numbers.

Answer 6

Right now i wouldn't try helping her to write anything. Her scribbles and lines represent writing. You won't be able to see anything reconzible until she's closer to four, and even then it can be hard. Right now focus on teaching her the alphabet, pointing out different letters in everyday objects. Making up songs about the letters (so she gets the letter sounds), letting her see you write (even if it's just a grocery list) and having a supply of crayons and paper handy all over the house. on her own she'll start copying you when you write marking the paper with scribbles. Also the first thing kids love to write is there own name, so label her drawings for her or write it down yourself and ask her to copy her name. then make sure that you praise her for a job well done.

Answer 7

I am working with my three year old on letter recognition right now. She has the fridge magnets, and some ABC books. She can sing the song.

I created an ABC bird book, with one bird for each letter. (Talk about tricky when I got to U & Z!!) She observes the birds with my mom, so I did a cardinal & chickadee for C, penguin for P, etc. That is something that interests her though. You could make one about her interests.

I am going to make some ABC cards using cardstock & colored glue. Then, she'll be able to feel the letters. I may add some sand or glitter to the glue, so she'll really get the texture.

One thing I did with my preschool class was create an ABC book as a class. I cut out a letter for each child, then we did some artwork on the letter. I used little carrots & make apples on the A, Bubble wrap on the B, Colored on the C
D=dots, E=eggs, F=flowers, G=giraffe (looking-with torn brown paper over yellow), H=hair (with yarn).....you get the idea. Make them relate to something in her every day life.

I like the shaving cream & gel ideas. My daughter loves to play in the shaving cream. Be advised...strip her down to her panties...it gets everywhere!! :)

Answer 8

I agree that 3 is too young to be teaching letters and numbers. At 3, exploration is an important step in learning. Expose her to lots of different writing tools--large crayons, pencils, paintbrushes, drawing in shaving cream, tracing different textures with her fingers (as mentioned in a previous answer). Don't be concerned if she doesn't develop a dominant hand yet (i.e., right or left handedness)--some children don't actually choose a hand until Kindergarten, and that's ok! Also, she may still be grabbing the crayons/markers with her first. As she gets used to holding them, she will progress to holding them with a more "adult" grasp, but don't rush her! Providing broken crayons sometimes helps improve a grasp, as the crayons are too little to grab with a fist. But again, the fist is an appropriate step in learning! As for letters, the concept of letters for a 3 year old is very difficult--they are an abstract idea and 3 year olds think very concretely. Before approaching letters (maybe at 4...), try an earlier step with looking at print in the environement--you know, McDonalds signs, grocery store signs, cereal boxes...Recognizing that those pictures or symbols represent your child's favorite places or food is one of the earliest pre reading skills. Keep it fun--she is only 3 once!

Answer 9

No three year old should be writing. It's developmentally too young. She does not have the hand-eye coordination yet.

If writing letters and numbers is part of the curriculum at her school, I would look for another school. At three, she could learn to say the numbers and letters but that's all that should be asked of her....at the most.

As a teacher, I think that is ridiculous. Why make a child do that at three when she should be learning how to play with others and building her oral vocabulary?

She's not interested because it's WAY above what a three-year-old can do.

Answer 10

You have already received a lot of good advice, but I want to tell you something truly different.

The people who mentioned that your daughter's fine motor skills are probably not ready for her to be writing are correct. You should work on activities to exercise those muscles. Play dough is an excellent "hand excerciser." Have her play with it a few times a week to strengthen hand muscles. Another option is shaving cream. It really works best on a table that is not white. Spray some shaving cream out in front of the both of you, spread it around, then show her how to use her finger to "write" in the cream allowing the table underneath to show through. You don't have to just do letters, you can also do basic shapes, numbers, even patterns (a bunch of vertical lines, then horizontal lines, etc.) If you can't deal with the shaving cream, put some colorful hair gel into a zip lock baggy, and you can get the same effect, just on a smaller scale. Coloring is also a very good idea, but don't just limit it to coloring books. Just get some white typing paper and let her do unstructured, freeform coloring and drawing. Yes, show her how to hold the pens, pencils, crayons correctly, but do allow for some creative changes like holding several crayons at a time for rainbows and using the side of a crayon for rubbings - the goal is to exercise those little fingers. A good motivator might be some really cool markers or pens - like glitter pens or gel pens. As for crayons and pencils, get the fat ones first, she may not be able to grasp the thin ones yet.

In addition to these fine motor activities and mock writing activities, read with her, a lot, everyday. Get some books that teach ABC's. My son likes those "I Spy" books - we have one for ABC's and one for 123's. Also get some of those ABC fridge magnets. The goal is to be able to identify each letter.

When she's a little more prepared for writing, search for "free handwriting worksheets" online. There are lots of resources out there.

My son's 3 year old class had a fantastic way to do some writing. The used a handwriting worksheet maker and printed sheets with the children's name on it. They made multiple copies and placed them in a three-prong folder. Add a pencil, and they called them their "journals." Each day during "journal writing time," the students were to get their journals and complete one sheet (tracing their name about three to four times). Not only did this focus on exercising those hand muscles, it also taught the kids to recognize and spells their names!!!

Answer 11

She's probably a bit young to be doing it properly yet, but if you want to encourage her to want to write them herself, i'd have a look and find some books which have lots of clear numbers and alphabet letters in bright colours etc., to make them more interesting than boring fonts.
Then you could try getting her to recognise them so she knows what they mean, again by using bright colours and possibly little pictures to represent what they mean.
something like letterland http://www.letterland.com/ produce posters and things with good pictures that relate to the letters and numbers, which are really good for stimulating interest.

Finally, if you really want her to learn to write, then try writing numbers and letters out for her in very big print, in pretty-coloured pens or on nice paper or something, and trying to persuade her to copy them underneath - i think dots work best, and as she gets better, you can have three rows - the top one with your writing, the second with dots with her to go over, and the third for her own attempt (drawing lines will help her). But remember, don't force her too much or you'll end up putting her off more than anything - let her do howeer much she wants to at first.

good luck!