The Importance of Strengthening Your Child’s Prewriting Skills

Families in Metro Vancouver have access to an abundance of arts, culture, and educational experiences that can enrich their children’s lives and broaden their horizons as they begin their educational journey. But what can we do at home to prepare our young children for the literacy skills they’ll need to participate in all the wonderful things the West Coast has to offer? Here are some things we recommend here at Childcare Surrey to cultivate and strengthen prewriting skills in your children before attending daycare in Surrey.

Playdough is for more than just playing

A timeless classic, playdough has been a childhood favourite for decades. Its versatile use and colorful palette attract young and old alike to play, shape, build, and create anything the imagination can conjure. Playdough works wonders as a creative art form to encourage the development of storytelling, visualizing, and artistic expression skills. However, playdough holds equal value as a muscle strengthener. Frequently playing with playdough strengthens muscles in the hand known as the lumbrical muscles. These muscles are responsible for many of the actions involved in writing by hand as well as other table tasks that your child may encounter at their daycare in Surrey. Playing with playdough increases stamina and decreases fatigue when it comes time for your child to hold a pencil for any length of time. Changing the play to include a variety of tasks like rolling playdough into balls, pressing objects (perhaps small flowers and leaves local to Vancouver) into the playdough with single isolated fingers, and pinching small pieces of the dough helps to strengthen both intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the hand and forearm that will later aid in stability and stamina when handwriting.

Strength in sequencing

There are many things at work when a child is learning to write. There are more obvious factors such as pencil grasp, fine motor skills, and understanding the basics of lettering systems. There are also many things happening developmentally that support your child’s ability to express language, understand stories, and create stories of their own. One element of writing that you can support from home is the concept of sequencing.

Helping your child naturally organize their thoughts and structure stories with a beginning, middle, and end can encourage their understanding of story structure, cause and effect, and plot development. These may seem like overly complicated concepts but it’s quite easy to make them age-appropriate for your child. You can simply have them tell you, draw pictures, or narrate as they prepare themselves a snack. Prompt them if necessary to use language such as “First,” “then,” and “next,” to teach them how to sequence actions and understand the progression of a story. At their daycare in Surrey, your child will have the opportunity to read books, create art, and socialize with their peers. Learning to narrate can register their ability to communicate and is great for developing the prewriting skills that will continue to develop over time.

Children were built to move. Children often struggle to sit for prolonged periods doing tasks such as writing because they aren’t physically or developmentally ready. By focusing on prewriting skills centered around everyday fun, you can help prepare your child for daycare in Surrey and strengthen their mind and bodies for a happy and healthy lifelong relationship with writing.