Teaching 4 Year Old to Write

personally, I'd relax about all of this. She is 4 years old and has a lifetime ahead of her to do schoolwork, regular work,etc... Children at this age learn best through child based play. Having said that, if you want to work on her letters and numbers you have gotten some good advice from the other M.'s. I would caution against the advice, though, suggesting that you put consequences on her not doing it correctly, or marking her papers 'wrong'. She is 4. I'd say you'd want to foster a positive and happy association with learning and I don't think that would be the way to do it. Good luck.

My guess is she might be jealous of her brother. :) I had a sister 2 1/2 years younger and resented having to go to school while she stayed home and 'played" all day. It is a tiny act of jealousy though and it will probably be better once her brother can interact with her more. I used to think more was expected of me than my sister. Hope this helps a little.

I don't think she is ready for that type of academic activity. Pre-K is more about fun, socializing and learning takes place during those moments. It is also not uncommon for kids who had done things perfectly to revert as they learn new skills. The overwhelming majority of the time, they go back to doing them correctly.

Depending on your school, some have philosophies that they ignore these problems, even into 1st grade. My 1st grade neice writes whole paragraphs, but the words are all spelled the way they sound.

My concern might be if you put her too hard, she will think these things are not fun. Also, remember that girls excel at reading/writing and I think she is already above the curve for a 4yo. Girls, however, usually lag behind boys in spatial abilities, putting them slightly disadvantaged in math and science. A suggestion might be to put away the workbooks part of the time and get out the legos!

My daughter is younger than yours but my guess is that the struggle is because practicing writing the same letter on a line of a notebook every morning isn't fun.

Let her go write them on the sidewalk in chalk, bath tub crayons in the bath, write letters/cards to friends and let her help with them.

Hi T.!

First I would say get rid of the workbooks, she has enough years ahead of her that will be workbooks and strict curriculum. Second, kids this age do not have the spatial awareness as adults, they do not understand that a letter is always written a certain way. So it is very common for kids to write letters backwards or upside-down. To the kid they did it correctly, to the adult it's wrong. If the adult says this letter is wrong, the kid may not understand why. Simply encourage her to write, show her how you write the letters and praise her for writing! Even if she's writing them backwards you can say, "I love how you are writing, the way you are holding the crayon if wonderful!"

My 3 yr old son loves to write, but he only LOVES to write on his easel. If I put a piece of paper in front of him it will only last a minute. Be creative with her! Tape paper on the wall, let her use a paintbrush instead on crayon or marker, put cool whip or whip cream on a cookie tray and let her use her finger to write letters in it, there are many fun, creative ways to get kids writing and learning!

Have fun!

A.
Helping Moms Work from Home
www.SecureFutureFromHome.com

I had the same problem with my son. It took a little creativity, but finally able to get him to write by making it into an art project. I had some shipping paper, taped it to the wall, and then have him "paint" or "draw" the letter an and all the things that had the a sound. I also found that writing rhyming words worked really well (at, bat, cat, etc). The first two letters he learned write well was A and T. Maybe your daughter isn't ready for this, but if she is then most likely she is bored and you need to find a way to make it fun and exciting.

At this stage and age this is completely normal..and don't be alarmed if and when she starts writing letters backwards, upside down, etc.. My daughter started doing this right when she turned 4, she will be 5 in December and I became very alarmed. She is in preK this year and she does just fine at school. I researched online about this as well as spoke to her teachers and it is common enough, especially in very intelligent children. It seems that their brain regonizes the letters and it doens't matter which way they are written or in what order. It is somewhat amazing :) But the best thing to do, and what I did, is tell your daughter that although she is right other people cannot understand the letters backwards and not in order of the word. My daughter quickly accepted this and has been writing things correctly now because she wants everyone to understand what she is writing.
Try this with your little one, don't get upset or think she is dyslexic or has another learning disability, I've already done that for about a million mothers, LOL! Just tell her in a "matter of factly" way, "You can read that and so can I, but other people's brains don't work like ours and we have to write in order." ShoulD do the trick!
GOOD LUCK!

I'd almost say she isn't ready, but since she CAN write them, I'm thinking she'd probably bored.

Seriously, what kid wants to write the same letter over and over (even a single line is boring!).

maybe teach her to write words. My son liked writing his name, my name, our cats names, etc. It gave him practice writing various letters and wasn't as structured as a worksheet (and as a third grader now, he still thinks worksheets are boring!) We also practiced writing the names of objects... like if he colored a picture of a cat, I'd tell him to write the letters that spell cat (I'd have to spell them for him at that age.

You might try taking a break from the worksheets/workbook for a few weeks and try doing something else during that time.

Also, its normal for kids to write letters incorrectly through the second grade. My son could write his name and other words like a pro by Kindergarten (messy, but letters formed correctly) but he would tend to have a backwards or upside down letter or number when it was an unfamiliar word or when he was rushing to finish just to get it done (because it was boring).

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Writing letters backward is very common. All 3 of my older children went through a phase of writing some letters and numbers backward (but not on purpose). I would say if she is doing it on purpose, she could possibly be doing it for the attention and reaction you and your husband have attached to it. If she does it backward, simply show her the right way and keep going. She sounds like a pretty smart 4 year old to me.

Hi Tonya. My daughter just turned 5 and we have recently gone from double incomes to single so I can stay at home with my kids, so we can't afford preschool. We are also having "school time" every day, which usually consists of a letter game or even just letting her make crafts to work on her fine motor skills. She also pretty much refused to write her letters for a while, or did it wrong but I knew she could do it. I talked to my mom about it, who has been a teacher's assistant in Kindergarten since I was 11 years old. She said to stop making her write it on lines at first! Mom told me she's not supposed to be able to write on a line yet. Well, lo and behold, I just cut in half plain pieces of computer paper and told her to write whatever letter as many times as she could on the paper. Lower case on one side and upper case on the other. Sometimes she fills up the paper and sometimes she doesn't, but she does write the letters. Then I tell her to circle the one she thinks is the best. I also gave up trying to make her do it every day. We cover a couple of letters per week and that's it.

Good luck!!

Hello T.,

You have a very smart girl on your hands and because she is so smart it's time to introduce options and consequences to her. My daughter was actually reading at the age of 4 so I know what you are struggling with. Hope this helps.

J. D

It could be that she is trying to see what she can get away with. Testing the boundaries, so to speak. You could try explaining to her when she goes to school they will grade her papers and mark them wrong. Maybe you could start "grading" her papers. Tell her if you "grade" this paper the way it is she would get a lot wrong. Maybe as an incentive for writing so many papers correctly she could watch a video that she wants or something she enjoys doing that she usually does not get to do.

As a former PreK teacher and mom of 3 - I can offer many types of advice: first, don't push it. If she can write her name and willingly does that at this age, she can write anything. It is just a control issue and the more you push her, the worse it will get. Just lay out other things for her to CHOOSE - some things are just "boring" to a 4 yr old and rote script is one of them. Get out some shaving cream and let her clean the kitchen table or counter while practicing her letters - or create a sand box with a pie tin & some colored sand or even sugar, jello powder, or Koolaid! Anything like that is much more fun for them to practice letter formation than a pencil and piece of paper!

If you just REALLY want a workbook for her to do - try looking up the Handwriting Without Tears program - I have materials from when I was teaching, but I think the public can purchase just whatever you may need. They have fun tracing activities and work on letters based on their shape, not ABC order, so that kids learn writing techniques and practice the same type of strokes over and over rather than straight lines (A) one day, and big curves (B) the next....

Once she is in PreK or K5 - she will either follow suit with what the other kids are doing, or she may continue her resistance to seatwork. My own dtr took til halfway thru K5 before she would do her work properly - all she wanted to do was play all day! At this age, they learn best by playing so make it fun! :D

Have you tried making it more fun with a different medium other than pencil and paper? Some schools suggest using shaving cream on either a small table or foil tray. It allows kids play while learning. Children use their fingers to draw the letters. Give it a try!

I agree with others who have said not to worry much about it at her age and engage her in other more fun variations of this activity. One thing I'd like to throw out there though is that there is a difference between learning to write letters in your name and learning to write letters solo. At first a lot of kids learn to write their name as a whole entity and don't think of the individual letters as useful for any other purpose. When you ask them to write the letters NOT in the context of their whole name, it can be confusing and hard for them to picture where to start, with the exception maybe of the first letter. You could try practicing with some letters on cards (not writing) and moving the letters in and out of other words. For example, if her name is Tara, Take the "R" and put it in "car" where it's at the end of the word, or in "red" where it's at the beginning of the word. Once she starts seeing "R" as a separate entity from "Tara" it may be easier for her to write it individually. Just a thought.

Check out: http://www.hwtears.com/

I see that was already mentioned too. At 4 I wouldn't worry about it. Give her Popsicle sticks, crayons, whatever and let her create letters with those. At this point it doesn't matter if she is writing letters on lines, even if she can! Let her be creative so that you don't stifle her creativity. School will try that soon enough. It's all about learning through senses and play at this point.