Rose has started kindergarten and is loving it. She is eager to learn and loves to read and write. Her reading is mostly of the illustrations at the moment and she loves her quiet reading time. Writing she is also eager to partake in but her confidence is low. She is hesitant to write many letters without support even though she knows her upper case and lower case letters and their corresponding sounds.
To encourage her to write, with less frustration over letter formation, we are using Tracing Letter Stamps as a guide for writing.
When sounding out a word Rose selects the letters, checks her choice with me and then stamps. Yes, this child is a perfectionist. Daisy would have been happy to choose her own letters and would then argue her choice was right if I corrected her. Rose hates to make a mistake and the stamps seem to be helping to build her confidence as an emerging writer.
When she has completed a word or sometimes a sentence she writes on top. For this I do try to watch and correct, to ensure she does not develop incorrect letter formation habits. Bad habits can be difficult to break as we all know. At this age, once the movement is committed to kinaesthetic memory it is much more difficult to alter.
Rose seems much more content with writing when using stamps as a reinforcement with letter formation. A happy writer is much more likely to write!
Tracing stamps are available in lower case and upper case sets as well as numbers and signs for math.
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