How To Teach Writing Alphabets To 3 Years Old

Dear Parents

I m a mom of 3 yr old boy kid and he is my first kid, i m making him to practice to write alphabets , but he is not interested in writing letters, he is drawing circles and square and telling me the shapes names and sometimes he scribbles…pls help me , how can i go abouit it ...

so good!! he is just 3 and is drawing circles and squares...soooo nice...

but he s not writing alphabets :(

Arth 2012-02-03 09:35:06

It is way too early for you to expect him to write the alphabet. Children of this age do not understand the association of a symbol (in this case - the alphabet) to a word. Your focus now should be to give your child ample opportunities to improve his vocabulary and in the process, his language. Being able to talk of his original experiences will help him to associate words to pictures and then to the alphabet.

In any case, children of 3 first need their fine motor skills to be developed to near perfection to be able to write. It is good that you are giving him chalk/pencil to be ehnace his fine motor skill development. Like arjunr says, it's wonderful that he can already draw circles and squares.

normally in prekg in all schools they mainly make child shed shyness, and make them to communicate more...rhymes are a part of communicating - making them pronounce words...once in LKG child will start writing....not one child started writing alphabet at3. may be there are exceptions..

My kids are going to turn 3 by March. They know to write A- Z and 1-10, though may not legible you may figure out. I share the methods followed by me

I bought a white board with colour markers. I worked wonders with them. At first they doodle, but I start to write in front of them. I will write A and they will also do ( It may not look like A) and gradually they mastered the skill

My msg could not be sent in toto.Sorry My post may be lengthy.

Took print out of colouring pages of alphabet and asked them to colour with different colurs. They will have fun when they do the same in crayons. Also I gave worksheets of tracing pages which includes curves,standing & sleeping line and then finally alphabet tracing pages.

Finger painting. I will dip their fore finger and they will write in newspaper. Begin with very simple alphabets like L,V,E F what I mean is straight stokes and finally to B,P D etc Because they require a curve.

Some websites teach to write alphabets.(animated one) They love to watch them

@ Arth & Arjun : thanks for your valuable comments ...

@ Miku : thanks for the idea , Its too gud that your kids started writing at this early age, will follow your method and see the result :)

But the bottom line is the kid should manouver the skill of perfectly holding the pencil(pen-thumb rule)

One more to add I gave them stencils of alphabets & numbers

@mikukiku amazing motorskills at 3!!!!!!!! super likes to them and super likes to your posts...

Thank you for your lovely words arjunr I am overwhlemed with joy

@ @mikukiku

This is awesome!!! Thanx so mcuh for sharing these valuable tips :) Can you tell me when you started training them on these. 2 or 2.5?.

My intension is not to hurry up the child but if they can learn in a play-way method and they enjoy it like you mentioned, nothing like it :)

It will make it easy for the kids to read and do their lessons. Do provide me more dtls.

Hi MIku,

Very surprised to see your ideas. Very much worthy. Can you also let us know abt the website you are talking abt to teach the kid. This would be really helpful.

@Divswami

Thank U I started when they are 1.5 yrs old. Initially I will draw a circle and ask my kids to stick bindhi inside the circle. Of course during the early years I used to peel the back paper of the bindhi and It will be very interesting to watch them struggling with the bindhis to stick inside the circle. Gradually I reduced the size of the circle & bindhi and at later stage they themselves peel off the back paper without my help

I also tried with sticker sheets Available in Pondy bazaar Rs.10/- per sheet very cheap Varieties of sheets are there eg. alphabets, food items , ocean animals, musical instruments, etc. I gave a diary to them and they will stick all these stuff in that

Now I have preserved those diaries as my memory keepsake. Also written the date on which it was done

This sticking habit helped them to develop the grip and they gradually mastered the skill. Once they learnt alphabets & numbers, I prepared worksheets. I will write capital letters on one side and small letters on jumbled order on the other side. I will ask them to draw a line between matching letters eg. A to a. initially the line may not be straight

Also I prepared worksheets repeating the alphabet that has to be focussed

eg. A H G A J N B A M K A and asked them to circle A . they will have fun. Tried this with numbers also.

MIkukiku: Thanks for the website. Should we have to buy those stuffs online. Do u think they are worth the cost. Can you help me out?

No these are free sites. I have not subscribed to any sites

@mikukiku, I am allowed only one "I like it" per post...but i want to hit it many times...

where do u buy toys? what r ur childs fav games...

Mikiku: How old is ur kid?? U seem to spend more time with ur kid... Are you a home maker or working...

@arjunr Thanx a lot

My collection of toys are of diff kinds. From pondy bazzar road side shop to toys from US. My SIL is in US and I will ask her to send some selective toys which I could not find here. Earlier i was a member in a nearby toys library but now I have not renewed this year.

One thing I want to be candid is hate to buy toys for them. The very next moment , they will break in pieces. Inspite of yelling several times, I could not change their habit.

But I try lot of educational games like jigsaw puzzles, memory game etc. Frank & Creatives have a gud collection.

@ Vidhya They will turn 3 by march.

I am a dentist but I gave my practice after my first scan confirming twin babies. i am a person who value my carrier equally and hence i am working in a renowned Medical Insurance industry

Thnx to no pressure-job (Touch wood) I reserve 8-9.30 p.m for my kids daily. Of course we will utilise the weekends to the extent possible. But one thing for sure, I dont find any time for myself. I have not seen any movies for the past 3 years. gave up my reading habit. i am trying very hard to strike a fine balance between, carrier, kids & home

Mikiku: Even I have a lot of jigsaw puzzles, board games from Frank and Creatives. But these have now become old to my 3 year old son now. He is expecting something new. Where will u buy these puzzles from.

Usually I buy it from Odyssey, Connexions in Anna Nagar. Can you suggest few other shops for different kinds of educational cds and puzzles.

Try the website of Frank & Creative

They have age appropriate games & puzzles. may be your kid have outgrown those earlier ones

Try In Big Bazzar & Hamley's in EA. But I feel Hamley's are bit expensive but they have very good collections.

@Sharuakash:

My son goes to PRE KG now. What they say in his school, please do not teach writing Alphabets. Once they are in LKG, they would teach them in school. They would teach in a different way and so at that time it might be difficult for the kids to learn in new methods that they teach. In his school, the first letter they would teach to write is alphabet 'S'. What they say in his school is get them Jumbo crayons and encourage free hand drawing, colouring etc.. In this way their fine motor skills will improve and they will learn the pencil control. In case, if they already started writing alphabets do not encourage it and instead encourage the colouring and drawing activities. These where the inputs that they gave in my son's school and I though i would share it.

@mikukiku

Really appreciate the creative ways that you use to teach your kids. Really Toys and Puzzles are wonderful way to teach the kids. They have lot of fun while they learn.

Yes Geetha. My son goes to a play school. They also tell the same thing not to teach him to write letters and numbers. So we also concentrate mainly on colouring and puzzles.

One thing i would like to change in my son is: he keeps losing things very often. I have bought him so many many puzzles. But everytime he loses one or two pieces of it, thereby he will not use it for the next time. Even if i ask him to search for it, he says "Dog has taken it and ran away". these words were used by me, when he was very small. the mistake could be on my side. i would really appreciate if somone could help me in this. I want him to b a bit responsible. Atleast to take efforts to search.

@vidyaramesh....lol..."dog has taken it and ran away"soooo sweet....but this age just enjoy...instead of feeling that he should be more responsible...tooo tiny kid to be responsible....after a few years such cute incidents would linger in ur mind...