Before starting to read and write, children need to be physically and mentally ready for this process. Skipping the preparation process or doing it incompletely can lead to various failures in reading and writing.
Late reading, poor writing, or slow reading generally occur due to starting the reading and writing process without proper preparation.
We can generally divide the preparatory work into three groups.
1. Listening exercises
In listening exercises, activities such as imitating animal sounds and natural sounds can be done. You can listen to stories, fairy tales, and poems. Rhymes are also great for improving listening.
2. Exercises to develop finger, hand, and arm muscles
Children use their big muscles first and then the small muscles. While waving your hand is a big muscle skill, holding a pencil is a small muscle skill. While writing, children use their small muscles, and these muscles are quite weak if sufficient fine motor skills have not been practiced.
Activities like playing with play dough and stringing beads will support fine muscle development.
3. Coloring and line tracing exercises
Before starting coloring and drawing exercises, it should be determined which hand the students are holding the pencil with. Left-handed students should not be forced to use their right hands.
Line drawings should be of a quality that will provide students with hand flexibility, taking into account the writing directions of the letters, main characters, and writing aesthetics, in accordance with the structural characteristics of the letter to be written.
First Steps of Teaching How to Read and Write
In teaching reading and writing, the sounds should be felt first. While teaching sounds, nursery rhymes, songs, and riddles can be used based on visuals. Then, the letter corresponding to the sound should be shown to the students and the sound-letter relationship should be taught.
After the sound-letter relationship is understood, reading and writing of the letters should be started. In writing activities, students should not have difficulty in writing shapes, directions, geometry, slope, and verticality of letters.
First of all, students should be expected to create the basic form of the letter. The writing of the uppercase letter should be shown first, followed by the writing of the lowercase letter, together with their directions.
Answer Key: A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z