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| Writing |  • Encourage your child to do things such as brushing teeth, buttoning and zipping clothes, and using forks and spoons without help.
• Ask your child to help you do real jobs, such as sorting and folding laundry, sweeping the porch, and making the beds.
• Play with your child. You with your child can thread beads on laces, do puzzles, and roll or pound homemade play dough.
• Ask your child's caregiver for ideas she or he may have.
How to help your child's caregiver:
Inform the caregiver about the real jobs your child does at home. You need to exchange samples of your child's writing with the caregiver so that you will both know what the child is doing and learning.
Preschoolers learn about writing when they see how people use writing each day.
• Let your child see you write each day. When you write a shopping list, make a note on the calendar, sign in at the doctor's office, or take down a telephone message, speak with your child about what you're writing: "I'm writing a letter to Grandma Jane. Would you like to tell her about our walk to the library?"
• Pronounce your child the words around us – cookbooks, shampoo, coupons, buses, street signs, and buildings – and illustrate their purpose. Take two cans of soup and say: "What kind of soup should we have – chicken noodle or vegetable?"
Preschoolers like to do their own writing.
• Be sure your child has writing materials and places to write. Seek around the house for items your child can use for writing – any kind of paper, crayons, markers, pencils. Keep the writing materials in an open box on a low shelf or in a bottom drawer in the kitchen so that the child can reach them without your help.
• Have a place for writing in the room where your family spends the most time. For instance, you can shorten the legs on an old chair and table to make them the right height for your child, or you can often find secondhand, child-size furniture at thrift shops and yard sales. It is recommended that catalogues and other writing materials should be in shoeboxes on the table.
• Speak with your child about how to write. If your child asks you how to make a letter, spell a name, or write a word, show the child how to do it or let your child write in his or her own way. The child can read the writing to you if you can’t do it. Over time, the child will learn how to write words that others can read.
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