More Handwriting

Well, we’ve been doing a lot of spelling and handwriting lately but I figure you use it or lose it and each time Lily practices it she seems to strengthen her grip and Maggie is betting better with her penmanship.  So we’ve been continuing on with it.  You’ll find the sand tray in this setup again alongside the handwriting without tears chalkboard and an alphabet flip chart.  With each letter practice with handwriting I add the Dubard phonetic symbols to accompany it.  Or I’ll pull sounds to practice in between set ups.  Maggie is learning the same northampton symbols as Lily has and has taken in some of the information she uses.  I’m learning the Association Method is a great way to teach any child language whether or not apraxia or a deficit is involved.  It’s an additive to the way she is already learning.

You’ll notice the animals on the table also.  I know I’ve mentioned this before, but this is Lily’s (in between activity) So as I’m setting up for the next letter or helping Maggie out with a question Lily has something that she gets a break with.  Maggie enjoys drawing in her in between time in the sand.  But this is why there are almost always animals present.  Especially with the sand!

As simple as it may seem, to see a child sitting in front of a letter drawn out in sand by her finger and seeing her own accomplishment……is absolute joy.  One of Lily’s hardest parts of dealing with dyspraxia has included handwriting.  She feels this as a major accomplishment as do I.

Maggie enjoys writing her upper and lowercase letters together.  And above Lily writes the letter I independently.

We are also working on handwriting on paper.  So after we write in the sand and the chalkboard the letter is immediately written down on paper.

One of the below galleries shows a few of the cards we use that belong to the Dubard method and a flip book that utilizes those same sounds to create non sense words used for reading practice.