Some points to share regarding writing for toddlers

A common age range in which a child starts to draw write things which look like letters is between 2.5 and 3 years old.  In the past few months, my 2 years 8 months son has shown interest in writing on his workbook so I let him choose the letter which he wants to write. I let him write as much as he wants and encourage him to write more. When he doesn't want to continue, I would ask him whether he wants to try writing other letters. Here's a video of him writing 'm'.

Click here: Writing Practice Using Drill Worksheets

We don't want to push the child too much to practise writing in these type of worksheets/workbook, but we can always encourage them to complete these exercises by taking baby steps at a time.

Some other points to share:

1) A daily routine which includes a few minutes of writing will be a good way to get the child to settle down to practice his penmanship. This writing time can be extended gradually when the child is more confident of his own writing skills; when confidence develops, interest in doing more writing will naturally grow.

2) Provide a comfortable environment for the child to sit and write. Ensure that there are no distractions like toys around him. If he is still playing when it's time to practice writing, let him know that he has to keep them for a while and give him assurance that he can play with them again after the writing session. Give him about 5 minutes to play for a while more and put the toys away. This is to allow some transition time for him to switch from playing to settling down to learn writing.

3) In a project done by a group of students from University of Texas, it is observed that teaching a pre-schooler how to write his name is an effective way to encourage writing because it is more personalised (document available online: Project on Teaching Pre-school Children How to Write their Name). Hence, we can probably spend a few minutes to teach our children how to write their own names since their toddler age.

4) According to Lance et al, allowing the child to scribble a 'story' promotes better writing skills at an older age (Lance, 1992). Therefore, do encourage the child to write random letters as a means to write a story to express his ideas. We can model it for him by writing a short story on a piece of A4 paper and paste it on the wall.


References:

Lance, Dr. Wayne D. (1992). Teaching writing:  Preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.  Retrieved on March 15, 2008 from http://www.iched.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=iched&item_id=teach_writing_prek-1