Drawing, printing letters and writing words and letters all require a basic ability to create straight and curved lines in the correct sequence and in the right place.
These basic abilities are acquired through many hours of drawing practice in the child's pre- early school years.
Many children with drawing and handwriting difficulties have not mastered the basic graphic skills that are needed for handwriting, including
- the ability to draw long and short straight and curved lines using a single smooth movement that is pre-planned.and do not rely on visual monitoring.
- the ability to draw short lines and small shapes using preplanned movements without the need to visually monitor the movement of the pencil on the paper
- the ability to pre-plan and execute a movement of the pencil tip in the air from the end of one line to the start of the next.
Young children from the age of 5 years enjoys these tasks and it is surprising how just a 10-15 minutes a day of drawing practice over several weeks will ensure that your child is ready for the demands of learning to print letters with greater ease and efficiency.
If your child is older and having difficulties with handwriting fluency, speed and neatness these activities are a useful way of identifying and taking remedial action to improve motor control for handwriting.
