Children in kindergarten, and sometimes even preschool, are expected to learn how to spell the letters of the alphabet correctly. However, these young children often have not developed fine motor skills enough to allow them to be successful in forming the required letter shapes.

Many articles have been written to address the technical aspects of early writing and/or prewriting skills, suggesting, for example, that children practice with writing tools such as crayons and pencils. These items can encourage shape tracing and have an adult model using the correct pencil grip. Some items encourage the development of early fine motor skills by suggesting that the child be given the opportunity to use playdough and scissors. These are all valid suggestions.

However, there is another key factor, beyond the technical aspects of letter formation, that can radically affect a young child’s ability to form letters or write simple words. This key factor is motivation.

For many young children, there is little intrinsic motivation to fill out the pages of a required handwriting practice booklet or to spontaneously practice letter formation. Letters are abstractions, which may have little or no meaning to children this age. Therefore, they may have little interest in practicing writing skills, beyond any practice required by the teacher.

However, there is a simple way to engage children and motivate them to happily practice the same technical skills that will lead to success in letter formation.

Young children love to draw. Initially, they scribble for the pleasure of making marks on paper and for the fun of using color. Markers, crayons, and paints are “hot” items in any preschool or kindergarten classroom.

However, there comes a time when young children want to put down on paper an image they are visualizing in their mind, and they can get quite frustrated when they can’t. Children often don’t know how to break down the drawing process, taking a whole image and breaking it down into individual, simpler pieces that they can draw. Teaching children to visually recognize the discrete components of whatever they’re trying to draw, and helping them learn to place them in a proper configuration on paper, enables them to create a drawing that recognizably resembles the whole image they’re trying to draw. to draw to create. It is this desire that we capitalize on… the desire to put on paper the images that children visualize in their minds.

I have used a technique, which I call Model Drawing, with great success in both preschool and kindergarten classrooms. With Model Drawing, I work on a whiteboard in front of a group of students, each of whom has a piece of paper, a pencil, and an eraser. My first Model Drawing project is usually to draw a person. Later projects include vehicles, buildings, and animals.

We start each Model Drawing project by talking about the item we are going to draw, starting with a person. We first discuss variations between people. The children offer their ideas and, if necessary, I ask them questions. Together we note the fact that people differ in terms of attributes like height, weight, hairstyles, skin tones, etc. This sets the stage for honoring each child’s different ability and creativity, ensuring that children will expect and accept variation when viewing each other’s drawings.

This part of the discussion… noticing the variations… is followed by the observation that there are also some definite similarities. While we discuss the similarities, the drawing begins. It is an interactive process, in which I lead the way through the discussion to focus the children’s attention on some particular part or attribute of the subject being drawn.

Step by step, as we discuss each similarity, I draw that particular part on the board in front of the class. I draw the shape of a head and the students draw something similar on their papers. I walk around the room to make sure each child has something recognizable in her role. Then we move on to the next part. We all have two eyes. After a little discussion about the shape, size, and placement of the eyes, I add them to my drawing model and again walk around the room to make sure that each child has succeeded in drawing two eyes. We continue with the nose, mouth, ears and hair, following the same procedure.

For very young children, completing a drawing of a head can be the entire project of the first day. For older children, we can move on to adding a body, neck, arms, legs, etc., and continue to add body details according to the skill levels of the students. My goal is for them to be successful because students beginning to acquire drawing skills will spontaneously choose to practice drawing over and over again.

I have noticed that children are highly motivated to draw. They want very much to be able to make recognizable drawings, and they will spend many happy hours drawing if they are satisfied with the results. They also help each other, reinforcing their own skills while adding opportunities for their classmates to watch a fellow student complete a challenging task.

Of course, as children draw, I know they are developing the same fine motor skills they will need to be successful at letter formation. And in fact, I have noticed that children who are able to draw simple people, houses, vehicles, and animals are the same children who are able to form letters more easily and successfully when asked.