S. H. A. R. P. Handwriting Camp

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the handwriting camp e-mail exchange. I look forward to working with you as a team in developing the skills necessary to increase your child’s handwriting developmental skills.

For the first week, learning the language used in the Handwriting Without Tears Program will ensure letter formation is reinforced in the same manner at camp and home. A list of “fun” activities will also be provided that may help your child further develop the foundational skills necessary to produce legible handwriting.

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions, concerns or suggestions in regard to your child’s handwriting development.

All the best, Doreen Cancillieri

Occupational Therapist

Ways to Reinforce Letter Formation

1. Use the terms Big Line, Little line, Big Curve and Little Curve when describing the lines to form the uppercase letters.

2. Use short pencils and crayons to encourage finer grasp patterns.

3. Always encourage children to start vertical lines at the top. You may want to ask your child before beginning to write, “Where do you start you letters?” Their answer should be, “at the top!”

4. The lowercase “c” is called “Magic C” in the Handwriting Without Tears Program. This is again formed top to bottom.

5. The spatial concepts of top, middle and bottom in relation to a line are important in forming letters legibly. You can help your child develop this skills by pointing to the middle of a line or placing items in the middle of the table, etc.

Additional Activities and Websites

1. Have your child make their own note pad; making a cardboard square stencil that they can trace on regular size paper. They can then cut out several squares. Parent and child staple their homemade notepad at the top-left corner.

2. Ask child to draw combinations of different shapes involving corners, diagonals and intersections needed in letter formation.

3. Have child draw lines within shapes going from one corner to another.

4. Fold paper trying line up corners.

Below is a list of a few websites that offer additional activity suggestions and information on handwriting development.www.hwtears.comwww.familyfun.com www.Education.com

www.ccs.k12.in.us/Hbm/Devel%20to%20HW.htm - 28k

List of Summer Activities to Help Develop the Performance Components needed for Handwriting Developmental Skills

1. Digging in the sand; filling pails with water and sand to build sand sculptures. You may also use sticks or the back of a shovel to draw lines and letters in the sand.

2. Holding a pail while walking along the beach collecting shells and stones. The shells and stones can then be brought home to paint or count.

3. Starting a summer collection such as sea glass, shells, etc. can help a child develop visual scanning and other important skills.

4. Having a night when everyone eats with chopsticks can be fun and helps develop the small muscles of the fingers.

5. Having children participate in food preparation can be fun and develop arm and hand strength as well as coordination. Pouring liquids into measuring cups, mixing batter, putting the

cupcake paper liners into the muffin tray are some examples.

6. Having children in charge of the nickels and pennies when shopping can develop in-hand manipulation and other skills. Children can have a small change purse with pennies and nickels. Parents can ask the students to count out small amount of change needed for transactions or fill coin wrappers up with pennies to bring to the bank.

7. Having children help wash a car with a sponge encourages large arm movements.

8. Having children spray plants squeezing a spray nozzle are other ways children can strengthen muscle groups while having “fun”.

9. Having a backpack of fine motor activities such as dot-to-dot or maze books, crayons and coloring books, playing cards, etc. These activities can be taken out at restaurants or other outings to keep child entertained while working on their fine motor skills.

10. Playground equipment helps build the large muscles that are needed to stabilize the body when writing.

S. H. A. R. P. Handwriting Camp

Dear Parents,

Welcome to week two! Hopefully you and your child are now starting off each day “at the top”. In camp we will continue to focus on the arm and hand movements necessary for legible handwriting. We will also practice letter formation while writing words and short sentences.

Planning ahead to incorporate “fun” letter and word writing using the HWT

language will reinforce skills learned in camp. Below is a list of activity suggestions to help practice letter formation in a playful manner.

Feel free to e-mail me! All the best, Doreen Cancillieri Occupational Therapist

ACTIVITIES TO PRACTICE LETTER FORMATION

1. Role reversal-Let child play teacher and pretend you are learning to form letters.

2. Roll out cookie dough into long, short lines, big and little curves. Pick a letter your child needs to practice and make several cookies in the shape of the letter.

3. While on the beach, ask your child to try and write words of items they see such as; pail, shell, sand, etc. You can use a stick or shell to write the word .

4. Using sidewalk chalk, have your child draw pictures of everyone in the family with their name under the picture.

5. If your child could use extra help with a certain letter, have them try to squirt it out with syrup on top of pancakes or whipped cream on cake or ice cream.

6. Asking your child to tell you how to form a certain letter as you are pouring pancake batter will help reinforce letter formation.

7. Draw and erase type toys can provide opportunities for your child to practice letter formation and hand strengthening while on car rides.

8. Painting on an easel and then writing the word describing the picture underneath.

9. While on the beach form large letters and words in the sand with the heel of the foot.

10. Have your child keep a summer journal. They write one sentence a day to record fun summer activities. They can draw a picture to go with the simple sentence if they want.

Sensory Strategies and Repetition can help to Reinforce and Maintain Skills

learned in camp1. Use visual cues; a letter chart taped

on a binder or child’s desk.

2. Use auditory cues; parent and child verbalize while forming letters to reinforce appropriate formation.

3. Use tactile cues; straws, pretzels sticks, licorice strings to practice letter formation.

4. Use kinesthetic cues; practice making “OK sign”, square, etc. with fingers.

5. Use activities and suggestions from the www.hwtears.com website.

6. Planning 5-10 minutes a day to practice letter formation will help to maintain and further develop your child’s handwriting skills.