Early Writing

These sequences of Early Writing occur after children have worked with Sandpaper Sounds (using that hand position I showed in the last post to trace the sounds while saying the sound out loud) and drawing designs with their pink and blue insets.

Get your work rugs in order...these Early Writing lessons are big and are best done on the floor!  Here is one way to keep your Work Rugs in your Montessori space—in a simple box that will hold a few rolled up Work Rugs (do not fold them, the children learn more by rolling and unrolling them.)

This Early Writing activity is done with the Sandpaper Sounds in combination with the Moveable Alphabet.  Choose any Sandpaper Sound, say the sound and find that sound in your Moveable Alphabet box.  You can find something in your Montessori space that begins with that sound and put it alongside.  This photo is showing this activity in Manuscript Print while the photo below is showing it in Cursive.

A note about Cursive:  current brain research shows that Cursive is better for the brain—it can only be done in one direction (left to right) because of the connecting “tails” and the brain functions differently when there is no break in lifting the pencil while forming the letters.  This being said, don’t worry overly much about which to choose because children are successful with either Manuscript Print or Cursive.