learning to write

I have seriously been loving watching Leona's learning process when it comes to writing letters (ok, ok, I seriously love watching when it comes to all aspects of everything of course, but today I am honing in on the writing).

She started holding the pen correctly pretty early on - below is her at 17 months old vs. 21.5 months old:

[notice her resting her cheek on her hand, and her elbow on thin air ;)]

I also remember the first time she asked me about letters and numbers (pointing to an 'Open' sign and a speed limit sign),

and how we would point out the letters in the book title of "Velg Selv" (You Choose). We also would name the letters in a an alphabet wooden block set that we sometimes play with, either her asking me or me asking her, and we would spell all our names with the blocks; and then there was the typewriter we found, of course.

She also started to make Ls with hama beads and other materials, sometimes on purpose other times by accident, and noticing letters in her environment (a twig that had an L shape, etc.).

Then she was really into writing, and had this pad of shopping-list paper that she would meticulously fill each line of from right to left with markings and circles - she said she wrote backwards because she didn't know how to write properly yet.

And then she started to write letter-letters. Asking how to write various letters - starting with her name.

I read a long while back an article about practicing letters in different ways affects your brain differently. They compared copying freehand to tracing to computer writing, and that copying freehand led to better memory of the letter. Because of this - and because for me, I want Leona learning to write to be completely Leona-led, balanced where I create the learning environment (alphabet blocks, books, writing stuff, other material that she can manipulate as she wants, paint, etc.) and open for teaching (name letters, write names, etc.) and then see if she is interested in continuing, and sometimes just sit back and wait for her to ask on her own accord.

Initially she would write her name with the letters scattered randomly around the page, and once in a while from right to left, or top to bottom, but little by little she began writing from left to right in a relatively straight line.

But as is so common with kids learning to write, many of her letters were - and are still - mirror image or upside-down. A friend of mine commented on this, how interesting it is that kids do this when they first start learning to write, and she was curious as to why they do it.

I thought about it, and I think that its because kids have been spending their whole lives learning that an orange is an orange, no matter its size or direction it is in. Same goes for everything else - a chair (and man are there a lot of different chairs!), a flower, etc. So for them, they are still in that mode. And so they write it the way that is easiest for them to write it to get it to have the correct shape - it is its shape that is important to them, not the direction.

But little by little, as Leona is getting better and better at writing the various letters and numbers, they are being turned the right way, one by one. So that means that she is becoming aware that they should be facing a certain way.

I make it a point not to tell her she writes or draws something incorrectly, because I want her to experience this process of learning and practicing and developing in her way - I want it to be lead by her, for it to come from her interest and desire to learn and explore and develop, and for it to be owned by her...for it to be her and where she's at now. I love watching how her mind works.

Sometimes she will say it is not quite right, however, and say it is because she can't write it the correct way yet, and I have always said that it's ok, that she is writing it her way, so now she finishes the conversation without my needing to say anything. I love it. I love that she is aware that it is not quite correct, but that she is ok with it, and confident that she will get it eventually.

She currently can write all the actual numbers, 0 through 9, but only write the integers 0 through 11 or 12 (while she can count to forty nine or something now, though sometimes she skips some numbers here and there) and 21 letters (the letters she hasn't learned to write yet are G, P, Q, U, V, X, Z, and Æ, though I think sometimes she will still forget some of the other more recently learned letters, like D, R, K, and F). She can recognize G and P, but hasn't tried writing them yet.

[1 through 10]

I noticed the teachers at the kindergarten use the letters' sounds rather than their names when asking or answering the childrens' questions about letters (for example there was a word/letter game, and Leona and a young girl ... her third cousin actually ... were playing with it, and the teacher asked Leona if she could find her letter or my letter, and rather than saying 'el' and 'jay' (in Norwegian though of course), she just did the sounds).

It makes a lot of sense to do it this way in Norwegian especially, since Norwegian is such a straight forward phonetically written language (for the most part), and so it probably helps the kids take the jump from writing individual letters and words to reading and writing words based on their sounds, not on rote memory (?).

I tried using this method and kind of sounding out some words for Leona when we were reading and discussing something once after that, but she just got annoyed and asked me to please stop. Hah. So I will keep doing it the way I have been, for now, and sometimes 'casually' add in their phonetical sound without overdoing it.

Exciting times.


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