Is it better to homeschool at child when they are three and four years old or send them to a preschool program?

 

From the perspective of a kindergarten teacher, it is better if children go to an organized preschool for at least their four year old year.  This is assuming the child will be going to a public or private school during his schooling years.  I say this because kindergarten has become so academic in the last eight to ten years.  No longer can teachers spend the entire day working on social and emotional skills.  If children have been in a preschool program for at least one year, they will understand structure, working with a group and will have less anxiety about school and the processes involved in learning.

 

If you can’t afford preschool and must home school during these critical years, don’t worry.  You can work on skills with your child to prepare him/her for school using programs like Play2Learn for a smoother transition.  You will need to plan lots of play dates and take your child to other organized activities where children must share space and an adult’s time (i.e. - church, baseball team, etc…).

 

Teaching young children to write the letters of the alphabet

The very best way I have found to teach children to write the letters in by dividing them into two groups. The stick family and the curved family.  The stick letters are made with straight lines.  These letters are easier and help your child feel successful in the writing process.

 

This is what I have always done as a kindergarten teacher:

 

1.  Help the child learn the correct grip with a pencil first.  They make pencil wedges (little triangle rubber pieces that slip on the end of the pencil) which help your child know where to place their fingers.

 

2.  Place games with making lines that go from top to bottom, lines that go from bottom to top and lines that go from side to side.

 

3.  Then I introduce the STICK family of letters.  We talk about how they can all be made with straight lines (or sticks).  We then begin working on one stick letter a day until mastery.  We use small popsicle sticks to model the letter before beginning to write.  We glue the popsicle sticks together and trace over the letter.  We write the letter in the air with our fingers and we use dot to dot replicas of the letter for even more practice.  Make sure to use unlined paper until your child has mastered the strokes needed for each letter.

*** The stick family consists of:  A, E, F, H, I, i, K,k, L,l, M, N, T,t,V,v, W,w, X,x, Y,y, Z,z

 

4. Once your child is feeling successful with the stick letters you can begin practicing curved movements on the paper and in the air.  Pretend to draw waves, mountains and curly Q’s and let them copy you.  Praise their efforts for making curves that are much harder to control than sticks.

 

5.  Begin learning to write the curved family of letters which consist of a, B,b,C,c,D,d,f,G,g,h,J,j,m,n,O,o,P,p,Q,q,R,r,S,s,U,u

 

Don’t get caught up in having to learn the capital letter with the lowercase or learn to write them in order.  Think about reading, do letters in a word always stay in alphabetical order?  Do you always write an uppercase letter beside a lowercase letter?  No… this exercise will help your child apply letter knowledge at a deeper level in the long run.

 

Also, make sure to introduce and say the letters sounds while you are making each letter.  Just like your child associates a certain sound with a pig, cow, goat and horse.  They will begin to associate a different voice with each letter.  It makes reading so much easier in the future.