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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Tracing Letters

My 3 1/2 year old just recently started tracing her name in a way that it can be read.  With the six letters in her name closer to being somewhat mastered at the tracing level, I was excited that we could finally tackle the other letters in the alphabet.

Big Skills for Little Hands: I Can Trace is a great choice for letter tracing for us.  We put each page into a page protector and then made our own book.  M loved putting the foam stickers on it for a title, and it helps her to know how to ask for it by name.  (See her pride?)  (I love that I am trying to purposely NOT be stingy with our foam stickers!  So unlike me!  Let me know how you use foam letters, too!)

We use dry erase markers on the pages.  I have found that as long as the pages are wiped off before putting the book away, it wipes off easily.  If the marker stays on the page for longer, it's hard to clean.
















Another thing I like about this book is that it has a picture for the child to trace for each letter and a predictable sentence to read.  Numbers are also included in the book.  Though I love this for my child at her developmental readiness, there is no opportunity for writing the letters/numbers, just tracing them, so it may not be for older children with good writing skills.

I know this is not a unique idea, and I even shared it before for dot-to-dot pages, but I wanted to share it again now that we were using a book.  She just loves it!  M will trace about half the alphabet pages in a sitting, which pleases me.  I let her set her own pace and tell me when she wants to write and when she is done.  At this age, I think that is important.  I don't care how often we work in the book.  I allow her to set the pace.

When appropriate I try to encourage relevant real-world writing, too.  This past weekend when company came, she traced, "Welcome Grandma and Grandpa."  Father's Day is coming up and she will trace a message for four grandfathers, too, I suspect.

4 comments:

Carrie said...

I'm not sure if you meant the title to say "Edit This" but will you pardon me a little-to-medium-sized-smile because I DO THE SAME THING when I'm typing up my posts!!!!

Ticia said...

We don't have a lot of the letter stickers, just haven't seen any at a good price, but the other stickers they power through like crazy.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I am sorry that the kids have been sick. I am glad that M is better and also that she loves her tracing work. Anna seriously dislikes tracing and other worksheets except in school when she sometimes does them. But from time to time she enjoys Write-and-Wipe books that we have - they are built on the same principle.

Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative said...

Great Annette! I just bought three workbooks for ER and they cost me an arm and a leg. We're half way through one and I was thinking getting new ones over and over was going to be a small fortune. Now I know what to do with the next time! Just added this to an upcoming post on ABC & 123, thanks for sending us the link!

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