Pre-Printing Skills

At or before 2 years old, a child typically makes random contact with paper when presented with a writing tool. They may make small marks at first and make 'random' scribbles 

Between the ages of 2-3, a child may start to imitate vertical and horizontal lines, and circles. 

By age 4, they will attempt to combine two or more strokes (for example, to make a cross + shape) or some capital letters such as T and L

Then they will start to imitate or copy more complex shapes such as squares, diagonal lines, and combining diagonal lines to make an X or triangle

Don't work on printing before a child has mastered some of the pre-printing strokes on their own (for example, it would not be fair to ask a child to make the letter R if they are not yet making diagonal lines on their own, or combining lines and circles). 

Make practice fun! If your child is not interested in pencil to paper, use a multi-sensory approach that does not even involve holding a writing utensil! Consider:

• finger painting

• making shapes out of other modalities such as playdough, sticks, pipe cleaners, or you can get really playful and make shapes out of food such as spaghetti!

• Incorporating other senses can help with learning - consider tactile input (tracing on sand paper, carpet pieces, etc), auditory input (tracing on tinfoil), and proprioceptive input (making letters using bigger arm muscles by tracing on the wall or a large chalkboard)

• Check out the OT Classroom Page for more tips! https://sites.google.com/view/theotclassroom/fine-motor/pre-printing