Children have different
learning strengths, so these ideas might be especially beneficial to your
kinesthetic learners.
Rainbow Writing
Write letters, numbers,
shapes, words on a sheet of paper.
Children trace over the figure many different times using different
colors of crayons or markers.
Encourage them to repeat what the figure is as they trace over it.
Let children make shapes,
letters, words, etc. in the air with different body parts. They could use their invisible finger,
elbow, foot, or write on a friend’s back.
Tummy writing where they lay on the floor and then extend an index
finger and write is another powerful technique.
Palm Pilot
Children hold up one palm
and then use the index finger from the other hand to write on it. Model for the children as you explain:
Show
me your palm pilot. Let’s write letter,
number, shape, word on it.
Take
it to your brain. (Pretend to run
fingers up your arm to your head.)
Let’s
write it again. (Write on palm.)
Take
it to your brain. (Run fingers to
brain.)
Better
write it one more time just to make sure we remember it!
(Write
and then take it to the brain once again.)
Sign Language
What could be more sensory
and engaging than sign language!
Use sign language to introduce letters or teach signs for words.
aslpro.com is an excellent
free website with manual signs for the letters as well as videos that
demonstrate words and phrases.
Good Teaching Is Good
Teaching
I will close today with
something I learned over 40 years ago in a book called “Teacher” by Sylvia
Ashton Warner. One of her
successful strategies was to write a word with a crayon. She then asked the child to trace over
the word as they said it. That way
the child could “see” the word and “feel” the word.
Talk about multi-sensory! How many of you have taken the ice bucket challenge?
My husband took the bucket and I wrote the check!!
