Mark Making

The importance of mark making

Your child will notice the adults around them reading and writing and they will want to copy them.

 

Mark making is the first step towards writing. Mark making in the early stages is closely linked to physical development. The more opportunities your child has to develop large and small movement in their arms, hands and fingers the easier it will be to make marks with a variety of tools.

 

Activities such as digging, ‘painting’ outdoor surfaces with water and a large brush, sweeping, and swishing a scarf through the air in different shapes will help develop large motor movement. Small or fine motor movement will be needed to hold pencils and pens correctly. Hanging out the washing and playing with pegs, using a peg board, and picking up grains of rice with fingers and tweezers will help develop the pincher grip needed for writing.

 

In the early stages of learning to write, your child will like to experiment making marks on paper with a variety of writing tools such as brushes, pens, pencils and felt tip markers. They will often include drawings with their writing. Sometimes you will write for them. It is a good idea at this stage to use lower case letters when you write for your child, introducing capitals only for names.