Oooo that wonderful Angela whipped these up for me on her Wishblade, as part of a swap over at SE. I so want a Wishblade now LOL!! Thanks Angela - they will be put to good use - might have to wait until I come home from the South Island though, as that is kind of rapidly approaching...

For those who are still interested....Automaticity!

You know when you go to the supermarket and your kind of lifting up apples and choosing them, but your also thinking about that meat you must get for Saturday night...well that's automaticity. You have chosen apples so many times, that you know longer think about it - you just do it (and it's a skill, as we all like different apples...for different reasons). When you first learn to drive, you have to think about the clutch, the gears etc etc, but after a few years, you are thinking about what to cook for dinner (yeah you are, go on admit it!!) that's automaticity...till it hails, and because your not used to driving in the hail, you turn down the radio and tell the kids ever so politely to shut up! Get the picture?

Now how this relates to your child and writing...if your child hasn't had lots of use just playing with pens, pencils etc, and I mean just playing and having fun, then they haven't had a chance to figure out that you hold them like this, and they make marks like that, and if you press too hard then this happens, and this is how you take the lid off, and this is where the paper starts and ends...and so when it comes to formal writing, a child who has to concentrate on how to hold the pencil won't be focusing on the letters and words.

We can only do one thinking task at a time, that's why it's important that lots of our 'things' become automatic - we can do them without thinking. If scissor use isn't automatic and the teacher says 'cut this out, and then glue it in the book' and I'm thinking about how I make these scissor things open and shut, I've forgotten about the instructions, what do you think I then get labelled as...that girl she never listens...Threading is another classic one - think of when a teacher asks a child to thread following a pattern (green, red, blue, green, red, blue). For a child whom threading isn't automatic, they are concentrating on the actual threading, not the pattern, they are then marked as not being able to pattern (because they are threading aren't they?)...but that threading isn't automatic...I can't do more than one thinking task at a time...

Children don't reach a magic age when this stuff falls into place - they have to have experiences. This is everyday stuff. The key is not to do it for them all of the time, however tempting that is - let them practice it. This teaches your child that you trust in their abilites, and how awesome that is for their self esteem. I know it's faster if you do it. I know some of it makes a mess, but that's just part of childhood. We too made a mess when we were learning to pour. We never got ourselves properly dried after a bath...none of it's life threatening!

Your child will have many tasks that are automatic, but a great way to check is to ask them to remember something as they do it, and then report it back to you - an example would be "wow your good at climbing. Climb to the top of that ladder and when you come back down, tell me truck and car". If the climbing is automatic they will think this is a great game...if they have to think about the climbing then truck and car would have been forgotten. This can be used with anything,and throw in words on subjects you know your child likes.