Author: Madhura Manerikar | Jun 09, 2017
I met 5 year old Tina with her parents at the Sethu Centre. She came to me with her difficulties in her academics. Tina could write some alphabets only by rote. A-B-C-D etc. She could not recognize alphabets nor could she write random alphabets when I dictated to her.
Using ‘Handwriting without Tears’ and ‘Wet-Dry-Try method’ I taught Tina’s mother how to teach her to recognize and write alphabets in random order. Handwriting-Without-Tears uses wooden pieces to help children form letters before learning how to write them. Wet-Dry-Try also helps children form alphabets on a slate by first using a ‘wet’ sponge to form the alphabet, then drying out the formed alphabet with a ‘dry’ sponge and then finally ‘try’ to form the letter using a piece of chalk.
After a month, with regular intervention and practice at home with her mother, it was really nice to see that she was able to recognize all 26 alphabets and could write most of them! I’m sure that with a little more practice, she will get be able to write ALL the alphabets from A to Z.
It was a great satisfaction for me that I succeeded in filling some of the gaps of Tina’s academics and this was possible only because of Tina’s hard work and her mother’s efforts to teach her at home. I realized that how important it is to work with parents along with their children.