1. “Alphabet Soup Stations”
Strategies to increase Fine Motor and Visual Motor skills in
At Risk Kindergarten students

2. Today’s Kindergarten Students
Different home and preschool experiences
Different English language skills
Range from 4 – 7 years in age!
Some late bloomers
Different physical and cognitive skills
These factors make teaching handwriting a challenge for Kindergarten teachers!

3. “Alphabet Soup Stations”
Your school has been selected to receive funding from a PIE grant, to create an “Alphabet Soup Station” in each of your Kindergarten classrooms.
As the classroom teacher, you need to decide where to place this station, and how to use it.
Each “Alphabet Soup Station” will be equipped with:
One Doll-A-Dough tray and one set of Roll-A-Dough Letter Cards
One Stamp and See Screen (with magnetic stamps)
One HWT chalk slate
Each school will receive:
One Rock, Rap, Tap and Learn CD
One set of wooden dowels (for you to use to make your foam/card dowels)
One set of capital number cards (for you to use to make replicas)
One Kindergarten teacher’s guide
One “Letters and Numbers for Me” Kindergarten workbook
One pack of gray block paper (104 sheets)
Your school will need to provide:
Play dough
Little chalk pieces
Little sponge cubes
Each Kindergarten classroom with a set of foam/card dowels
Each Kindergarten classroom with a set of Capital letter and number cards
Any additional paper/workbooks should your team decide to incorporate HWT teaching strategies (mentioned in this in-service) in your lesson plans 
I will be referring to these items in this inservice (show the items).

4. Table of contents ☺The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
HWT activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting : capital letters and numbers
Alphabet Soup Station activities
Activities to do with your class
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: lowercase letters
This in-service covers…

5. The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills: grasp on writing utensil
Control over writing utensil:
Fisted
“Pronated” (thumb pointing down towards paper)
Finger-thumb
Tripod/quadruped static
Tripod/quadruped dynamic
Writing utensils:
Markers (little resistance)
Crayons (more resistance)
Pencils
Pens

6. The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills: grasp on scissors
Control over scissors
“Pronated” grasping pattern (thumb pointing down)
Thumb-up (mature) grasping pattern
Types of scissors
Self-opening (loop scissors)
Regular
NB: Left hand friendly scissors (e.g. Fiskars)

7. The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills: handwriting sequence
Pre-strokes
Shapes
Capitals/Numbers
Lowercase letters
Stages of learning:
Imitation
Copying
Independent writing
Pre-strokes: Beginning, random markings
Shapes: Foundation to letter formation skills
Capitals/numbers: These use simple shapes and strokes. They have the same size, start and position
Lowercase letters: These are tall, small, descending symbols with more complex strokes, sizes, starts and positions.
Stages of learning:
Imitation: Watching someone write the letter, then writing the letter
Copying: Looking at a letter and then writing the letter
Indep writing: Writing without watching someone or even seeing a letter

8. The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills: Primary and Secondary handwriting legibility skills
Primary Skills:
Memory
Orientation
Start
Sequence
Secondary Skills:
Placement
Size
Spacing
Control
Kindergarten children are sometimes “taught” to write by being encouraged to copy letters over and over again, with little regard to start and sequence of letter strokes. This results in the student practicing poor letter formation habits. When letters are formed starting in the wrong place and when subsequent strokes are sequenced out of order, frequent reversals are observed, and handwriting is laborious and difficult to read (even in higher grades).
Kindergarten children need to be taught, and have opportunity to practice, CORRECT letter orientation, start and sequence in order to develop good letter formation habits. As they practice the correct way of forming letters, they will develop good motor memory habits, and their handwriting will become automatic and fluent. They will then be able to focus their brain power on the content of their writing, rather than the formation of the letters themselves.
Memory: Remember and write dictated letters and numbers
Orientation: Race letters and numbers in the correct direction
Start: Begin each letter or number correctly
Sequence: Make the letter strokes in the correct order
Placement: Place letters and numbers on the baseline
Size: Write in a consistent, grade-appropriate size
Spacing: Place letters in words closely, putting a space between words
Control: Focus on neatness and proportion

9. Contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
☺ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
HWT activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting :
Alphabet Soup Station activities
Activities to do with your class

10. Activities to develop memory of how letters look
Websites and educational software:
Visual cues (Mneuphonics posted on wall)
Mneuphonic powerpoint (demonstrate)
Incorporate letters into centers e.g. puzzles, stencils, sorting, matching, alphabet stamps (play dough stamps, ink stamps), etc.

11. Table of contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
☺Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
HWT activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting :
Alphabet Soup Station activities
Activities to do with your class

12. Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control: Upper body strength
Activities to develop upper body strength:
Seat pushups
Wheelbarrow walking
Door holder
Easel painting
Clothespins/tongs activities:
Have clothespins and tong activities
at a center (sorting, matching, counting, etc.)
Coloring
: coloring is such a common activity that we forget the great benefits it has for developing coordination, grip and strength

13. Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control: Finger dexterity
Finger dexterity / In-hand manipulation skills suggested activities:
Squirreling away items
Translating items
Rolling balls and hot dog shapes between 2 hands
Rolling ball and hot dog shapes between thumb and 2 fingers
Marching fingers up and down the pencil
Rotating the pencil in one hand

14. Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control: Mature grasp on pencil and scissors
Do upper body strengthening and finger dexterity activities on a daily basis.
To demonstrate a Tripod/quadruped grasp on pencil/crayon:
“Quack, quack”
“A OK, drop fingers and pinch pencil”
“Pick up the pencil and flip”
Allow the children to use short, golf ball size crayons/pencils: When they use an appropriate grasp on these, you can allow them to use longer pencils/crayons.
“Thumb up” grasp on scissors and paper.
A Functional grasp on a writing utensil is one in which the child holds the tool using their thumb and finger tips, and uses small finger/thumb movements to maneuver the utensil.

15. Table of contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
√ Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
☺HWT Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting capital letters and numbers:
Alphabet Soup Station activities
Activities to do with your class
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letters

16. Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
Shake hands as children enter the room (say “we shake with our right hand” and put a sticker, lotion, or scent on the child’s right hand).
Songs:
Head, shoulders, knees and toes..
Hokey Pokey

17. Activities to help develop body
Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality using HWT wooden/foam dowels
Introducing wooden pieces: big line, little line, big curve, little curve.
This is a big line, can you show me a big line?
Polish, stack, sort and trade wooden pieces.
“Simon Says” or “Teacher Says”, e.g. “touch the big line to your nose”.
Positions in space and Body parts.
Curves and circles (apart, together, zero, rainbow, smile, squiggle-wiggle).
Positions in Space and Body Parts with wood pieces: Up in the air; Move it UP and DOWN; UNDER your chair; OVER your arm; Out to the SIDE; Move it around in CIRCLES; Hold it in FRONT of you; Hold it at the BOTTOM – it’s VERTICAL; climb UP and DOWN; Hold it at the BOTTOM, MIDDLE, TOP; Say HORIZONTAL; Move it SIDE to SIDE.
More Positions – Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal: Hold 2 big lines in one hand; Open them! Hold them out. Voila it’s a V; Hold 2 big lines end to end diagonally; Hold one up vertically on hand, now lie it down on your forearm, it’s tired; Big one standing up, little one lying across it, now it’s a T; Hold one big line in each hand, put them together at the top, it looks like a Teepee or the start of an A; Together at the middle, now it’s an X.

18. Activities to help develop body
Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality using HWT wooden/foam dowels continued…
Mat Man:
Children sit on the floor in a circle. Teacher builds the Mat man on the floor. Teacher then lets children have a turn, giving them a curve or line, and tells the students what to do (e.g. “Amy, use your big line to make an arm”).

19. Table of Contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
√ Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
√ HWT Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
☺ HWT Approach to teaching handwriting capital letters and numbers:
Alphabet Soup Station activities
Activities to do with your class
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letters

20. HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Capital Letters
HWT teaches capital letters and numbers first, because these letters/numbers are all the same size, and all consist of big lines, little lines, big curves and little curves.
HWT encourages using mulitmedia approaches to teaching and reinforcing these letters and numbers: they use the Roll-A-Dough, Magnetic Letters, Wooden dowels, and Slate boards.
HWT encourage the use of terms such as “big curve”, “little curve”, “big line” and “little line”, when modeling letter and number formation for the child.

21. HWT approach to teaching capital letters continued…
Each letter is formed in a top-down, left-right fashion.
Use words like “big line”, “little line”, “big curve” and “little curve”.
Frog jump Corner Starting capitals
F E D P B R N M (Start in the starting corner, Big line down, Frog jump to the starting corner, Now make ___ )
When the first line is on the left, the next part is on the right side. This prevents reversals, while teaching good stroke habits.
Starting Corner Capitals
H K L (All start at the top left corner, now make a big line down, now make a __)
U V W X Y Z
Center Starting Capitals
C O Q G (Start at the top center, Make a Magic C, Now make ___)
S A I T J (Start at the top center, Now make ____)
Learning to print these letters correctly makes learning c o s t and j much easier.

22. HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Numbers
Teaching numbers free of reversals…
HWT teachers numbers in numerical order.
begin in the top left (starting corner).
8 starts at the top, but in the center.
9 starts at the top, but on the right.
10 is made with a 1 0 (Number 0 and letter O are made the same way)

23. Table of Contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
√ Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
√ HWT Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
√ HWT Approach to teaching Handwriting: Capital letters and Numbers
☺ Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter play
Activities to do with your class
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting

24. Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter/number play
Letter play develops confidence and rote memory.
Alphabet Soup Stations:
Letter of the day or letter of the week
Peer helpers at station
Each station will include:
Roll Letters with play dough
Stamp and See Screen
Wet-Dry-Try (chalk board, sponge pieces,
chalk pieces)
Capitals/numbers with capital/number cards
and wooden pieces

25. Alphabet Soup Stations: letter/number play using playdoh
Roll Letter with Me!
This activity helps children build strength in their fingers and hands while learning capital letter recognition.
It incorporates the Roll-A-Dough Tray, Dough, and Roll-A-Dough Letter Cards.
Peer helper shows how to roll dough (making a rope or snake), student imitates.
Peer helper shows how to cut and place dough pieces to form a letter (use the letter card or just the tray). Student imitates.

26. Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter/number play using Stamp and Screen
Making Letters on the Stamp and See Screen
Children learn how to make the capital letters step by step.
Peer helper stamps the complete letter, step-by-step and then erases it. Student imitates.
Student uses the magnetic chalk to trace the letter and then erases it.
Students make letter from memory using the pieces or the magnetic chalk.

27. Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter/number play using chalk boards
HWT Slate Chalk Board – teach “bumping” the lines using the wooden framed blackboards.
Wet-Dry-Try:
Teacher or peer helper prepares the Slate Chalkboard with the letter(s) of the week.
Student
Wet:
Wets a sponge cube
Squeezes it out
Traces the letter with the sponge.
Wets his/her finger and traces it again.
Dry:
Crumple a little paper towel.
Dry the letter a few times
Gently blow for final drying.
Try:
Take a little chalk bit.
Use it to write the letter.

28. Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter/number play using wooden dowels
Capitals/Numbers with Wooden Dowels on Letter Cards:
Display the letter(s) of the day.
Peer helper demonstrates how to start at the , get the appropriate wooden pieces, and then match the pieces to the letter/number card, going in numerical order.

29. Alphabet Stations: Letter/number play using wooden pieces
Capitals/Numbers with the Mat:
Display the letter(s) of the day.
Peer helper models how to create the
letter/number, using a top-down,
left to right approach.
Other Wood Piece Activities:
Boss of the Mat: The children take turns
being the Boss, and they instruct the
others how to form the letter.
Show the students a lowercase letter and
have them the capital partner on their mat.

30. Alphabet Stations: Use a variety of media!!!
Shaving cream
Finger paint
Wikki-Stix
Sand play
Bingo dobbers (to trace in template, etc.)

31. HWT approach to Capital Letters and numbers: Workbook and paper
To teach capital letters HWT starts teaching letters in groups on Gray Blocks (Gray Blocks are an easy transition from the slate board as they as “tiny pictures of the Slate”).

32. Table of Contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
√ Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
√ HWT Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
√ HWT Approach to teaching Handwriting: Capital letters and Numbers:
Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter play
☺ Activities to do with your class
HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letters

33. Activities to do with your class to reinforce capitals and numbers
Door Tracing
Place a laminated large smiley face on the door and use your door frame to model letter and number formation for your students.
Imaginary Writing
To review a number or letter…. Trace it in the air in front of your class, giving directions. Have students hold a pencil correctly in the air. Everyone checks their pencil grips. Retrace the letter or number again with your students. If you are facing your students, make the letter backwards in relation to you so the letter will be correct from your students’ perspective.
Follow the ball
Similar to the above activity, but everyone follow the ball with their pencils.
Laser Letters
Similar to the above activity, but the teacher first writes the letter on the chalkboard, and then uses the laser light to trace it while everyone follows the laser light with their pencils (in the air).
Gym or outside play:
Relay races
Chalk play

34. Table of Contents √ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
√ Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
√ HWT Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
√ HWT Approach to teaching Handwriting: Capital letters and Numbers:
Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter play
Activities to do with your class
☺ HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letters

35. HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letter sizes
Letter sizes and places: The hand activity
Teaching children the correct size and placement of letters is one of the most important things you can do to help make their printing neat and fast. The simple hand activity below is fun, gets the students attention, and is a great way to help children learn the concepts of letter sizes and places. Students will develop a sense for how letters fit relative to one another, enabling them to write letters the correct size and put them in the correct vertical place.
Capital letters – left hand: Make a flat hand for all the capitals.
Lowercase letters – right hand:
Make a fisted hand for small letters (a c e i m n o r s u v w x z )
Point the index finger up for tall letters ( b d f h k l t )
Point the thumb down for descending letters ( g j y p q )
Write the lower case letter on the double lined paper or on the board, and ask the students if it is small, tall or descending… students use their right hands to show whether the letter is small, tall or descending.

36. HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letter formation
c o s v w t The first five letters are exactly like their capitals, but just smaller. What an easy start! Just bring your good habits from capitals. Lowercase t is made like T, it’s just crossed lower.
a d g c These high frequency letters begin with the familiar “Magic C”. Starting with c placed correctly helps children make and place the d tall and g descending.
u i e l k y f Here are the rest of the vowels: u i e. Letters u k y j are familiar from capitals. The focus will be on careful placement and size.
p r n m h b They dive! They start with the same pattern: dive down, come up, swim over! We avoid b – d confusion by separating the letters and teaching them in different groups.
f q x z Finally f! The letter f has a tricky start. Letter q is taught here to avoid g – q confusion. Letters x and z are familiar, but infrequently used.

37. The benefits of the HWT Approach to teaching lowercase letter formation
Good habits for letter formation: All lowercase letters (except d and e) begin at the top;
Correct placement: The tall, small, and descending letters are in proportion and placed correctly.
Correct orientation: No b – d confusion, no g – q confusion, no reversed letters!
Lowercase letters are taught using double lined black boards and paper. With just 2 lines, children understand quickly how to place letters. Small letters fit in the middle space. Tall letters go into the top space. Descending letters go into the bottom space. Later students can apply that philosophy to other styles of paper they’ll get in school.

38. Table of Contents: Today we have discussed:
√ The developmental sequence of visual-motor skills
√ Activities to develop memory of how the letters look
√ Activities and strategies to help develop fine motor control
√ HWT Activities to help develop body awareness and directionality
√ HWT Approach to teaching Handwriting: Capital letters and Numbers:
Alphabet Soup Stations: Letter play
Activities to do with your class
√ HWT Approach to teaching handwriting: Lowercase letters

39. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your school’s O.T.
You can also look at for teacher and student workbooks, etc.
If you have any questions about the Alphabet Soup grant, please feel free to contact me at
Thank you for your time!