Drawings are the precursor to handwriting. Instead of letters and words, images are used to represent certain things and to communicate ideas or stories. Children will often “read” their drawings out loud, verbally retelling the images they’ve drawn almost as if they’d written out real words.
When children scribble, they’re starting to hold a pencil as an adult would. They often make scribbles that resemble letters of the alphabet. By age 2, children are able to make their scribbles purposefully horizontal or vertical as they copy a letter drawn by an adult. By age 3, children should be able to copy circles as well. By age 4, children are able to copy “T” shapes, like crosses or plus signs, and squares, and by age 5, children can replicate a triangle shape. The shapes children make when scribbling begin to be letter-like, even if they aren’t actual letters yet. Some educators expect children to have started learning to write by the age of 5. However, some children have different rates of learning and developing motor skills, and it’s not cause for concern if certain children take longer to develop their handwriting skills than others.
Children will next begin to write the same letters over and over, or the same sequence of letters several times. This happens most often when a child learns how to write his own name. It’s also common for children to write a string of letters in random order, not actually spelling a word. Around age 5, most children are able to make discernible letters.
Children will begin to create their own spellings for certain words. For example, instead of writing “when,” a child may spell the word, “wen.” One letter may even be used to represent an entire word. For example, instead of writing “are,” a child may simply use the letter “R.” At this stage, children don’t often use the proper spacing between letters and words. Handwriting matures from this stage slowly toward conventional spelling, until all invented spelling is gone and only conventional spelling remains. Once the child uses only conventional spelling, her motor skills and handwriting should have matured as well, resembling adult handwriting.