Teaching Tips

Teaching Tip for January, February, March '07

We are going to continue discussing some of the position-in-space words that can cause confusion for children when printing. This session we will cover "down". Typically, children look at up and down in the vertical plane. When printing, we often want children to form letters from the top down, but if they aren't sure of "down" on the horizontal plane, they will be confused.

Try this: have 2 students stand side-by-side and point up - their arms will most likely go above their head and point toward the ceiling. If you have them point down, they will point to the floor.With their arms still at their sides, have one student lie down on a piece of chart paper and show the children where that child points when his arm is ‘down'. It is a completely different position-in-space on the horizontal plane. When wanting children to make a line ‘down' the page, I give them the clue "bring your pencil down to your tummy". This gives them a physical place to move their hand to. You can practice this whenever you hand out a paper with a quick 5 second drill. "Everyone, put your finger (thumb, baby finger, etc.) at the top of the paper. Now, slide it down to your tummy. Where are you sliding?" (down)