Child Led Mark Making

Mark making is a buzz word in the early years… encouraging children to master the pencil grip and form recognisable shapes is something that parents seem to get pushed towards earlier and earlier!

While children in other countries aren’t pressured into writing or number formation until they are in formal education at 7 years plus, in the UK children are expected to come to school ready to hold a pencil at 4 years old! (Insert eye roll emoji here). Whilst it’s true that some children develop skills in the early years, for many they just aren’t ready to make the synapse connections needed in their brains to write letters and numbers as soon as they start school… but that doesn’t mean they’ll never get there, just as babies crawl, roll and walk at different stages, so do they develop the fine motor skills required for writing at different points along the way!!

Super important, before fine motor skills can work the intricacies of a pencil, is allowing lots of opportunity to develop gross motor skills first! These big messy lines are evidence of incredibly important, developmentally appropriate, skills development. And the best bit…? This is child led play so we know 100% that child is ready for this stage of cognitive learning!