Unlike learning to talk, children need to be taught to write. It's not enough to see you writing for your child to learn all they need to know. They not only need to be taught how to write, but also need to understand when and why we write, and all the many forms that writing takes. How do printed words "work"? What are the "rules" or concepts of print ? It will take your child several years to learn all of this, and of course, they will continue the learning well into the elementary school years and beyond. However, there are many things you can do to help them get a head-start and be ready for kindergarten. WHY Your child needs to understand that writing is a way of saying on paper the things we otherwise think to ourselves or say out loud. Letters on a page mean the same thing as words they have heard spoken. As we rely more and more on our smartphones and tablets for simple writing tasks, we are no longer modelling writin...