The Building Bridges EIPIC Centre in Tiong Bahru ran a half-day handwriting workshop for 15 parents and caregivers on 5 June.

Led by SPD’s occupational therapist, Rosa Devaney, the workshop “What Can I Do to Help My Child Write Better” aimed to help parents and caregivers understand the building blocks of handwriting and teaching strategies that could promote handwriting readiness.

Rosa shared the importance of handwriting, the skills that are needed, factors affecting handwriting, readiness for handwriting and teaching strategies. The question and answer session was helped to clear doubts in the minds of the caregivers and hands-on activities were also held to reinforce their understanding of the topic.

Parents and caregivers learned about how a child develops pre-writing skills and how to support their children in this. They were also taught how to conduct handwriting warm-up and strengthening activities.

The participants’ eagerness to understand how best they could help their children in this area was encouraging. One parent remarked that the workshop had “excellent delivery and was engaging”. Another parent went home knowing “how to correct errors in writing, e.g. spacing, and mirror images”.

The workshops are conducted twice a year. The topic changes every year depending on the needs of the caregivers. Caregivers are most often notified via letters and there are also posters around the centers to alert them of the upcoming workshops.

The Building Bridges EIPIC Centre conducts these activities to help caregivers support the development of their children. Do keep an eye out for them!