The beauty of home education is the flexibility. You are free to try different teaching strategies to meet your children’s particular learning needs.

Repetitive practice can become monotonous for some students. If you have an unmotivated, kinesthetic, or tactile learner, it can be particularly difficult to get him/her to practice these skills to the point of mastery.

Rethink How To Teach The Unmotivated

Here are some “outside-the-box” strategies for teaching writing to unmotivated, kinesthetic, or tactile young learners:

• Use several pieces of string to form a letter. Trace over the string as you say the name of the letter. Talk about the direction your finger goes as you move along the letter. Try the same thing with spelling.
• Have your student write all of the letters they know with tub crayons. Write both capital and lower case letters. Try writing the letters in different colors and sizes.
• Form letters out of play dough. All of the rolling and smoothing movement helps young kinesthetic and tacticle kids stay engaged in the work. (Try making numbers, too.)

Colleen Felz is the Homeschooling Coach! Find more tips & curriculum ideas as well as stories about the joy & trials of homeschooling at her personal blog, Homeschooling Coach.