Teaching Kindergartners About Spacing When Writing

Kindergartners become terrific writers once they figure out what they are supposed to do.  It is so amusing to sit and listen to them when we write as a class in our journals.  You can hear a low hum of 26 children trying to sound out and hear as many letter sounds as possible in each word that they write.  Well, it is January and most of them now know what to do when writing.  The next step is teaching the children to leave a space between each word so that their thoughts can be read not only by themselves, but by others as well.  We use Mr. Spacey in my class to teach the children about the spaces needed between words.  Mr. Spacey is not very fancy but he certainly does the trick.  All you need to make a Mr. Spacey is a clean Popsicle stick, or craft stick.  Draw a happy face on one end of the stick and there you have it, Mr. Spacey.  Children are taught to write a word on their paper and then place Mr. Spacey down on the paper next to the completed word, allowing the child to leave a space before beginning the next word. This sounds like an easy process to teach, but once Mr. Spacey is introduced many children want to use him after every letter instead of after every word. (Causing a re-teaching of the concept of a word) When you give your child Mr. Spacey please stress that he is used ONLY between 2 words and nowhere else.  Some parents (like me) may have been taught to just use your index finger to mark the space between words.  This method is no longer used as it was found that from where a 5 year old is sitting, the chubbiness of his/her finger may block out the writing area all together so in comes Mr. Spacey.  Give him a try, your little one will love it!