Writing Letters

Writing letters by hand is not a common thing that most people do these days. It’s so simple to pull your phone out and send a text, or else to hop on your computer and shoot a quick email to your family and friends. Rarely do you pull out a pen to write a letter to someone, and usually the only time you are writing something down with your hand to send in the mail, it’s to pay a bill or send a check to someone (and even that has become pretty uncommon).

When was the last time you actually received a handwritten letter in the mail? Generally, each of our kids gets a card in the mail from their grandparents, but that’s the limit of the handwritten letters we’ll usually see for the entire year. You may send a similar greeting card to other families on birthdays or special occasions, but it’s probably pretty uncommon that most of them are receiving handwritten letters either.

So what? Is it really that big of a deal that we’re not handwriting letters to people? Yes and no. From the perspective of losing the ability to accurately write, it’s probably a bit less critical in nature. It’s not often that you have to write by hand to other people as is. While it’s not ideal for this ability to diminish, it’s also not the end of the world. This of course is my opinion, and there may be a reason that this would be a problem.

Perhaps the better reason to hand write a letter or note to someone is that you will spend more time thinking about what you’re writing and what you want to say. It’s much more meaningful to actually write by hand what you want to say to someone, and it will generally lead to you saying what you really want to say. While it’s fast to write 100 words on the computer, it’s going to take a bit of time to do the same by hand.

Additionally, kids need to learn to write by hand as well. There will always be times in their life where being able to write a legible note by hand will be important. They’ll practice this in school, but it’s often tough to get them to practice this at home. Working on writing single letters or writing a word down feels like work when you’re doing it for school or there’s no real meaning behind it other than to practice.

However, if your child has someone that they’re writing a note to, and they’re receiving a note back, they will often gladly write a letter. Get out a piece of paper and a pencil and have your child write a note to their grandparent, cousins, or friends. Let them write whatever they’d like and draw any picture they’d like. Kids will generally enjoy this quite a bit.

Even more enjoyable than writing the letter though is filling out the envelope for where the mail is going. They’ll be interested to write who the letter is going to, and then they’ll be excited to stamp the letter and place it in the mailbox. If you have a flag on your mailbox, then they’ll want to do that themselves too. Be sure to explain to them how the mail works and that it will take a few days before the letter is received on the other end.

Kids will also be excited to receive a letter of their own. If they’re expecting a letter, then let them get the mail each day to look for it. If they aren’t expecting it, then when they receive that letter they’ll be happy and excited to see what it’s all about. Let them open their own mail and read the letter themselves (help as needed).

Writing and receiving letters is a lot of fun and helps kids to practice their reading and writing skills. Let them send letters to friends and family as they want.