At a Glance
A printable summer mark making passport with one page for ten different pre-writing strokes. Each page shows a small example in the corner and leaves a large open space for your little learners to have a go below.
The summer mark making passport is a sweet little booklet, with ten marks getting which each get a page to practice on. There’s a small example in the top corner on each page – then a nice empty space underneath.
Our mark making practice sheets are a print-and-go activity you might do in one sitting, this passport is something they can work through over time.
Maybe they could work through a different mark each day, filling the page with their efforts – or maybe they could just do one of each mark a day (and you could add a little date next to it) and see how their pencil control develops over time. Upto you how you’d like to use it.
Grab a stapler and let’s get mark making!
What Exactly Is Mark Making?
Mark making is an umbrella term for every scribble, dot, line and loop a child makes before they start forming actual letters.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children points out that children as young as two begin imitating writing through drawings and symbolic markings, and that these early skills are strong predictors of later reading and writing ability.
What Skills Can Your Little Ones Learn And Develop?
This summer themed mark making record book is designed to help your children practice and develop their prewriting skills, such as:
- Pre-writing control – Many of the marks on the pages appear inside letters and numbers. Practicing them means the movement is already familiar by the time formal letter formation begins.
- Fine motor skills and pencil control – Making a loop or a steady ladder takes hand and finger strength.
- Hand-eye coordination – Children have to look at a model and get their hand to reproduce it.
- Visual discrimination – Telling a wave apart from a zig zag, or a swirl from a loop, builds the same noticing skills that later help distinguish b from d.
- Positional and descriptive language – Words like over, under, across, around and through get used while children work.
- Confidence and independence – as they make the marks themselves without any adult help.
- Combining pre-writing strokes – Joining two or three of them together is good letter formation practice for later.
Many of these are all vital fine motor skills that will enable them to become great writers in the future!
RELATED Playdough can also be a great way to improve hand strength – you can check out an easy no cook recipe here!
How To Prepare The Summer Mark Making Passport
First you’re going to want to download the pre-writing book by clicking on download button at the bottom of the page.
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Then print it off. You can order it how you want – and I also made a ‘my marks’ page where you little ones can practice any they like or develop their own. You could print of multiple copies of this to add to the back.
Get Even More Out of This Summer Mark Making Booklet
Here are some ways you could use it:
Make It a One Mark a Day Warm-Up
Two or three minutes at the start of the session, one page, then close it and move on. It works beautifully as a soft start activity while children are still arriving, or as a warm-up immediately before anything else that needs a pencil.
Date Every Page
Pop the date in the corner of each page (or next to each mark) as it is completed. A super way to show a child’s progress.
Save the Blank Pages for Invented Marks
The pack includes blank “my marks” pages with no example at the top. You could use them for marks children make up themselves, or for combining two or three of the ten into something new. You could then ask what the new mark should be called and write the name next to it.
Mark Making for National Summer Learning Week
The National Summer Learning Association runs National Summer Learning Week every July, with the whole point being to keep children ticking over rather than losing ground across the break. This could be a wonderful school-readiness activity for the ones leaving preschool.
Worth noting that the dates shift each year, so check before you plan around it. There are plenty more dates worth marking on our Special Day Calendar.
Enjoy and let’s nurture those neurons!
