TEACHING HANDWRITING

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING HANDWRITING

After a long period of neglect in education, attention to teaching handwriting in the primary grades
may finally be returning. This attention can benefit many youngsters, including those with learning
disabilities (LDs) involving handwriting, which may accompany reading disabilities, writing
disabilities, nonverbal learning disabilities, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Although word-processing programs and assistive technology are undeniably boons to children with
writing problems, technological advances do not eliminate the need for explicit teaching of
handwriting. Furthermore, very modest amounts of instructional time in the earliest grades —
kindergarten and grade one — may help to prevent later writing difficulties for many children.

WHY HANDWRITING IS IMPORTANT

Contrary to the view that handwriting is a trivial skill, handwriting actually is important for a
number of reasons.

One involves the concept of mental resources. Labored handwriting creates a drain on mental
resources needed for higher-level aspects of writing, such as attention to content, elaboration of
details, and organization of ideas.

Because handwriting is a basic tool used in many subjects — taking notes, taking tests, and doing
classroom work and homework for almost every content area as well as in language arts classes —
poor handwriting can have a pervasive effect on school performance.

Moreover, when handwriting is perceived as arduous and time-consuming, motivation to write may
be greatly reduced, leading to a lack of practice that may further compound difficulties with writing.

Finally, handwriting in the earliest grades is linked to basic reading and spelling achievement; for
example, when children learn how to form the letter m, they can also be learning its sound.
Attention to the linkages among handwriting, reading, and spelling skills can help to reinforce early
achievement across these areas.

HOW TO TEACH HANDWRITING

Make handwriting instruction part of every school day. Included: Resources for handwriting
programs, lessons, worksheets, and more.

Do you think good handwriting is a skill of the past, made obsolete by the computer keyboard?
Think again! According to Kate Gladstone, handwriting repairwoman and national director of
the World Handwriting Contest, handwriting instruction might be neglected in today's classrooms,
but it's hardly unnecessary.
And the repercussions of poor handwriting aren't limited to the workplace; they begin in the
classroom. According to Gladstone, repeated research has shown that even when teachers are told
not to take off points for bad handwriting, poor handwriting results in lower grades -- as much as a
full letter grade lower -- for similar or identical work.

According to Steve Graham, a professor of special education at the University of Maryland, about
three-quarters of the elementary school teachers he surveyed believed they weren't adequately
prepared to teach handwriting.

HANDWRITING BASICS

Effective handwriting instruction, experts say, should focus on the three components of
handwriting; letter formation (form and slant), size, and spacing. When teaching handwriting,
teachers should focus on one component at a time -- first, letter formation; then, size; and then,
spacing.

The form and slant of specific letters will depend on the style of handwriting being taught.
Whatever style you're teaching, however, children first must learn the starting and stopping point of
each letter. That can be accomplished by having children trace the letters with their index fingers
before they begin writing. The following resources illustrate proper letter formation for some of the
most popular handwriting styles:

 Cursive Writing Practice Worksheets (Pencil Pete)

 D'Nealian Handwriting
 Teaching Letter Recognition (Zaner-Bloser)

Posture and paper position also are important to ensure correct letter formation and slant. Students
should sit upright with both feet flat on the floor, placing the paper at a 45 degree angle toward the
writing-arm side of the body and tilting it to conform to the position of the writing arm's forearm.
See Handwriting for an illustration of proper posture and paper placement.

Letter size -- more accurately, letter proportion -- is fairly consistent across handwriting styles.
Similarly-shaped letters should be the same height. For example, small letters (a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s,
u, v, w, x, z) should be half the size of ascenders (b, d, h, k, l, t) and descenders (g, j, p, q, y).
Capital letters should be about the same height as ascenders. Proper proportion can be taught using
handwriting paper with a dotted middle line. Free handwriting paper and handwriting worksheets
for a variety of grade and skill levels can be found at:

 Amazing Incredible Handwriting Worksheet Maker

 Cursive Handwriting
 Handwriting for Kids
 Handwriting Paper
 Start/Write.
Proper spacing includes both spacing between letters and spacing between words. The space
between each letter in a word should be the same. The space between each word also should be
consistent. Students can use their pinkies to measure the correct distance between words.

Proper grip of the pen or pencil is another important aspect of good handwriting. Instruct students to
hold the pen or pencil close to the writing tip with the thumb and index fingers. The middle finger
should be curved under the writing utensil, with the utensil resting lightly on the area between the
tip and first knuckle. The fourth finger and pinky should be curved in toward the palm.
See Handwriting for writing tips and an illustration of proper pencil grip.

6 TIPS FOR TEACHING HANDWRITING

With the increase of technology and its use in education, schools may be focusing less on
handwriting skills. This means that the time spent on teaching handwriting needs to be even more
effective. Here are six tips for teaching handwriting.

Even with limited time, teaching handwriting doesn’t have to be difficult. These six tips are easy to
implement and will get your students using better handwriting in no time.

 Start With Large Motor Movements

Few educators are advocates for worksheets and even fewer agree with using tracing
worksheets to teach letter formation. Even in the early childhood setting, such as preschool,
students can be taught letter formation by using large motor movements, like making large
circles or long strokes with their whole arm.

 Include Handwriting in the Beginning

There is a misconception that reading is a precursor to writing. Maria Montesorri would say
otherwise. Rather, handwriting should be taught in conjunction with early reading skills.
Some experts even recommend teaching letter formation as soon as a child is introduced to
specific letters and sounds. This recommendation is based on the idea that kinesthetic
learners will gain more from writing sounds than from only reading or listening to them.

 Consider Teaching Lower Case Letters First

Because lower case letters comprise of over 90% of our written language, it makes sense to
teach lower case letters first. Doing so is empowering to children because they gain the
basic know-how for writing sooner than if upper case letters are taught first. That said,
uppercase letters have more straight lines, which are typically easier for children to learn.

 Teach the Rhythm of Writing

Handwriting comes with a natural rhythm as the letters are formed. When a child is a fluent
writer, the movement of the pencil is fluid and only stops at natural stopping points, like
adding punctuation. Teaching children songs and chants about letter formation will help
them become fluent writers.
  Alternatives to Tracing

While tracing letters is a pretty standard practice when teaching handwriting, for some
students it can interrupt the flow of writing. When a child traces, he typically does so on
dashed or dotted lines.
Some kids may see the spaces between the lines, rather than the lines themselves, so when
tracing, the flow of writing is interrupted as the child tries to connect the dots. The child is
not seeing the letter as a whole.

 Individual Practice Doesn’t Mean Alone

Sometimes handwriting is viewed as busywork. However, handwriting practice needs to be

supervised closely. Students rely on the careful guidance of their teacher to help them
remember how to properly form letters, otherwise bad habits will inevitably form.

Poor formation can result in physical pain when writing, and correcting muscle memory
takes huge amounts of time and effort that are unnecessary if handwriting practice was
supervised to begin with.

 Teaching Handwriting versus Technology

Increasingly, schools are offering screen time. Classrooms are being filled with more
computers and smart boards than every before. Literacy centers are stocked with iPads.
While the importance of technology is gaining in importance, handwriting is also just as
important.

ESSENTIAL PRACTICES
 SMALL GROUPS

The first is that handwriting should be taught in small groups. This enables one to closely
observe students while they are writing and to provide immediate feedback to correct errors
as they occur. When students practice without supervision, they often form the letters
incorrectly, which can lead to bad habits. Providing feedback after the work is completed, is
definitely not as effective.

 LOWER CASE

The next important principle regards focusing on lower case letters. Uppercase letters can
be harder to form. The majority use two or more strokes which requires multiple pencil lifts
and continual visual monitoring to ensure accuracy. Upper case “E”, for example, uses four
separate strokes, whereas lower case “e” uses one continuous stroke, making it more
efficient to form.
When students are taught upper case first, they tend to write in upper case; which makes
their writing hard to read. This is often a hard habit to break.
 Lower case letters account for about 95% of all letters in reading and writing.  It is,
therefore, essential to teach students the letters that they need the most, and not to
overwhelm them with learning both upper and lower case simultaneously. Once students
have mastered all their lower case, only then should uppercase be introduced. The next
practice, that of grouping letters by their common stroke, makes handwriting instruction
very efficient.

 MULTISENSORY TEACHING

In addition to grouping letters by their first stroke, there are several other multisensory
teaching strategies that enhance memory and learning. Handwriting Heroes provides visual
models in the form of workbook illustrations; digital animations that explain WHY the
letters are formed the way that they are; large wall cards which can be displayed in the
classroom, and alphabet desk strips for easy reference.
Tactile-kinesthetic strategies use movement to teach the letter strokes, before requiring
students to put pencil to paper. Using whole arm movements, students write the letter in the
air, first with one hand and then with both hands together. Students also love using touch
screens to trace, copy and write the letter, and dry-erase surfaces for making playdoh letters,
and for rainbow writing.
For auditory learners, songs help to reinforce the common stroke among the group’s letters,
and stories incorporate the letter sounds. Encouraging students to say the action words in
the story, while they are making the letter, helps them to recall each stroke. All these
strategies together, decrease the need for visual guidance and lead to more automatic letter
production

 DAILY PRACTICE
The last principle that is of great importance when implementing a handwriting
program is to practice these skills daily. Plan for five short lessons per day, over
5 weeks. Teach one new group per week, and then review the letters already
learned. Thereafter, students can continue to practice using a summary
worksheet. Graph the time it takes to complete the worksheet to motivate
students to improve their speed and build fluency.

ASSESSMENT OF HANDWRITING SKILLS

Assessment of handwriting should incorporate observations of execution, legibility, and speed of

writing.

Execution includes correct and consistent pencil hold, posture, and letter formation.
Counterproductive habits in these latter areas are not always obvious from looking only at writing
samples and can greatly impede progress in handwriting. For instance, young children may "draw"
a letter such as m using separate strokes, starting on the right side of the letter. Forming the letter
beginning on the left side, without lifting the pencil from the paper, is much more conducive to
building eventual speed of writing.

Legibility involves the readability of letters, as well as spacing within and between words.

Speed is important as children advance beyond the first few grades so that they can use writing
efficiently in a variety of tasks.

If children have learned both manuscript and cursive, as is often the case with older youngsters,
then assessment should consider the execution, legibility, and speed of both forms of writing.
Instruction in handwriting

The early years of schooling are especially critical for handwriting instruction; once children have
formed counterproductive habits in handwriting, such as poor pencil hold or inefficient letter
formation, those habits can be difficult to change.

Even for young children, however, handwriting instruction should occur in the context of a broader
program of written expression in which children learn many other writing skills and develop
motivation to write.

Of course, children also should have access to word-processing programs and assistive technology,
with appropriate accommodations as needed for individual students.