What Impacts Legibility when writing?
Line regard- are your letters touching the bottom line? Are they "popcorn" letters that are popping above or below the bottom line? Do your "Go under" letters go under the bottom line?
Sizing- Are your short letters short? Are your tall letters tall? Is your sizing consistent? Or are some letters too tall, while some are too small?
Spacing- You should be able to put only one piece of spaghetti (spaghetti= a thin vertical line made with a pencil) between LETTERS in your words! If you can put more than one piece of spaghetti between letters, your spaces are too big! Between your WORDS you should be able to fit a meatball (meatball= a circle the size of a letter). If you can't fit a meatball your spacing is too small. A very LARGE space between words is better than a space that is too small!
Do your letters look like the letter is supposed to be? If you have difficulty remembering to form your letters correctly, it's ok! Just make sure they look right! So a "b" should look like a "b" not a 6, etc.
Review the areas above and decide which affects your legibility the most. Once you decide what is impacting legibility the most, decide to work on that ONE area.
Self-monitor your work. When you are finished writing, go back and see what looks messy and fix it. Or if you are choosing just one area to work on, look at that area and see what words should be corrected.
When copying, try and remember multiple letters or words at a time. So instead of looking up and down after each letter, look up, memorize a few letters or words (depending on your age and skill level), and then look back down and write them. The more you look up and down, the more likely you are to make a mistake.
Go back and review your work and put a star next to the neatest letters, words, or sentences.
If staying on the bottom line is a challenge, take a highlighter and highlight the line to help with remaining on the line. You can tell your child, "make sure all of your letters touch the yellow line" (or whatever color highlighter you use).
To help with spacing, take a popsicle, decorate it, and make it look like a person, and there you have your "Spaceman". Put your spaceman between each word when you write.
If there are letter reversals noted, tell your child, " I see some letters that are backwards". See if they can find the letters and fix them without you pointing it out. If they can't find them, point out the reversal and see if they can fix it.