Handwriting Intervention Strategies

When implementing ANY interventions, it may help to track your student's progress (or lack of progress) on a data collection sheet.

Teachers, it is RECOMMENDED to use our data collection sheet found HERE to help keep track of your student's progress when using handwriting interventions.

Handwriting Intervention Strategies For Teachers and Parents

Handwriting intervention strategies can be an effective way to help students improve their overall handwriting skills. Whether you are a parent or teacher, you will want to implement some basic strategies into your curriculum and current practice. Penmanship is an important skill that can be improved with these writing strategies.

We recommend choosing 1 intervention to try for at least 3 weeks. If that intervention does not help, try another intervention and implement that for 3 weeks. Implement your intervention consistently each day to improve handwriting skills.

Keep Scrolling for interventions to try!

Handwriting Interventions:

Problem: The student does not hold a pencil correctly and demonstrates a poor pencil grasp.

Though some individual differences in pencil grasp are acceptable, a functional pencil grasp should be reinforced. Interventions to help develop a functional grasp is needed for students who:

Complain of fatigue or pain when writing.
Continue to use a primitive pencil grasp.
Are unable to maintain a functional pencil grasp.
Use a pencil grasp that does not allow adequate control.

It is very difficult to change a pencil grasp once an ineffective grasp is firmly established, specifically after the 3rd grade. Early intervention is a must!

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

Use small pieces of crayon or chalk when coloring/writing.
Retrain the student to use a tripod pencil grasp. Require the student to use the new grasp for a few minutes each day. Gradually increase the time the new grasp is used over several weeks. Click Here to watch a video on how to hold your pencil properly.
Have your student hold a small object, eraser, or make-up sponge with their pinky & ring fingers while writing to promote a 3-finger grasp.
For students who wrap their thumb around the pencil, put a sticker or drop of liquid paper on the pencil and have them cover it with their thumb when writing.
Various pencil grips can be helpful (i.e. Stetro, The Pencil Grip, Start Write, Grotto Grip). A tightly wrapped rubber band can serve as a makeshift pencil grip.
Practice 'Pencil Warm-UPs' daily HERE.

Problem: The student shows poor letter formation when writing.

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

If they have not yet been learned, use activities to teach directional and positional terms needed for handwriting (i.e. right, left, top, bottom, middle).
Teach problem letters stroke by stroke, giving verbal directions that match the movement.
Monitor daily writing practice and repetition to ensure that the proper letter formations are reinforced. It is very difficult to break habits once they are formed. One-on-one or small-group instruction works best for this. For daily writing practice, go to the Practice Worksheets for printable worksheets.
Have the student repeat verbal directions out loud as she writes the letter. We love using the Handwriting Without Tears Verbal Cues Resource, which can be found HERE.
Always demonstrate how to write a letter so the students can see the correct direction and sequence of the letter strokes.
Model letters in chalk or on a wipe-off board, and have the child “erase” using their index finger to follow the correct form.
Rainbow writing - trace over a letter or number (using correct start/stop points) with 3 to 5 colors. Then have your students write the letter or number.
Practice writing letters in fun ways-make them with cooked spaghetti, string, cut tin foil pieces. Get creative-paint with kool aid, write in smeared shaving cream, finger paint with pudding, write on tin foil with a Sharpie, write on windows with special window markers.

Problem: The student struggles with writing on the line.

Tips for Improving line placement of letters and words.

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

Darken or highlight the writing line to draw attention to it.
Reinforce the 'top & bottom' lines before writing, have the student draw a few vertical lines from the top to bottom line.
Have your student identify small and tall letters before writing them.
Use something tangible for a line (cooked spaghetti, pipe cleaner, dried glue over the writing line, Wikki Stix, raised line paper, etc.) and make the letters sit on the line- also good to do with magnetic letters.
For lined paper with a middle divider, highlight the space under the dotted line so small letters don’t go above the line.
Try using Adaptive Paper. Go HERE to learn more about adaptive paper & print of adaptive paper templates to use. Please consult with an Occupational Therapy Service Provider to see which adaptive paper would be the best fit for your student.

Problem: The student struggles with spacing in between the words.

For neat handwriting legibility, spacing between words is very important. If there is not a noticeable space between words that is double to triple the space between letters, then all of the words run together to make it unreadable. Here are some tips to facilitate good spacing habits when writing.

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

Kor a kinesthetic and visual learning approach, try having the student place a small sticker in between every word when writing. Once the writing task has been completed, have them peel the sticker off their paper so they can see the spaces in between their words.
Encourage the student to use their index finger for spacing.
For a student who has very poor spacing, encourage them to make rather large spaces, which you can easily teach them to scale down later.
Try using a small white Lego or math manipulative or add white out to the top of a Popsicle stick to reinforce the concept of blank space between the words.
Try using REDI-SPACE PAPER or graph paper. Check out our Adaptive Paper page for more information.

Problem: The student struggles with writing too DARK or too LIGHT.

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

The If pressure is too light, try thicker lead pencils, markers, place a sheet of sandpaper under writing paper & stabilize with clipboard
If pressure is too hard, try pencil grips, mechanical pencils, or place a sheet of craft foam under writing paper & steady it with a clipboard.
Try using an art pencil with darker lead or a china pencil (available at craft stores by the drawing supplies).

Problem: The student has a messy paper.

Good handwriting is a learned process, and there are steps that a teacher can take to teach students how to achieve clean and legible handwriting. The practicing of upper and lower case letters is an important step in achieving legible handwriting. Good letter size, letter formation, and spacing techniques also play an important part in the development of good handwriting skills.

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

Try a variety of writing instruments including mechanical pencils or pens, markers or crayons.
Have the student cross out words instead of erasing them.
Try a pencil grip or triangular pencil aide to change pressure.
Provide a model or tape an alphabet strip on your student's desk.
Try a variety of writing a paper that includes extra blank space between lines or have the student skip lines. Go HERE for printable graph paper & click HERE to learn more about using adaptive paper.
Break down writing to focus on one aspect at a time.
Use a handwriting checklist for self-editing. Find handwriting checklists HERE.
If the student is an older student (4th grade +), consider an alternative solution for written expression/handwriting such as using a Chromebook and allowing the student to type their responses. Check out our typing resources HERE.

Problem: The student struggles with maintaining good sitting posture when writing.

Tips for Improving Student Posture.

Try 1 of THESE Interventions:

The chair should allow the student to sit with his feet flat on the floor, with back supported against the backrest, and knees and hips flexed to 90 degrees.
The desk should be at a height that allows for the arms to rest comfortably.
Use a foot rest if desk chair is too tall and feet dangle (cover old phone books or boxes).
Have the student sit toward the front of the chair, especially when writing.
Back Support—a covered roll of paper towels attached to back of chair (use Velcro or duct tape) can help.
Explore other alternative seating options, like cushions, a different chair, a ball chair, etc. See OT or PT for ideas if needed.
Check out our website for more information on Proper Posture.

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