Handwriting
Students are required to spend a large part of their school day writing (up to 90%!!). Writing is a complex task which requires basic foundational skills of pencil control and automatic letter formation. Teaching handwriting is essential to the task of writing. If your students can’t hold a pencil, create drawings, copy letters from a model, or produce single letters from memory, they will have a hard time generating any kind of writing on their own. The activities suggested below will support the development of handwriting, and are outlined in a hierarchy; start with the skills at the top first.
FIVE TIPS TO DEVELOP HANDWRITING
1. GET A GRIP!!
To improve pencil grasp and control, try some of these quick fixes:
- Use broken crayons or short pencils for younger students
- Rubber band trick (see picture)
- Slantboard (a three ring binder works well)
- Pencil Grips and/or tactile cues on where to grasp the pencil
- Vertical Surface work
Pencil grasp and control requires specific hand skills such as strength and coordination. Please refer to the FINE MOTOR page for activities to develop these skills for students who have poor pencil control.
If students are switching hands and not demonstrating consistent hand dominance, be sure to take note of the hand they initiate tasks with and encourage them to stick with that same hand. If they are switching hands to avoid crossing midline when coloring or writing, be sure to integrate crossing midline activities across the school day. Some examples include:
- Cross Crawls - touch elbow to opposite knee in standing
- Figure Eights - with a scarf or on the wall, have a student make a figure eight with one hand (be sure student crosses midline)
- Twist Ups - Have a student hold a ball or balloon at midline with both hands and rotate from side to side with music
- Row the boat - have the student pretend to row a boat
2. START WITH DRAWING!!
Children need experience drawing lines and shapes before they can start writing letters. In teaching drawing of shapes be sure to model it first (they watch you do it), before you ask them to copy or draw on their own. Remember this approach when teaching shapes and letters:
- I DO
- WE DO
- YOU DO
Encourage story telling through drawing pictures, and provide opportunities to draw lines and simple shapes. Letter writing will often emerge as students start to label their drawings.
Be mindful of directional concepts and be sure to teach top, bottom, left and right while drawing lines and shapes.
- Teach vertical and horizontal lines first
- Teach circles
- Demonstrate how lines turn into squares
- Demonstrate diagonal lines
- Demonstrate how lines and shapes can create pictures (people, houses, cars...)
- Use the child's tool of choice (marker, crayon, chalk, fingerpaint....)
3. DROP THE PENCIL!!
The best way to help students to learn letter formation from memory is to use a multi-sensory approach to writing. Think big movements such as air writing, and using tactile modalities such as sand, shaving cream, finger paint, pudding.....etc. to form letters. Tracing sandpaper letters is also a great way to engrain letter formation using a tactile-kinesthetic approach. This multi-modal exposure with help develop automatic letter formation from memory. See the handout on the right for a few creative ideas.
A NOTE ON NAME WRITING:
When first teaching name writing, remember this sequence:
- I DO
- WE DO
- YOU DO
Always provide a visual model of a student's name for them to copy when they are first learning. Tracing is a good activity, however students will not learn to write their name from tracing alone, they always need to opportunity to copy it as well. Have the student label each letter as they are copying so they can develop the sequential memory of the letters in their name. Captial letters are easier for young students to write, however it is best to provide the model name with only the capital letter a the start of the name. Students often learn to write the first letters of their name quickly, so a fading scaffold is a great method for them to learn to write their whole name (see example pictures).
4. space and size!
Once students have mastered letter formation, they need to be able to write neatly! Students who struggle with this need explicit instruction on the importance of letter alignment, letter sizing, and spacing between letters and words (see the examples on the right). Here are some quick tricks to help with messy handwriting.
- Provide bold lined paper to with visual boundaries
- Try custom paper such as Handwriting without Tears paper, highlighted paper, or raised line paper to provide additional visual and tactile support
- Encourage students to skip lines in notebooks
- Provide graph paper to support number alignment during math
- Provide a "spacing tool" or remind students to use a finger space between words
- Allow typing instead of writing only if the student has keyboard familiarity
5. GETTING IDEAS ON PAPER!!
Teachers often report that students have a hard time getting their thoughts from their "brain" to the "paper". Writing is such a complex task that we need to give students support along the way. If students have great ideas, often they have a hard time remembering those ideas once they start writing. Students have more success when given the opportunity to "copy" rather than "generate" writing. Some ideas to help students get their thoughts from their "brain" to the "paper" are:
- Use thinking maps or graphic organizers to jot down simple phrases or ideas
- Use post it notes to organize ideas (think of color coding possibilities!)
- Use a word bank with key vocabulary when writing on a specific topic
- Scribe a simple paragraph of the student's thoughts and allow them to copy it so they can feel the success of writing
- Try voice typing after the student has generated and sequenced ideas
Please click on the following link for a printable version of the information on this page:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O-BYyiGQFNsR_OzSYbaI2D73ltyBY2TObJkoqNDRttc/edit?usp=sharing