It Starts With Handwriting

Does one wait until the child knows how to print properly before allowing them to write on their own or do we teach them correct letter forms before they have developed good fine motor skills?

Recently I came across a college alumni magazine that featured a page from each of four handwritten student journals. I was struck by the handwriting, or lack thereof, of these educated students. Their writing was interesting, mostly a combination of scribbled manuscript printing and a few connected letters. I know that even among those of us who were taught and used cursive writing there were many whose handwriting left much to be desired, but of these journals, one could say only one was easily readable and that was done entirely in manuscript printing. It triggered my thinking about the way handwriting is taught, or ignored, in modern children’s education, and served as the inspiration for starting a blog about the relationships between handwriting and reading, including reading comprehension.

Even more appalling is the fact that most current young people can’t even read cursive. A not so long ago retired teacher has told me that she would write extensive comments on her students’ work to no avail. The students couldn’t read what she wrote even though her handwriting is excellent. I hesitate to even write cursive notes to my grandchildren.

In recent years researchers have discovered neural pathways between handwriting and the reading areas of the brain, with connected letters (cursive) being more effective than manuscript printing. There’s something about connecting those letters that facilitates comprehension. There’s also a relationship between the teaching of spelling and the teaching of reading, with the influence being greater from spelling to reading than from reading to spelling. The natural progression then is handwriting, spelling, reading. More about that later.

A dilemma of early childhood.

Once upon a time, children weren’t encouraged to read until they entered first grade. Then came the idea of emergent literacy, the notion that children will learn to read naturally if given the chance. Lots of children now learn to read early. Children who are exposed to the alphabet use invented spellings to convey messages on paper and these “words” are sometimes really fun to read such as “I lk mik” (I like milk). I loved deciphering the little stories written by first graders.

All of this leads to the conundrum, -- which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does one wait until the child knows how to print properly before allowing them to write on their own or do we teach them correct letter forms before they have developed good fine motor skills? As children begin handwriting, they do so with letter forms of their own choice. The human form develops in a natural progression from the head tailward and from the spine outward. In developing handwriting, the child often pushes the pencil outward from the body instead of reaching out to start letters at the top. Once this becomes habit, it’s hard to break.

So, what do we do to overcome these bad habits? It’s possible we can teach them correct letter forms through the use of gross motor skills, writing on a whiteboard or other large medium (chalkboard or gel board or tracing on texture).

One thing I did as a teacher was to print letters on a piece of 5.5” x 8.5” cardstock (half a sheet), placing a green dot where the letter form should begin and a red dot where it should end. There's a yellow dot in the bottom corner of each card that simply tells the child that this part of the card should be closest to them.). Then I bought some transluscent plastic needlepoint canvas and cut pieces to fit the cards and placed it over the letters. Tracing the letters with little fingers is a great help in remembering letter formation and directionality. It's a great help with letter reversals such as b, d, p, q. Starting b at the top, d at the center, p on the left and q on the right helps with letter recognition and sound representation later. A complete set of these cards (both upper and lower case) can be found following p. 161 in The Spel-Lang Tree: Seeds (www.spel-langtree.org).

Then comes another dilemma – do we teach upper or lower case letters first? While some experts reason that because children more easily draw straight lines, we should teach them upper case first. On the other hand, in order to read, they will encounter more lower case letters so why not teach these from the beginning?

Another multi-sensory activity involved making a clock face on textured wallpaper. Simply draw a large circle on a whiteboard or chalkboard or on texture. Add the numerals resembling a clock face. Then teach the letters according to specific directions found in "Teaching the Child to Print" on pages 8-9 in my book, “The Spel-Lang Tree: Roots” (www.spel-langtree.org).

As children learn to print, they attempt to spell words. Recent research is increasingly proving that the spell first, read later concept is valid.