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If you have a student who has poor handwriting, simple adaptations or modifications in the classroom may help your students to be more successful. Follow the steps, and click on the related links for ideas:
#1 check height of desks and chairs
#1 check height of desks and chairs
Student's who are in chairs or desks that are too high or too short may have a difficult time with participating in classwork. Check this first! And if adjustments need to be made, your custodian should be able to make the changes easily. Set each student up for success!
#2 Check your worksheets
#2 Check your worksheets
Set students up for successful handwriting by making sure worksheets have adequate space for legible writing. You can support students who are stuggling by highlighting the area you want them to write in (create a visual boundary), or by letting the use lined paper for writing answers.
#3 check and teach pencil grip
#3 check and teach pencil grip
Students need to be taught how to hold a crayon/pencil correctly. Try the hacks below if you need ideas of how to do this.
FOR MORE IDEAS AND STRATEGIES, CHECK OUT THESE LINKS AND RESOURCES....
General handwriting readiness tips
General handwriting readiness tips
Prewriting Readiness (Preschool):
Children should first become proficient in developmental pre-writing skills, such as being able to form straight, oblique, or circular strokes to make purposeful shapes, before moving on to handwriting.
Seating:
Chairs should allow feet to be planted on the floor and the table should be at a height where the child can work with arms bent at ~90 degrees
Make sure child is close enough to the work and can they see what they're supposed to be working on
Hand Use:
Has a dominant hand been established?
Is the non-writing hand being used to help stabilize work?
For lefties, rotate the left corner of paper upwards to reduce hooking of the wrist
What about tracing?
What about tracing?
Trace with caution! Tracing is a different skill set than writing.
Students should have good supervision when beginning how to write letters. If they are handed a tracing worksheet without specific instruction, they will likely learn to piece lines of letters together with awkward or backward strokes, and may start letters at the bottom. This leads to motor memory and patterns that can become ingrained and negatively impact their legibility for a lifetime.
Remember: PERFECT practice makes PERFECT!
When teaching, consider "air tracing" as a class so you can see that all students are starting letters at the top, and stroking the right direction (just remember that letters will look backwards to you if you are facing your students!)
ADAPTED PAPER FOR SIZING AND PLACEMENT:
ADAPTED PAPER FOR WRITING AND MATH:
This CLASSROOM HANDWRITING RECORD SHEET can help you identify what component of handwriting your students may be struggling with. Then you can reference the ideas above for remediation strategies.
This HANDWRITING REPORT CARD can help you document a student's progress with handwriting.
Click Here to watch a free WEBINAR ABOUT HANDWRITING from Learning without Tears
Functional handwriting requires that a child has received adequate instruction and practice in the first place, in addition to having an understanding of the symbolism of the letter (i.e. Can they read?). Occasionally, good instruction may not even be enough. This may be due to deficits with his or her fine motor strength and dexterity, visual-perceptual abilities, or motor planning abilities to produce correct and efficient letter formation.
For handwriting instruction, teachers and parents can utilize principles of various handwriting curricula to give children useful cues for proper letter formation. A good handwriting curriculum will help children learn by teaching simple, consistent, and easily-understood visual and verbal cues. The WSD Occupational Therapy team likes to use the Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) curriculum because of its emphasis on writing development with respect to child development, as well as its use of “multi-sensory” strategies to increase learning.
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