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Monitoring handwriting sessions

Learners who are already literate are often set written tasks for homework. However, practice in basic literacy needs to be closely watched by the teacher. Class-time is essential at this stage since a lot of guidance is needed to prevent inefficient habits from developing. Points to insist on:

  1. The formation and direction of the letters: all letters are made with circles, part circles and straight lines. All vertical and all straight lines start at the top. Form the vertical lines of a letter before putting in the horizontal ones (horizontal movements go from left to right). Circles or parts of circles which are made in an anticlockwise direction begin at the two o'clock position (proceeding to the left), while circles or parts of circles which are made in a clockwise direction begin at the ten o'clock position (proceeding to the right). Note that teaching learners to write their names in capital letters (or whole words not normally produced in upper case letters) is considered damaging to handwriting later on. Most copying tasks should involve mainly lower case letters. Use upper case letters according to the normal rules of capitalization and at no greater frequency.

  2. The spacing &/or joins between letters and the space between words: the web site at www.handwritingworksheets.com allows you to tailor your own practice materials, helping with handwriting by offering learners guidelines to letter formation, orientation and spacing. Skeleton alphabets are often used as the model for early handwriting practice. However, note that some educationalists recommend that schools lead towards a 'cursive handwriting style' from the very first lessons.

  3. The height of letters: tall letters such as 'b', 'f', 'h', 'k' and 'l' should be about twice the height of small letters such as c, e and o. Medium sized letters such as d and t should be in between. There are arguments for using plain paper with young children attempting to form the letters of the alphabet for the fist time; correct penhold, hand movement and orientation pose a sufficient challenge. A little later, ruled guidelines can be used to indicate the positioning and relative sizes of the letters. Such guidelines are printed in many published handwriting workbooks. You can also generate and print this stationery (complete with copying task!) by entering a word or a short phrase in the input box at www.handwritingworksheets.com. When printing these worksheets, it is often best to select 'Landscape' as your page orientation, especially if you have entered a short phrase as opposed to a single word of text. Take care if you are drawing the guidelines yourself. If you place them too close together (as found in narrowly ruled exercise books) you may be cramping your learners' handwriting. Space them too far apart and you could slow handwriting down and make it unnecessarily untidy, as your learners unnaturally stretch their upper case letters to meet your upper guideline. These guiding features commonly consist of 'continuous parallel guidelines' defining the optimum height of upper case and tall lower case letters. The space between these continuous guidelines is important. If they are too close together (as found in narrowly ruled exercise books), this may result in cramped handwriting, while if these lines are too far apart handwriting speed will be unnecessarily slowed if learners feel they have to stretch their upper case letters to meet the top line.

  4. The use of Guidelines (i.e. ruled lines) (as found in handwriting workbooks): a straight 'dotted guideline' is often included, usually running half-way between the continuous parallel ones. In many handwriting schemes, the space between this 'dotted line' and 'the lower of the two continuous parallel lines' defines any of the following:
  5. The lower strokes of lower case letters such as g, j, p, q and y are positioned below the lower of the two continuous parallel guidelines.

  6. The alignment and slant of letters: while letters leaning in different directions reduce legibility, keeping all downstrokes parallel helps to improves it.

    7. Learners need some practice in the recognition of handwritten text. Once that they have been exposed to good samples of other people's handwriting, additional practice might include deciphering badly formed handwriting and recognising the obstacles to legibility. However, for the purpose of teaching reading, the school web site should contain the common fonts seen in books, newspapers, other printed materials and on general web sites. So common today is the use of word processors and machines for texting friends, that apart from the teacher's handwriting on the white board, reading handwritten text has become a lower requirement for every day survival and academic study. It is notable that many of the best handwriting schemes available today, date from earlier decades when the use of computer technology played a lesser part in both adult ELT and the Primary School curriculum. It is a fortunate paradox - and one which has encouraged me to improve the materials and links on this site - that computers play a useful role in providing access to resources which can be used to teach and improve handwriting.