Book: Handwriting: The way to teach it
Chapter 2: The Relationship between the Skill of Handwriting and other Subjects
In recent years it has been fashionable to allow children to try to copy letters and to record their thoughts from almost their first day at school. The attitude has been to let them play with letters and not correct or teach anything that might inhibit them from expressing their creativity. … incorrect movements become habits that are progressively more difficult to alter.
The temptation to let children try to write down their ‘news’ each day should be resisted until all the letters can be written with a correct movement in their basic form. Problems can arise with early developers (and their parents). These children are most at risk as they often learn to write at home and may need immediate remedial help to correct movement faults. Their parents will need an explanation, otherwise they may feel that their children are being held back. The children also will need careful handling. They may be proud of their skill, thinking that they have already mastered handwriting.
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Chapter 3: When to Introduce Handwriting in the Reception Class
Pre-writing patterns can help if they are carefully taught, but perhaps the very best way to foster the skills needed for handwriting is actually to begin to teach the simplest letters as early as possible in a formal teaching situation. Little tension is involved when the need for spelling is removed by using patterns of letters rather than words. The necessary distinction between drawing and writing can begin to be established at the same time.
The opposing attitude is that if children are taught to write too young, at too early a stage of their development, they will soon become discouraged by the inadequacy of their own letters. This warning is important and should not be ignored. Those most at risk of discouragement are children who are particularly clumsy.
[Page 4]
The Choice of a Handwriting Model
The choice of a particular handwriting model must be a whole school decision. First of all there needs to be discussion about whether to have a strict model at all, or to adopt a more liberal attitude to letters.
A school may want to decide which form of certain letters should be taught, but whichever is chosen it is likely that the children themselves may soon experiment or adapt on their own.
Some basic decisions about letterforms need to be taken in order to ensure that the letters that children are first taught and then encouraged to automate, will serve them well all through their school life. If children get used to the idea that ‘f’ is a short letter they may find it difficult to alter later on. When letters are joined, a short ‘f’ can easily be confused with a letter ‘s’.
[Page 5]You will notice that the models within this book all have exit strokes on all the letters that terminate on the baseline. Exit strokes help to promote the flowing movement that develops easily into joins. This is in contrast with the stiff straight letters of print script that terminate abruptly on the baseline. When you use a model, you train the hand in a certain movement.
The decisions that you make for five-year-olds are likely to have a lasting effect, so the choice of some features of a model is a serious matter.
[Page 12]
Balancing Movement and Neatness
… neatness has been considered the overriding priority in handwriting. This book seeks to alter this by emphasising, above all, the importance of the correct movement of basic letters. When movement is made top priority and the onward movement from letter to letter is encouraged by teaching integral baseline exit strokes, the result may not be as neat as print script letters. With these priorities however, the most important lessons are being learned first so that there will be no need for re-learning later on.
[Page 13]
How Much Emphasis on Joining
In many countries national models are still based on old-fashioned copperplate writing and children are taught to join all their letters. This seems to work quite well until the need for speed arises. Ten-year-old pupils may be able to reach a calligraphic standard when writing slowly in a looped cursive, but in secondary school many of them have to revert to printing. Only with luck do they eventually develop a simpler semi-cursive.
The reason for this is clear; the hand needs a chance to move along the line, so penlifts are not only permissable but essential during long words.
[Page 15]
Display Writing – Both by Teachers and Pupils
Teachers should be able to feel as well as see the difference in the letters so that they understand the reason for the change in policy. It may not be so easy to write separate letters (or joined ones) that are free of personal eccentricities. Children are quick to copy and often exaggerate any such quirks, but in coming to terms with their own handwriting, teachers will gain invaluable insight into the kinds of problems that their pupils have to face.
[Page 18]
A Policy for Left-Handers
Left-handers need consideration, especially in the early years when they are forming their handwriting strategies. In countries where left-handers’ needs are written into the curriculum it appears that far fewer of them end up with problems.
The commonsense rules are well documented. In essence they are as follows:
- 1.Paper should be placed to the writers left side, then slanted to suit each individual. This allows writers to have their hand below the line, in a non-inverted position, without interrupting their line of vision.
- 2.Free-flowing modern pens that do not smudge are recommended for left-handers.
- 3.A seat high enough to allow the writers to see over their hand is a help, and appropriate lighting to make sure that left-handers are not writing in the shadow of their own hand.
- 4.The pen needs to be held far enough from the point to allow the writer to see the written trace. This may result in a feeling of loss of control, but it is only the thumb that gets in the way; the index finger can be as near to the point as the writer wishes.
Some left-handers may experience directional problems and will need special attention. Their difficulties are not easily understood. If, for example, right-handers try to write with their left hand they may find, as most left-handers do, that it is easiest to draw a line from right to left. All children need to be taught that writing (and reading) go from left to right, but left-handers may need much more practice in left-to-right exercises before this becomes the automatic response to an empty page. Some kind of visual reminder may be a good idea. This can be a simple red margin or red strip put at the left side of each page…
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A Policy for Newcomers from other Schools
an important part of the school policy new teachers should be encouraged to practise this until exit strokes become more or less automatic. This means not only on the blackboard but when marking children’s books as well.
[Page 26]
Assessment and Record Keeping
Children get satisfaction from keeping samples of their own writing and watching it improve. If schools adopt the idea of children producing their own model strips, then perhaps pupils should be encouraged to keep these, along with other examples, in a special handwriting folder. If children are encouraged to judge their own handwriting, for their own benefit, they may develop the self-criticism and motivation that is needed to make real progress.
Part 2: Classroom Management
[Page 28]
Balancing Whole Class Instruction with One-to-One Attention
Some aspects of handwriting can and even should be taught to the whole class at the same time. Practising the movement of letters in the air with a whole-arm movement can even be done in the gym or playground, and certainly is a whole class activity.
… eachers realise the importance of keeping a close check on such important matters as the movement of letters. They know only too well that some children do not manage to translate what is taught from the front of the class onto a sheet of paper. They manage to get round to children individually to watch them form their letters. This is the only way of ensuring correct movement.
[Page 29]
Posture
… posture itself can provide useful clues to children’s difficulties. A floppy posture may only indicate boredom, but tension is often mirrored in the way a child sits.
Unusual visual problems of the kind that are not detected in ordinary school eye tests can occasionally be detected from the way children sit or tilt the head. A rigid right or wrong attitude to posture cannot work as eyes, backs and body proportions all need to be taken into consideration…
. This awareness is more important than any set of rules because noticing, reacting, adapting and seeing the improvement in their own pupils is the best way of convincing all those who deal with children of the importance of such matters.
[Page 30]
Appropriate Furniture
Slanting surfaces were once in general use in classrooms but have now given way to flat tables. It is unlikely that this decision will be reversed, but undoubtedly, as scribes and calligraphers over the centuries have demonstrated, it is better for the hand to write when it is supported by a slanting board or desk. For anyone with a tremor a considerable slant can be a great help. The more the arm is supported the better control the writer may have over a tremor. It is possible to buy ready-made desks but simple ones as illustrated here can easily be constructed. In severe cases a table that is adjustable both for height and slant can provide the best solution. These are easily obtainable from artist’s suppliers or, probably more expensively, from medical catalogues.
[Page 32]
Paper Position and its Effect on Posture
If the majority need to place their paper to one side, allowing their arms to move freely, then they also need enough space.
If left-handers want to sit next to their right-handed friends then they will need reminding to sit to the left of their right-handed neighbour to avoid bumping into each other.
Children profit from experimenting to find out what suits them best. Experiencing what it feels like to have the paper in the worst possible position can be beneficial. Those who need extra reinforcement could have ‘corners’ of coloured tape stuck on their desk to remind them of their paper position. Another way to do this would be to use a paper overlay, rather like an enlarged place mat, with the recommended paper position for a particular child marked on it in some ‘fun’ way.
A teacher’s idea: ‘Our class is equipped with hexagonal tables that do not allow much space for children to learn the best way to place their paper for writing. When the class is divided into groups we use the only rectangular table in the room for the group that is concentrating on handwriting.’
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Penhold
Most writing manuals are still advocating the virtues of a traditional tripod penhold. There are numerous products from triangular pencils to ingenious plastic grips to fasten over both pens and pencils. These reinforce traditional penholds and retrain what are termed ‘unconventional’ ones. Most books recommend that when training a child to hold a pencil the index finger should be extended so that it is the digit closest to the pencil point. This finger position should prevent excess pressure on the joints of the index finger. An extended forefinger is also an advantage in directing the pencil because it permits free movement, particularly in the directions that lead to an oval slanting writing. Unfortunately, the issue at the present time is far from being as straightforward as these instructions for penhold suggest.
modern pens work at a different elevation from pencils, so they need a different penhold to allow them to be almost upright. The more worn out a felt pen becomes the more it requires to be held upright in order to produce any trace at all.
Left to themselves children develop compromise strategies that sometimes work well for the writer but invite criticism from teachers and others.
My advice must also be that the whole hand has to be considered; whether it should be on edge or slightly flattened (but not too flat or too much on edge). What happens at the wrist is just as important as what the fingers are doing. If the wrist starts to twist at an early age then the hand may not perform precision movements with as much freedom as it could when not inverted or twisted. All of these features are inextricably involved with other aspects of writing posture. An inverted (twisted wrist) position, especially in a right-hander, is almost always the result of not having the paper over to the side of the writing hand.
…if they cannot or do not normally achieve this then you must question why. Is it the[Page 36]proportions of their hands, is it previously learned strategies perhaps influenced by felt-tipped pens or possibly a developmental factor that makes pencil control more difficult in some cases? Or is it a sign of a particular child’s inner tensions? There are many different issues to consider. Why, for instance, do so many children hold their pencils so close to the point that they cannot see what they are doing? Ask them and you may get the answer that I usually get: ‘Because it is easier to control.’ Closer inspection may then reveal that the pupil’s hand is on edge and indeed it may be more difficult to control a pencil like that. If you analyse the situation carefully you may conclude that it does not matter if the forefinger remains close to the point to help with control; after all, it is only the thumb that obstructs the line of vision. The simple solution may be to move the thumb up the pencil handle so that everyone is happy.
[Page 37]
Materials: Pencils and Pens, Paper Size and Lines
for the early skill lessons it is surely desirable to use small sheets of paper. A smaller size ensures that the child will never have to stretch too far to write. When emphasis is being put on an appropriate paper position a small sheet is an obvious advantage, particularly where table space is restricted. Half-sized exercise books that are then wider than long seem to work well.
[Page 39]A teacher’s quote: ‘I have found it helps to give young children half-sized books when they are learning to write, especially those with a short concentration span as they are not put off by having a large page in front of them.’
Lines are often a controversial issue. Some schools seem convinced that no children should have lines before the age of seven. Others set infants to write between four lines from the start. Surely either extreme is too inflexible. There may be some tasks that are best written on unlined paper and others where lines are a positive advantage.
A useful compromise is to try the lightly squared paper that is used in countries such as France and Spain. The unobtrusively checked background assists alignment without imposing size or slant on the writer. Teachers who have made small handwriting books out of squared paper have found it works well. The underlying message is that we need to have a more flexible and child-orientated attitude to so many matters concerning handwriting and that teachers should not be afraid to experiment. Children soon show us what works and what doesn’t.
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Making Children Aware of the Importance of all These Ideas
When children are being given their first lessons in handwriting it is of course essential to teach good postural strategies, but unrealistic to expect this teaching to have much effect unless extra reminders are built into the teaching method. Ideally children need to internalise the feel of their optimum writing position. A little rhyme or poem made up each year with the new intake might serve as a first reminder. This could be repeated at the beginning of each skill session for the first few months. It could cover such matters as:
‘I am sitting comfortably, not too high not too low.’
‘My paper is to the side of my ‘pencil hand.’
‘I can see what I am doing (and the board).’
‘I am holding my pencil so it can write well.’
Such an approach can be extended, for instance, to asking children if they can hear as well as see the teacher.
The aim is to make children aware of their own bodies and the part that handwriting posture plays in being able to work well. We want to educate children who are confident enough to say if their chairs or tables are not suitable, if they have not got enough space to work properly, if they cannot see or hear the teacher, and if they have not got a pencil that they find comfortable to use. Above all they must be encouraged to complain at the first signs of pain. It would be helpful if children were confident and informed enough to ask for lined paper if they felt that they needed it, and to be consulted about the size of the lines. It may not always be possible to provide each child’s exact requirements but fostering this kind of awareness of preferences or potential problems, for both teachers and pupils, would be beneficial.
[Page 42]
Part 3:A System for Teaching Letters
The Vital Early Stages
The emphasis must be first on the movement of letters and the other concepts that lie behind our alphabet. These issues are more important than teaching children to follow the shape of the letters of models. Ideally teachers need a broader understanding of how handwriting works. This includes the realisation that letters are the visible trace of a hand movement so that the posture of the body also needs consideration.
The expectation must be that most pupils will not experience difficulties if they are taught systematically. For far too long the opposite has been the case. Most children are experiencing difficulty with handwriting because they have not had the essential skill training.
… teachers who may not have learned good strategies themselves, much less had any training in how to teach handwriting, become convinced that handwriting is difficult both to teach and to learn.
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These strategies may mean a lot of work in the first year, but soon the new way of teaching and dealing with the movement of letters will become second nature. As the benefits spread upwards through the school it will all be worthwhile.
Ideas for the Early Lessons
These ideas are arranged in approximate sequence but no one other than the teacher on the spot can make the decision exactly how and when to start.
The First Lesson is Very Practical
The first ‘proper’ handwriting session can be made quite an occasion. First of all there are the practical points that need to be explained before the children are allowed to put pencil to paper:
[Page 45]
- 1.Their tables should be clear for the handwriting lesson.
- 2.They must be sitting comfortably.
- 3.They must choose a pencil, ideally from a selection of different sizes and shapes.
- 4.They must think about which of their hands will write best.
- 5.They need to be told that both hands have a job to do; one to hold the pencil and one to steady the paper.
- 6.They must put the paper a bit to the side of the hand that they are using to write with.
- 7.They might also be encouraged from the start to notice the shadow of their own hand. This way they become aware of the need for good lighting.
A teacher may need to repeat these instructions for quite a while, but there are entertaining ways of helping children to internalise the need for good writing posture. You can compose a song or rhyme, or better still the children can do it with you and perhaps incorporate their own terms. Later on it might be a good idea to see how far they understand it all. Why not ask them to draw a picture of someone sitting badly and well? That way the children’s own pictures can reinforce your teaching.
… whatever terms are decided should be used consistently.
[Page 46]
The Concepts Behind Our Writing System
1.The line of writing moves from left to right and top to bottom.- 2.Each letter has a prescribed movement and this is determined by the point of entry and direction of stroke.
- 3.Height differentials are essential to the ultimate legibility of handwriting.
- 4.Capital letters and small letters have their appropriate uses.
- 5.Spacing, both of letters and words, is important.
- 6.Several letters in our alphabet are mirror images of each other. (It is important that children are helped to form strategies for this difficult discrimination.)
Adults take all these separate aspects of the act of writing for granted but children need to be taught and to assimilate them separately.
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Explaining the Act of Writing in a Logical Sequence
The first lesson about the movement of writing could go something like this:
- Explain to the children that writing is a bit different to drawing, and that they have got to teach their pencils to do what they are told.
- They must teach the pencil to go from left to right and from the top of the page downwards…
- Explain to the children that letters are just a pattern of different strokes and that they are going to start with a pattern that works in the same way as handwriting. At some stage you will have to explain that the letters that you are aiming at are not capital letters, but small friendly ones that run along the line easily and quickly. Start with a scallop pattern which can be described as scoops or waves. Demonstrate this in the air and on the board before everyone has a try. Watching children producing even this simple pattern will give you a good idea of which ones are going to have difficulties with letters.
- Tell children that some letters are tall and some are short. Alter the scallop pattern to include tall and short lines. You should reinforce the tall/short principle with other ideas in whatever materials are available in the classroom.Teacher’s idea: ‘To demonstrate heights on the blackboard, a music ruler can be used with different coloured chalks to accentuate the difference between the heights.’
- 5.Explain that all letters start at the top (except ‘e’ and ‘d’ which will be taught later). The top to you may be the top of the board as you write downwards. To children the ‘top’ is actually the point furthest away from their body and the bottom is the point nearest to them. You can demonstrate the ‘starting at the top’[Page 52]idea to children by rolling a small ball or marble towards them on their desk. A miniature model car or bus is also useful for demonstrating the trajectory of letters in a way that is immediately obvious to children. Remember that it is difficult for some children to relate one plane to another so do not expect all your class to be able to pick up points made on the blackboard. Most children need the reinforcement of seeing each of the early stages of writing reproduced individually for them on their own paper. This may be time consuming, and difficult to organise but it will pay off in the end. Left-handers will profit from a demonstration by the teacher with the left hand. If the resulting handwriting is not perfect this does not matter. The important thing is that the children should assimilate the correct movement in the easiest possible way.
- At this stage the movement of letters can be internalised in many different ways using a variety of media.
- Teacher’s idea: ‘Write the letter in chalk on the blackboard and let the child rub it out to learn movement.’ (This works even better on a small slate.)
[Page 53]
Introducing Letters in Stroke-Related Families
… at this stage one-to-one supervision is specially needed to ensure that correct rather than incorrect movement is being automated.
[Page 54]
Teaching the First Letter Family
If you are going to use letters with exit strokes then you will need a word to describe the upstroke. Your children might enjoy deciding for you. Some of the words that teachers use are ‘tail’, ‘flick’, ‘kick’, ‘… and up’, or even ‘curl’.
The letter ‘t’ is special in two ways: it is a different height from other letters and it has a crossbar. Both of these factors need to be explained carefully and then to be practised.
When you teach the second set in the family; ‘u,y,j’, the dots can be a lesson on their own. They can be used to show how important it is to be able to tell the difference between one letter and another – between ‘i’ and ‘l’ (as that is all that they have been taught) and ‘i,j’ and ‘y’.
When most of the children have mastered these three letters you could reward them with some words; ‘it’, ‘ill’, ‘lit’. Ideally no child should progress to the next family of letters before they are confident about the movement of the previous one. This may sound didactic but it is the only way of making sure that pre-school errors are corrected at the first possible moment and that children are set on the right path to basic letters with a correct movement.
[Page 59]
Complex Letters and Emerging Problems
At some stage you will need to find out whether each child is able to perceive and produce all the strokes that make up our letters. The most difficult are often the diagonal strokes. A zigzag pattern will help you to see those children who may find the traditional zigzag ‘w’ troublesome.
Some young children may find it difficult to differentiate between ‘+’ and ‘×’, so some letters may be a problem for them. Patterns such as superimposed ‘×’ and ‘+’ can be used as a help in diagnosing potential difficulties.
[Page 60]
Name Writing
So far it has been suggested that the first teaching of letters should be carried out in stroke-related families, but there is another aspect of early writing that deserves attention. That is the question of how children write their names. …it is quite likely that there are movement faults in these early letters.
It is essential to teach or correct the movement of letters within each child’s name before an incorrect movement becomes automated. If this is done early enough and thoroughly enough, much of the correction of pre-school errors can be dealt with. The use of capital letters can be explained at the same time in the context of name writing.
[Page 65]
Starting to Use Letters
The standard of handwriting will inevitably decline once other learned skills such as spelling are combined with the simple production of letters.
if letters are taught in stroke-related groups because this is the easiest way to assimilate them, it stands to reason that even mixing all the letters of the alphabet up, is likely to be slightly more difficult.
The copying of a sentence under a picture might be the next stage. This would involve yet another problem: word spacing. The final stage in this short progression might be where a child attempts to spell as well as write down letters. As more tasks are loaded onto children their concentration on the formation of letters is diminished.
[Page 66]After a certain stage it would be possible to cut the teacher’s preparation time by letting the more competent pupils copy the day’s exercise from the blackboard. This would still allow enough flexibility to deal with the small proportion of children with specific problems who would, for instance, be needing more reinforcement of the movement of basic letters
[Page 70]
Remedial Work Often Begins on Day One
- 1.Are directional problems noticeable either from the letters or the child’s actions when writing?
- 2.Do all the letters move correctly, with the strokes starting at the correct point and moving in the right direction?
- 3.Does it appear that the child understands about the different heights of letters?
- 4.What about capital letters? Does the child use them in a way that shows appropriate use of the different levels of letters?
- 5.Are letters and words spaced in a way that shows understanding of inter-letter and inter-word spacing?
- 6.Are there reversals, either simple ones such as b/d mirror images or more complex ones involving letters that are upside down as well as mirrored?
[Page 71]
Ideas for Helping with Directional Problems
Nothing about handwriting is natural; everything needs to be taught. In other cultures writing moves from right to left, which might make it easier for lefthanders who may need more reinforcement in a left-to-right movement in the early stages. They may profit from a reminder in their writing books for a while. A strip of red paper or plastic clipped to the left edge is a good idea. The clown strip supplied by 9-year-old Sophie Lovett, and a younger child’s pen portrait are even more fun. These techniques emphasise the possible benefits of first explaining and then involving each child in an imaginative way, in solving the problems of automating each of the necessary ‘rules’ of writing.
[Page 72]
Dealing with Movement Problems
There is no single magic exercise to alter the incorrect movement of letters. It is essential to find something that each child relates to. Try using an overhead projector. This gives a three dimensional effect to the movement of letters and children enjoy it. Use the face of the clock to teach the point of entry (providing the child can tell the time). A model car or animal on wheels can demonstrate the trajectory of letters, while the teacher talks through the movement. Ensure that you use appropriate repetitive sequences of letters. It may be necessary to separate the strokes of complex letters to show children how they fit together, and then to follow this up with partial dotting or shading in of letters to support the early stages of retraining. Use your imagination and make it all light-hearted.
Reversals and Mirror Images
Children who are experiencing difficulty in discriminating between mirror images often like to have some kind of visual or aural reminder. Try tying ‘d’ to the related letter ‘a’ by suggesting ‘adadad’ as a pattern, then using the word ‘add’ or ‘dad’ as a reminder. This adds a phonic element to the reminder. In the same way ‘b’ gets associated to ‘p’ in a ‘bpbpbp’ pattern, and the word ‘pub’ can be used as a reminder.
A dyspraxic child’s solution to his b/d problem: overprinting ‘dag’ and ‘pb’ to make two patterns. One he called ‘dag’ and the other ‘pobble’ – his names, not mine – and this method worked for him.
Many reversal problems should never arise if the systematic method of teaching suggested in this book is used. If the movement is stressed as much or even more than the visual resemblances between the sets of letters, this will help those children who might be most prone to muddle them.
[Page 75]When the movement of letters is discussed, ‘d’ is described as the only letter (other than ‘e’) that starts in the middle. It begins like ‘a’ and then goes right up and down. The letter ‘b’ on the other hand, is described as starting at the top and going down, up and over, before tucking itself in.
Writing Posture
Children may need to rehearse a new movement with much more of their body than just their fingers. From this perspective it can be seen how pencil hold and the resulting movement are interrelated. Children who push their letters upwards may have developed a ‘pushing’ way of holding a pencil to suit that ‘away’ movement.
[Page 80]Personal Letters Lead to Efficiency and Speed
The aim of this section is to question traditional attitudes to certain aspects of teaching handwriting once the basic stages have been passed, and to ask why it is considered important for pupils to produce identical letterforms, in some cases up to quite a mature age, when we all accept the variability of adult handwriting.
Double Letters
Double letters could be a starting point for a lesson on the variability of joins. Start with simple ones, ‘nn’, ‘ll’ and short words where there is unlikely to be much difference between the two letters. It might be worthwhile taking a count of how many pupils joined the pair, how many had straight terminals or curved exits on either letter.
Teaching double letters can help those still struggling to find an efficient form of a single ‘s’, as well as ‘ss’ which often ends up in a magnificent tangle unless at least one letter is simplified. When it comes to ‘tt’ and ‘ff’ the fun begins. Try the pairs in words like ‘coffee’ and ‘cliff’, then let pupils exchange papers and attempt to copy each other’s joins. This can be an interesting blackboard lesson, as there are a lot of different ways of joining when a crossbar is involved and it may be almost impossible to replicate another person’s version.
Those who have found individual shortcuts will delight in demonstrating them, and those who have not may be encouraged to try some for themselves. There will always be conventionally minded children, and if their choice is to keep close to the model, then that choice is valid for that child. At the other extreme there may be those who take too many shortcuts. They need to understand how this might erode the legibility of their handwriting.
[Page 84]
Speed
Speeding-up exercises are intended to help writers to find efficient routes between letters. While children can do this consciously, designing themselves letters and joins that suit their hand, there is a deeper purpose to this exercise. Once a join has been performed by the movement of the hand when writing, that movement is stored in the motor memory. Once writing becomes automatic, using joins when comfortable if not all the time, the advantage of previous experimentation becomes evident.
When extra speed is needed, the most efficient form of a letter in the required position is automatically retrieved from the motor memory to be brought into use. Try it yourself, write a phrase first slowly and neatly and then faster and faster until it becomes a tangled scribble. As likely as not many of the letters or joins will have simplified or even altered altogether during the speeding up. One of the most usual simplifications occurs in the letters ‘th’ in ‘the’.
Do not be misled into thinking that there is any particular optimum speed. Children need to keep up with their thoughts, so fast thinkers can have trouble losing their train of thought as they struggle with their handwriting. It will not help if they are criticised for being less tidy than those who think more slowly and possibly more deeply, or those who are more economical with words.
[Page 85]
What Handwriting Problems May Indicate
Handwriting is no indication of intelligence, in fact the earliest developers often have most problems with the movement of letters.
When you put handwriting into the right perspective, as a means of recording creative thought, it becomes clear that the younger the child, the wider the gap may be between their ideas, the skill and hand control needed to write them down.
Poor spellers may often appear to write badly but frequently this is not the result of being unable to form their letters correctly. Constant hesitations and erasures disrupt the flow of writing; worry about spelling will cause tense writing, and some very poor spellers may end up reluctant to put anything down on paper. The converse may also be true – handwriting that does not flow may interrupt the sequencing of spelling. Keyboards will obviously benefit children who have spelling problems. It will help these children if they can see their ideas presented in a polished form occasionally.
[Page 87]Handwriting can sometimes provide vital clues to certain medical conditions. Visual problems, for example, can remain undetected and affect the way a child writes. Regularly letter-spaced letters may indicate that a child cannot see to space them properly, but this is just as likely to indicate that the paper is in the wrong position so the writer cannot see what has just been written, as it is to indicate a need for an eye test. Uneven margins can also be an indication, though not always of anything serious. A change of paper position or angle may solve the problem, and only if the problem persists should further investigation be necessary.
A page like this, with widely spaced letters and a sloping margin should alert the teacher to the possibility that the child cannot see properly.
[Page 91]
Recommendations from Research into Children’s Handwriting
Many commonsense points that teachers themselves had long suspected were confirmed by the findings from this research. These can be briefly summarised:
- 1.The prevalence of movement faults in young children’s handwriting and the effects of different models and more systematic methods of teaching in reducing such faults.
- 2.The variation in joining performance both within and between schools, as well as within the personal writing of some individuals.
- 3.The difficulties that teachers have in reproducing the school model, and the possible consequences for their pupils.
- 4.The wide variety of unconventional penholds.
- 5.The inappropriate paper position of so many children that could result in uncomfortable posture.
- 6.The preferred pen size when children were given a free choice.
There were some more unexpected findings too, such as the differences between the incidence of joins in boys’ and girls’ handwriting, and the unusual strategies developed by left-handers in their personal joins. It has not been possible to report all of it in this book, and no one survey can accurately reflect the situation nationwide.
Many of the findings pointed to a need to reconsider the use of a model. If some teachers cannot reproduce certain elements of a model, it is likely that children may find the same difficulty. Furthermore, few elements of the taught model were found in the writing of school leavers.
[Page 92]
[Page 92]
The Method is of More Importance than the Model
One of the main recommendations was that the emphasis of a policy should not be so much on a specific model, but more on the importance of movement. Where emphasis had been put on exit strokes and joining letters at an early age, instead of conforming to a strict model, it could be seen that there were both fewer wrongly formed letters and more joins later on.
A considerable part of my research was related to joins, but at no stage has it been suggested that all letters should join, or be seen to join in children’s handwriting, or later on in life for that matter. The efficiency or otherwise of what are termed ‘air-joins’ was, for example, not investigated. These are the movements of the pen off the paper within or between letters that necessitate repositioning of the pen. The evidence suggests however that pupils need to learn joins and then should be encouraged to use them as appropriate to their personal handwriting and the task at hand.
Part 4:A New Way of Looking at Handwriting Problems
Handwriting as a Diagnostic Tool
Another reason why poor spellers’ handwriting may appear difficult to read concerns the way adults scan and read words. If part of a word is omitted as a result of spelling errors, or inappropriate letters substituted, then the shape of the word may be so distorted that the reader might claim that the writing is illegible.
As children grow older and become more aware of their shortcomings, then tension will increase as they prepare themselves to face undeserved criticism of their ‘handwriting’. They may know that when they are copying out a familiar sentence their handwriting is as good as anyone else’s. The frustration that can arise from the injustice of such criticism will certainly not help to cure any underlying spelling fault. When impartial adults look deeper, they might find that while some children will always have trouble with spelling, others may well never have been taught how to spell. Once again, they are being unjustly blamed for shortcomings in the educational system.
It is quite easy to separate spelling from the formation of letters in order to pinpoint this kind of problem. You can give a child a repetitive letter exercise that does not involve any spelling. If the letters are well formed and consistent, it is likely that the problem does not lie with the handwriting itself but that there is another problem showing through it.
Such understanding may not have ‘cured’ anything, but the teacher now has a clearer idea of where the trouble lies, and the pupils have the comfort of showing that at least their handwriting, in terms of letterforms, is satisfactory.
Psychological Problems Reflected in Handwriting
Psychological problems of all kinds are likely to be reflected in handwriting. These indications can be recognised by the informed observer and used as a way of understanding the writer’s state of mind. The causes of tension obviously vary considerably. With children, bereavement for example, or bullying, a new baby, a broken home caused by divorce or any of these alone or in combination, can be so upsetting as to disrupt what was a perfectly adequate handwriting. The effect of such tension can compound any other difficulties the child might have.
Right or Left: A Difficult Decision
Being right-handed or left-handed is not a clear cut issue: it is more of a continuum. Some people seem to be more definitely right- or left-handed than others and a few are ambidextrous. It may be advantageous for a tennis player to be ambidextrous but it is becoming apparent that this may not be helpful in handwriting. If a child has no hand preference a teacher or parent may step in and make a decision. If no decision is made and a child is left to alternate between hands, then neither hand, so the argument goes, will get sufficiently practised. More often than not the right hand will be chosen, but no-one will know if the correct decision has been taken for several years and by then it may be too late to rectify a mistake.
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Problems with Directionality
The problem of directionality is seldom mentioned in books about handwriting, and not easily understood by those who have never been bothered themselves by such a difficulty. It is not even readily understood by those who are affected, so it needs as clear an explanation as possible. Take a pencil and draw a short line from left to right and then one from right to left. It is likely that one direction will be easier for you than the other.
If you are right-handed the left-to-right line usually is best. If you are left-handed then the right-to-left direction will probably be easiest for you.