Handwriting

Multisensory Approaches to Assessing and Improving Handwriting Skills

Jane Taylor

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000159189
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Handwriting is a learnt, physical skill that needs to be taught and practiced. This manual shows how to get handwriting right from the outset and to progress successfully. Poor handwriting is a major cause of low self-esteem, and can disguise ability. Only thorough assessment can pinpoint the weakness once something has gone wrong. Methods of assessment for pupils in difficulty and techniques to help them are given. The materials are tried and tested and have been used successfully in both mainstream and SEN settings and with pupils with dyslexia.

Early Teaching Strategies

Pre-writing Activities

Pupils arrive in school with a variety of skills. A number of them will have had plenty of experience in using writing tools and may be able to write some letters, but may not form them correctly. Others may be at the pre-writing stage and will need to spend a considerable amount of time on pre-writing activities before embarking on the formal stages of learning to write letters.

It is important that pupils master the necessary fine motor and perceptual skills before being exposed to the world of letters and are expected to write in a formal manner. This section is not intended to be comprehensive but describes a few ways of developing pre-writing skills and learning about letters. Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) 2000) is a detailed document, full of ideas ‘intended to help practioners plan to meet the diverse needs of all children’. It stresses the importance of being competent in a number of key skills and highlights the ‘stepping stones’ that ‘show the knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes that children need to learn during the foundation stage in order to achieve the early learning goals’. The section on physical development is particularly relevant to the pre-writing pupil, with the section on communication, language and literacy providing useful ideas for the pupil who is beginning to make marks on paper.

Painting

Most children enjoy painting. Painting at an easel encourages gross motor movement, particularly around the shoulder girdle, which in turn will make for greater postural stability when writing.

Colouring

Cursive writing demands a complicated series of movements as the pupil writes words horizontally across a sheet of paper. It involves both the up / down strokes executed by the fingers, the circular movement of the thumb and the side-to-side movements executed by the wrist. Learning to colour and to control the colouring tool within the framework of an outline is one way in which these fine motor movements may be practised. Whenever the pupil is using a crayon or felt-tip pen, he should be encouraged to hold it between the pads of the thumb and index finger and resting on the middle finger; an efficient tool grip (see Figure 8, p. 49). Whenever the pupil is using a writing instrument he should be encouraged to hold it in the manner already described.

Drawing

Drawing ‘offers even the least mature child a ready means of creativity and expression’ (Michael, undated). The teacher should show interest in what the pupil has drawn by wanting to ‘read’ the drawing. She can encourage him to use more detail in his drawings so that there is more to ‘read’. This will give him opportunities to make plenty of fine motor movements with his pencil or crayon. Thomas (1997) suggests that a face cut from a magazine can be pasted on to a sheet of paper and then the pupil draws in the clothes and inserts patterns on them.

It takes time to include detail in drawing so a picture may take more than one session. As the pupil’s proficiency increases, the idea of drawing a sequence of pictures to make a story can be introduced. Sheet E1 (p. 5), provided for this purpose, is a photocopiable sheet of paper in landscape orientation, divided into three with a line at the bottom on which the ‘story’ could be written.

Patterns

Tracing over and copying patterns is another useful activity (see Figure 5). It is important that the

is an oval and not a circle. Patterns can be done at an easel with paint, or on a flat surface. When drawn on a large piece of paper gross motor movement will be involved. When executed with a variety of tools, or traced with the index finger in sand or flour, fine motor movements will be used. The same patterns can be repeated or they can be intertwined with one another. The pattern can be repeated across the width of the paper, which is a pleasurable experience. An alternative, as a precursor to writing Figure 5 Writing patterns words, is to repeat the pattern as illustrated, followed by a space. Continue repeating the pattern in this manner across the page.

Figure 5 Writing patterns

During this stage the pupil can begin to become familiar with letters by handling 3D wooden or plastic letters (see Learning About Letters, p. 53).

Language of instruction

Many words used by teachers when referring to letters are about space and order: for example, bottom, middle, top, before, after, next to. The pupil may not be familiar with these concepts so time should be spent ensuring that these words are understood in the pre-writing phase.

The Four Ps

A pupil should learn that handwriting is a physical skill that demands attention to detail. Learning how to sit, to use a ‘presser’, the optimum position in which to place the paper and how to hold the writing tool are all important and can be remembered as the ‘4Ps’: posture, presser, paper position and pencil/pen hold.

Posture

The teacher should establish, from the beginning, the importance of adopting a good writing posture that prevents unnecessary muscle strain and future chronic backache. The thighs should be placed well back in the chair with the feet flat on the floor (see Figure 6). There should be sufficient room for the forearms to rest on the table. The elbows should be fairly close to the body to give support to the shoulder girdle. The non-writing hand should support the work, which in turn allows the forearm to support the body and to enables the writing arm to move freely. The distance from the eyes to the paper should be approximately the distance between the knuckles and elbow.

Figure 6 Correct sitting position

Presser

Most adults do not choose to write on a single sheet of paper on a hard surface yet pupils are frequently expected to draw, colour or write on a single piece of paper placed directly on the table. All pupils should be provided with a piece of stiff card or some other form of presser on which to place their work. The left-hander might benefit from having a thin strip of card pasted on to the presser to indicate the paper position (see Figure 7).

Figure 7 Suggested form of presserPaper position

Paper position

The angle of the paper is crucial for the left-hander (see Figure 3, p. 4).

1. The left-hander needs to be able to see what he is writing. Th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Tools of the Trade
• Assessment and Records
• Early Teaching Strategies
• Teaching Strategies for Pupils with Poor Handwriting
• Glossary
• Resources
• Useful Addresses
• Bibliography