Handwriting is a complex skill to learn. I hope the information below helps you to help your child learn to write the letters of the alphabet easily and automatically.
The goal for handwriting is for a student to be able to write the letters formed correctly, of uniform size, resting on the line and without having to think about each stroke. We should not underestimate how hard this can be for some people!
To write letters on lined paper a student needs to know where to start the letter and how to form it so that it sits on the line. The easiest way for a child to learn to do this is to trace over perfectly formed letters correctly placed on the line and with the correct spacing between the letters. It is also extremely important that the letters are formed starting at the right place and drawn in the right direction. If the correct letter formation is ingrained from the start, this can help reduce letter reversals when reading and writing. It is easier to instill correct letter formation from the beginning than to change bad habits later.
An easy way to set good penmanship in motion starting at home is to purchase some writing practice books. These are available from bookstores, newsagencies, or school supply stores. Handwriting workbooks often start with some shapes or pictures for the children to trace so that they practice doing zigzags and circles and all sorts of shapes first before they begin to form the actual letters.
If you do not have access to copy books to practice writing, you can still help your child get on the right track with letter formation.
On some clearly lined paper, draw the letter you would like to work on, best to start with the straight letters. See our download for the list of the best order to introduce the letters for handwriting.
Put a dot where the letter starts and an arrow showing the direction the child should then copy the letter.
The child then makes a copy of the letter. If they have no problem with this, they copy it several more times to help make it automatic.
Praise their effort as it may be quite wonky at first but if they are happy to keep trying it will improve quickly.
If they are having trouble making a copy, then write the letters lightly in pencil and get them to trace over the top with a darker pencil or pen. Remember do not expect perfection straight away and encourage them to keep practicing.
When you get to the letters with curves and circles, especially the anticlockwise letters you may find that the child has trouble going anti-clockwise. One way to improve this is to get them to do a ‘lazy eight’ (see picture below) Tracing over these with a pencil helps the brain and hand adapt to writing both in a clockwise and anticlockwise direction.
An example of an anticlockwise letter is the letter ‘O’. It is best if the child learns to write this letter starting midway on the right side and then draws the letter around to the left and then all the way to the starting point. This then becomes the basis for all the other anticlockwise letters. ‘c’, ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘q’, ‘s’.
Some letters prove to be more difficult than others to form correctly. If children are not shown the correct starting point, they will create their own version of the letter. Reversed ‘d’ and ‘b’ can be common because the child starts with the stick and then has trouble remembering which side the ‘ball’ goes.
Another common error we see is the letter ‘f’ that is written like an ‘r’ but then crossed. Encourage your child to draw a ‘candy cane’ starting from the top and then cross it to eliminate this error.
The letter ‘m’ is often written without the descending stick first as they start at the bottom of the first ‘leg’ instead of at the top of the stick, down then up to form the two arches. This can also be the case with an ‘n’. I often show them how ‘m’ ‘n’ and ‘r’ are related in their letter formation it just depends on where you stop as to which letter you have written.
The letter ‘x’ is particularly difficult and may require quite some practice to stop it from looking like the letter ‘t’. To practice this start with a square and ask them to draw diagonally from one corner to another.
Once a child is on their way to writing the letters correctly you could encourage them to copy their favourite sentence from their favourite book and draw a picture to match the sentence. Wonderful for writing practice but also encourages visualisation and internalising of the story vital for good comprehension when reading.
Remember perfect, automatically written letters will only come after lots of practice. For some children with dyspraxia and other learning difficulties the best we can ask is that we can read their writing.
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