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(Course Details) |
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The relevance of teaching good handwriting is sometimes
questioned in the modern age where the word processor is a
valued tool, used every day in schools. But the importance
of good teaching of handwriting is just as strong in these
days of advanced technology as it has ever been. The need to
create will hopefully never leave the human mind and nothing
will ever supercede that feeling of personal triumph when we
look at a completed task achieved by our own hands. The way
work is presented, by child or adult, speaks volumes about
that person. |
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People’s reactions on seeing beautiful handwriting, is
fascinating. Some stare, slightly open mouthed, gently
nudging fellow observers, exclaiming whispers of admiration.
More than once I have been asked if I copy out children’s
writing myself before it is displayed. I recently watched a
group of Macedonian teachers, curiously touching with their
finger tips, examples of work written in fountain pen. One
asked, in all seriousness, whether the child had written
with a word processor, using a font they had not seen in
their country. I assured them it was produced by the child’s
hand.
“But look at the ‘e’s! They are all identical!” exclaimed
one of the teachers incredulously. “And each letter ‘s’ is
exactly the same!”
“You’re absolutely right,” I answered, standing back for a
moment, looking at their faces and listening to their
animated discussion.
It is not necessary to judge whether the word processor or
handwriting has the greatest value because they should exist
side by side, in harmony, each being used appropriately. As
my mother often says, “Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, one is gold.”
Though compact discs may have taken over from vinyl and the
high speed train has replaced the Age of Steam, it would be
highly misguided and to our children’s detriment if good
handwriting became a disused historical relic.
My programme of daily lessons, aimed at KS2 children, lasts
less than six weeks, by which time letters are well formed,
joined and of the correct size. It can be adapted to meet
the needs of KS1 classes. Each lesson lasts only fifteen to
twenty minutes. Doing a little and doing it often is the
key. I use a blackboard as a magnified line guide, ruling
lines, which represent the narrow and broad bands on an A4
line guide. With KS1 classes and with SEN children, I use a
range of handwriting sheets, which give extra guidance for
letter size and positioning. I demonstrate what I want the
children to practice, a single upper or lower case letter,
straight lines of different lengths or a pair of joined
letters. I write slowly, speaking continuously so children
receive both oral and visual messages, instructing them
where to begin in relation to the line guide, exactly where
to move the pen or pencil, with constant reminders about the
size of small, tall and tail letters. The constant
bombardment of appropriate language is vital. Each short
practice should last no more than two minutes and while the
children are writing, the teacher should be moving
constantly, assessing where help is required, offering
individual advice and praise in full ear shot of the rest of
the class to re–inforce teaching points and good practice. I
visit each child during a lesson so they feel fully
supported. When necessary, I make further demonstrations in
children’s practice books, something I rarely do in other
subject areas, but with handwriting it is a perfectly
legitimate and effective tactic.
There are many important jigsaw pieces to fit in place, such
as writing tools and body posture, but within a school,
uniformity in approach and expectation are important so
teachers build on previous good working habits.
But it isn’t just handwriting I am talking about. If taught
effectively, it is where children see the biggest change and
fastest improvement in their work; progress they are able to
see, feel and enjoy. With a new class, my first priority is
to establish good handwriting. In one school, Jagtar Singh
was apathetic and poorly motivated. In just nine days this
changed totally. It was about 8.40 and a wet morning had
brought him into the classroom with a group of other early
arrivals.
“Can I finish off the writing we started yesterday?” he
asked.
“ ‘Course you can, Jagtar, if you want to!” I replied.
He beamed up at me, grasping his pen in readiness.
“I don’t recognize my writing. It’s miles better than it
used to be!” he said with great pride and realizing he had
made a huge step forward.
Good teaching of handwriting reaps rewards in a very short
time span. It gives children something immediate. Self-
esteem and motivation levels rise, influencing children’s
attitude to learning in other subjects. It also plays a part
in personal development because care, pride, concentration
and perseverance are required qualities. Good handwriting
needs self-discipline, skill and quality teacher input. Good
handwriting gives the reader a favourable impression. We
must teach children that good handwriting is respected.
It gives them something immediate, which they can hang on
to.
A perfect example of this was when I changed schools and
took over a Y6 class. The recently appointed headteacher had
warned me that standards were low in school; the children
were poorly motivated and teacher expectation levels were
not high. The children shuffled about the school with heads
down and eyes betraying no spark of life. They were well
mannered enough, but their oracy skills were totally
undeveloped. An air of resignation and subjugation was
emitted. There was no vitality, no laughter, no enthusiasm,
no eagerness to learn.
I decided to start the year with a short piece of writing
and after what I considered to be a reasonable input from
myself, the children shuffled back to their places to begin
writing. They slouched at their tables, some with pencil,
some with ballpoint, some with fountain pens. There was
obviously nothing in common with each child's handwriting,
except that it was a scruffy mess, with an “I Don’t Care”,
message there for all to see.
After 10 or 15 minutes I called the class to a halt, which
was precisely what most of them seemed to have done 10 or 15
minutes before.
“Ok, now who would like to read their opening sentence to
the class?” I asked, expecting a sea of excited hands to be
thrust in the air, with accompanying grunts of eagerness.
Nothing! You could have heard a pin drop. Thirty-two pairs
of eyes stared at me as if I’d employed an alien language.
“Sorry, do you want me to start again. I can try French or
German this time if you would prefer!”
I thought they’d see the humour in a little light hearted
sarcasm, and the ice would be broken, but the silence
remained unbroken.
Suddenly, a pen dropped. Not a pin, nor a penny, but a pen.
Three children blinked, two twitched and one removed her
thumb from her mouth.
“Would anyone like to share with us, the best sentence
they’ve written?” I asked, my confidence beginning to wane.
Same response! I looked into the eyes of the nearest child
to me. Not a flicker! It was like looking into the eyes of a
shark. No feeling behind the eyes. No emotion. This was a
ten year old!
Giving up, I decided on a different line of questioning.
“How often do you usually practice handwriting?” I asked,
suddenly noticing a pile of about thirty, pretty dog-eared
textbooks titled Handwriting For Juniors, or something like
that.
Two children glanced at each other before one boy bravely,
slowly, raised a hand.
“We do handwriting once a week, Sir, for an hour”, he
informed me, while a dozen or so others nodded almost
imperceptibly.
Warming to this unexpected opportunity to speak, he told me
that they had always done handwriting for an hour on Monday
morning, while their teacher did the dinner money, did the
bank money, did the school fund. The girl with the thumb
stuck it back in her mouth, and another stared blankly at me
while twirling her hair with both forefingers.
My confidence was rapidly draining now as I had a vision of
this super-teacher teaching handwriting for a full hour
while doing the dinner money, the bank money and the school
fund, all at the same time.
Further questions, though revealed that the usual recipe for
the teaching of handwriting was as follows:-
Step One: Give every child a copy of Handwriting For Juniors
Step Two: Give out the exercise books.
Step Three: Give instructions.
“Copy out pages 32 and 33”.
“Do not disturb me for any reason”.
“Class, begin!”.
This, though an extreme example, is the method of ‘teaching’
handwriting I have seen in many schools. Variations on this
theme may be, “copy a page from your reading book”, or “copy
what I have written on the board”.
There is no ‘teaching’ in these methods whatsoever.
Returning to my earlier tale, the demeanor of my class was
typical of the whole school, as I soon found out from school
assemblies. One of my tactics to shake off the cobwebs was
to make the kids get up and dance at the end of my
assemblies. Recognising one or two livelier wires in the Y3
class, I told them to stand up. Then I stuck on some of my
‘Old Men’s Music’and asked them if they wanted to dance.
This was mostly lively stuff from such as The Pogues, J.
Geils Band or Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. The kids
looked at me, gawped at each other, grinned, and started
dancing. Next I told the rest of the school to stand and
said if anybody wanted to dance on their way out of assembly
they could do. Some kept their gaze to the floor, while
others stared blankly ahead, but some smiled, laughed
nervously and joined the dance. A few big lads at the back
slouched and sneered, and the blonde girl with the expensive
trainers and recently acquired sun tan from Spain [all the
other kids went to Cleethorpes for their holidays or
nowhere], she stood looking bored and examined her nails.
This was all beneath her. But the point is, most of the kids
were moving, were smiling, were coming to life.
Over the dinner table at 12 noon, some told me they actually
‘enjoyed’ my assembly. This was obviously a rarely used word
and their eyes sparkled. Sometimes we need to get our kids
to get up and dance, sometimes literally, sometimes
metaphorically.
Back in the classroom, I set my stall out to make good
handwriting an immediate priority. I was determined to
achieve quality presentation as quickly as possible, partly
to make my own mark in the school, but mainly in order to
motivate the children by proving to themselves what they
could do, just what they were capable of. I borrowed thirty
fountain pens from a friend, who was Head of a neighbouring
school, and one break time, while rummaging through
cobwebbed shelves in a previously unexplored stockroom, I
discovered a few boxes of black platignum ink cartridges. I
was in business.
Everyday for the first fortnight we did twenty minutes
handwriting practice, but not copying from a text book (they
were already in the skip) or a reading book, or sentences
the teacher had written on the board. We began simply with
straight lines of different lengths, which would be used in
tall, short and tail letters, before moving onto practicing
individual letters, concentrating on correct size and shape.
One or two children were sullen, finding the pens slightly
awkward at first and some were resentful of the ink, which
stained fingers because of their lack of experience, but
most of the class followed my instructions to the letter. I
demonstrated a letter on the board and they copied, perhaps
for sixty seconds, while I moved amongst them, offering
help, advice and most importantly, praise. I always made it
clear why someone was being praised, and I gave it in full
earshot of all the children, re-inforcing good practice.
Surprise, surprise! I found that these children responded to
praise and soon were making rapid, enormous strides. In
those early lessons, blots and smudges and mutterings of,
“My pen won’t work”, or “My ink’s flowing too fast,” were
often heard, but these become less as the children began to
master their new tools. Soon we had unblemished pages of
white paper, marked only with lines of individual letters or
pairs of joined letters.
After two weeks, handwriting had changed out of all
recognition, but just as importantly, possibly more so, for
the children and for the school as a whole, their whole
attitude, their bearing, their movement had changed
enormously. There was a pride in the way they looked at
their work and the way they showed their work to others,
slightly self-consciously at first, but you could actually
see the confidence growing inside them.
One breaktime, we had just finished a handwriting session
when the headteacher entered the classroom, doing his daily
rounds. One little girl moved straight towards him,
handwriting book and pen in hand.
“We’ve been practicing handwriting. Isn’t it neat!” she said
with pride.
Suddenly the boss was surrounded by a dozen kids, all with
books and pens in hand, like ecstatic autograph hunters.
After a few words of praise, he looked across at me,
half-smiled and nodded his head slowly a few times,
communicating the feeling that we were up and running, the
first clumsy steps perhaps, but they had been taken, and our
school was on the move.
The intensive programme of short lessons I use takes less
than six weeks, by which time, the children’s handwriting is
now well formed, joined and the correct size. A weekly
session will be needed to re-inforce good practice, to
eradicate common faults and to maintain standards. Children
can be given short five minute individual exercises on
completing a piece of written work.
But it isn’t just the handwriting we are working on here.
The effect on attitudes and the development of care, pride
and self -discipline, has an important spill over effect on
many other curriculum areas. Handwriting, if it is taught
effectively, is where children can see biggest change and
improvement in their work, in the shortest amount of time. A
progress they are able to see, feel and enjoy. When starting
with a new class, whether it be with a totally apathetic and
demotivated group of children, as I have already described,
or whether the children are already steeped in good
practice, it is my first priority to establish good
handwriting. Interestingly, even if all the children are
using the same pen and their letters are shaped, sized and
joined in the same way, there are subtle differences in each
child’s handwriting. When I know a class, I can easily
identify writing without looking at names. Teaching children
one particular handwriting style is not about cloning in the
accepted sense. What I mean by cloning, is having the same
good habits, good practices and good attitudes in relation
to work and that type of cloning is miles more meaningful
than the kids all having the same colour jumpers.
The Handwriting Lesson
Each class lesson should last between fifteen and twenty
minutes. Doing a little at a time and doing it often, is the
key, then the children have to mentally absorb only a few
new letter shapes or joins at a time. I demonstrate by using
a magnified line guide. This involves using a metre ruler
which is 7 cm wide and a piece of chalk. I begin at the top
of my blackboard, or as high as I can reach and still be
well balanced, placing the ruler horizontally and parallel
to the top of the board. I draw a line the full width of the
board, move my ruler downwards and place it now with the top
edge along the line I have already drawn. I then make two
marks under the ruler, move the ruler down so the top edge
touches these two marks and draw another line across the
board. What I have done is to draw a narrow band, which is
the width of the ruler and a broader band, which is double
the ruler’s width. I continue this down the board so I have
three narrow bands and three broad bands. Now I am ready to
start, or nearly! I almost forgot my writing tool, that
piece of chalk. Flatten the end of it so it is shaped like
the end of a broad pen nib. This will provide greater
balance and control, and will enable you to demonstrate
thick lines and thin lines to the children.
Now we are ready to begin. Demonstrate on the board what you
want the children to practice. It might be a single letter
of upper or lower case, a straight line of a certain length
or a pair of joined letters. Write slowly on the board,
speaking continuously so children receive both visual and
oral messages.
For example when joining “a” on to “w”.
Me: “Where do we begin the letter a?”
Children: “Just below the top line.
Me: “That’s right, so I put my pen (chalk) just under the
line and I got up …… touch the top line, but don’t
go above it. I roll over and go fairly straight down
until nearly at the bottom line, when I curl slightly
to the right to form my oval ‘c’ shape. Then I go
up and across diagonally to my right to meet up
with where I began the letter. I touch the top line
and come straight back down until I reach the
bottom line. And where do I join the a to the w?”
Children: “Where the w meets the top line.”
Me: “Okay so I go across to the right diagonally to where
The ‘w’ begins …. etc. etc. etc.
And so it goes on. Although you may be breathless and ready
for a drink after fifteen minutes, it pays dividends.
The constant bombardment of appropriate language is vital
and while children are writing, the teacher should be
constantly on the move, praising, assessing where help is
needed and re-inforcing teaching points and good practice. I
aim to visit each child, however briefly, during each
session, so they feel they are being supported constantly
and not neglected. Where necessary, I make further
demonstrations in children’s books. This is something I
rarely do in other subject areas, and I certainly wouldn’t
touch a child’s artwork, but in handwriting it is a
perfectly legitimate and effective tactic. Each teacher
demonstration, involving no more than three letters, should
be followed by pupil practice lasting no more than two
minutes.
There are many more details which are important little
jigsaw pieces, and when we get all these in place and keep
them there, we are moving in the right direction. Always
insist on the children sitting correctly; chair not pushed
so far back that the child needs to stretch forward and
finishes up with head resting on table and eyes too close to
the paper to focus. Likewise they must not be so squashed to
the table that the book is too close to them.
“How many hands do we need to write?”
“We need two!”
The hand not holding the pen or pencil must be on the table,
holding the paper in place, keeping posture correct and
balanced. Ensure that the book or paper is correctly
positioned; not too close to the body, with the top edge
directly in front of the writer. Don’t allow children to
turn their paper at right angles to their body. This is
something often seen and it is a near impossible task at Y6
to get a child to alter the habits of the last six years.
This is where uniformity of approach and uniformity of
expectation in a school is so important, much more so than
uniformity of clothes. When writing in pencil, insist that
it is always a sharp pencil. Again teacher language to
constantly hammer home good practice.
e.g. “When is a pencil not a pencil?”
“When it hasn’t got a point”.
“Your pencil looks like a chair leg dipped in dust! Get it
sharpened!”
Children writing in fountain pen need basic advice about
keeping fingers away from the nib and not touching writing
before it has dried. I suggest using nibs which are not too
fine. A slightly broader nib gives greater balance for the
writer. I liken this with walking on a footpath over a
bridge, compared with climbing up and walking along the hand
rail. Keep the fine nibs for beautifully detailed
observational drawing.
Repetition is an important aspect of practice and repetitive
language, although it may become amusing to the kids,
provides constant reminders. Teach them that small letters
must always touch both lines on the narrow band, but not go
above the top or below the bottom line. Teach them that tall
letters go halfway up the broad band on the line guide and
tail letters go halfway down the broad band. Teach capital
letters as tall letters, which do not join the following
letter. Teach them to always show care and pride in their
work. Teach them that good presentation creates a favourable
impression to the reader. Good handwriting needs
self-discipline, skill and a high level of good quality
teacher input. Teach them that good handwriting matters.
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Excellence In
Handwriting
In this course, I do three demonstration lessons
in each class. Then I observe each teacher carry
out a short handwriting lesson, with their own
class, after which I give immediate feedback. I
write a report on the whole project and make
recommendations based on issues which have
arisen during the project.
A high level of improvement, which is
noticeable to the individual child, can be
achieved more quickly in handwriting than in any
other curriculum area. This impacts on
children’s self-esteem and motivation.
At the end of this course, the
children’s handwriting will be superb. The
teachers will have the strategies and teaching
language to maintain this level of excellence. |
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