Teaching handwriting

to young learners
session 1
 Aims
• To make teacher/ students aware of the basic
principles of teaching handwriting and give
appropriate techniques for teaching
individual letters and joining letters.

• To help teacher/students develop strategies

for dealing with handwriting problems.
When to start teaching handwriting ?
The earlier to start the more chance to
practice
 GW

How teaching writing can help

students to learn English?
• It can help students to develop other skills
• It can help with reading
• It can help them to remember words
 GW
What style to teach?
HO 1
Discuss the three examples of handwriting
in your groups
• How are these three styles different?
• Which one do you think is easiest to
learn?
• Which one is the most useful?
 Trainer’s input:
• The first style is printing. The letters are separate, and
they look the same as in printed books.
• The second style is simple cursive. Most letters are
joined, but they keep the same basic shape as in
printing. Most children in Britain learn this style, and
most adults use it.
• The third style is full cursive. All the letters are joined,
and many have different shapes from printing. Many
people in Britain still use this style, especially older
people.
 PW
THE ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES OF EACH
STYLE
• What are the advantages and
disadvantages of each style ? (HO 2)
THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EACH STYLE
 PW

What order to introduce the

letters?
• It is not necessary to introduce letters in
alphabetical order. The alphabet can
easily be learned separately
 GW
Think of a possible order in
which to teach the letters:
 Trainer’s input:

• Letters with similar shapes are taught together.

This helps students see important differences
between them (e.g. between 'n' and 'h').
• Vowels are introduced near the beginning. This
is useful as they are common, and can be joined
to other letters to make words
• In practice, of course, the order of letters is often
determined by the syllabus or the textbook
 GW
• Make suggestions, and build up a list of
features on the board. Think about the
ways of helping students. For example:

left to right direction

Obviously, teachers should make this clear
from the beginning and remind students
constantly of it.
 Trainer’s input
• Writing 'on the line': Teachers can make this
clear by drawing lines on the blackboard. It is
best to draw four lines: this makes it possible to
show which letters go above and which go
below:
•
Shape and size of letters: Students may find it
difficult to form the basic shape of some letters.
Before learning a new letter, they can practise
making the basic shape: for example, before
learning 'i', 'u', ‘l’ and 't' they could practise:
 Trainer’s input

• Joining letters
• Capital letters: This becomes important
later, when students begin to write
sentences. But students can start
practising capital letters by writing their
own names and the names of towns,
countries, months, etc.
• Imagine you are teaching a new letter.
Which of these steps are important?
Which are not important?
HO 3
 Trainer’s input: THE ESSENTIAL STEPS ARE:

• writing the letter on lines on the board, and getting students to

copy it several times.

• it is also very useful to describe the letter, to help students see

how it is formed - this can be done in simple English or the
students' own language.

• It is important to give the usual sound of the letter, so that

students can connect sound with spelling. But there is no
need to get students to repeat the sound: the aim is to practise
writing, not pronunciation.
 THE ESSENTIAL STEPS ARE:

• Knowing the name of the letter is useful, for example

when spelling words aloud, but is not really
necessary for writing. Giving the name of the letter
at this stage could be confusing, especially if the
name is different from the sound (e.g. the vowels).

• Some teachers find it useful to get students to

practise forming the letter in the air before they write
it down; this helps students to 'feel' the shape of the
letter. However, this can be difficult to control in a
large class.
 Look at a quick demonstration, to show how
the main steps fit together:
1. Draw lines on the board, then write the
letter 'n', large enough for everyone to
see.
2. Tell the class what sound it makes, and
give some words it appears in (e.g. man,
ten, no, new).
3. Show how to form the letter. Write it two or
three times and describe the direction: 'Look -
it starts here - then down, back up again, then
round and down. See - it stands on the line'
4. Ask your students to copy the letter in their
books and write it several times (separately)
along the line, from left to right.
5. Move around quickly, checking.
Joining letters
• When students have learnt a new letter, they
can practise joining it to other letters they know
already. Obviously, they should only practise
combinations which really exist in words, and as
soon as they know enough letters they should
practise writing words and sentences. Write
these letter combinations on the board:
• ta ti et ot yt th tg nt dt
. Letter joins can be taught in the same way as
individual letters. It is very important to show
clearly how we make joins from the end of one
letter to the beginning of the next (not always the
closest point). Give a quick demonstration.
Imagine that you have just taught 'h' and the
class already know 'c'.
• Write 'c' and 'h' separately on the board
• Point to where “c” ends and 'h' begins and draw
a line joining them
• Then draw the joined letters several times,
and describe the shape ('. . . round, then
up to the top of the "h", then down . . .').
• Ask students to copy the joined letters
several times. Go round the class and
check.
 Copying words
• Once students have learnt enough letters, they can start
writing words and simple sentences. The simplest and
most controlled form of practice is simple copying. Make
these points about copying:
For students who have to learn English script, copying is
a useful exercise; students do not have to produce
words of their own, so the focus is entirely on
handwriting.

REMEMBER Simply copying words or sentences from the

board can be a very mechanical activity. Students can
easily do it without really thinking, and it soon becomes
very boring.
 GW
How Can We Make copying more
challenging?
What techniques do you know?
One way to make copying more challenging
is to use a technique called 'delayed
copying'. The teacher writes a word on the
board (or shows it on a card), and the
students read it; then the teacher erases
the word, and the students write it. In this
way, students have to think what they are
writing, and they have to think of the word
as a whole, not just as a series of letters.
. Technique: Demonstration
Write a word on the board. Ask students what it
says. Spell the word. students should not write
anything yet.
Erase the word from the board. Students
write it from memory. Go round quickly and
check, making sure that teachers are joining
the letters together. Repeat the procedure
with other words,
As a check, ask individual students to come
and write the words on the board
Simple copying tasks
• Another way to make copying more interesting
is by including a simple task for the students
to do. For example, we can ask students to
match words together, match words with
pictures, put words in the correct order, etc.
This makes sure that students think about
what they are copying and understand what
the words mean; it also gives a reason for
writing the words.
.
. HO 4 GW
Discuss each activity, focusing on these
points:
– How well did it work?
– How could it be organized in class?
– What preparation would be needed?
Micro Teaching
Work in groups.
• Teacher A: Choose a letter. Teach it to the others in your group. Help
them with any difficulties. The others: Imagine you are students. Practise
writing the new letter.
• Make the same mistakes as your own students would.
• 1. Divide the teachers into groups. Choose one person in each group to
be 'teacher'. They should choose a letter, and teach it to the others,
using a piece of paper as a 'blackboard'. The others copy the letter, but
make the kind of mistakes that their own students would make. The
'teacher' should check and help them to improve.
• When they have finished, another person in the group becomes the
teacher, and they repeat the activity.
• 2. After the activity, ask each group to report briefly how successful the
teaching was, and how the teacher corrected mistakes.
.

THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION !

.