Contextual Research - Handwriting

Resources

• Changing handwriting takes a lot of time and effort.
• Encouragement is essential
• Short, regular, frequent periods of practice are much more effective than long sessions.
• Make sure that teaching at home does not set up conflicts for the child between home and school. 
• Callirobics
• Lively, fun and useful warm-up exercise to prepare hands and arms for handwriting. (Hands up for handwriting
• Handwriting Pocket book
• Pegs to Paper
• Write Dance
• Start Write, Stay Right
• Speed Up!
• Write from the Start
• Handwriting patterns playbook - practicing letter shapes cursive style in a more fun and interactive way, rather than just writing out words and letters. 
• A functional tool, which helps put ideas to paper.
• Handwriting is a means of expressing language 
• The formations of the symbols within each writing system have idea movement patterns and the spatial relationships between symbols and the directional conventions on the page. 
• Involves linguistic, cognitive, perceptual and motor components which all have to be coordinated. 
• Skill of handwriting remains important in education, employment and everyday life.
• Time devoted to the teaching and learning of letters formation in the early years will pay off.

Why Handwriting is Important

 -  Legible writing that can be produced comfortably, at speed and with little conscious effort allows a child to attend to the higher-level aspects of writing composition and content. This is important when assessments are based on written work, particularly in time-limited written examinations, which remain as a major form of assessment for many formal qualifications. Without fast and legible handwriting, students may miss out on learning opportunities and under-achieve academically

- Many personal computers have handwriting recognition capability so the handwriting as a means of interacting with computers is becoming more persuasive. 

• timed sessions
• different 10 minutes to unlock each day
• in the different sections of letters
• maybe just a beginners app
• for both parents and children
• can choose which colour/style to make it more fun
• rewarded - maybe stickers?

Handwriting difficulties

Questions parents to ask themselves if they are concerned wit handwriting…

How to help at school

• May cause stress and anxiety with the student, parent or teachers who struggle to watch the child put their ideas down on paper. 

1. Has your child received any direct teaching of handwriting?

2. What is the policy for handwriting in the school?

3. Are the concerns about the handwriting shared by the teacher, the parents and the child?

4. What are the main areas of concern?

1. Legibility? (All or most of the words written can't be read out of context.)

2. Neatness? (The handwriting is messy or poorly controlled.)

3. Comfort? (The child is experiencing pain, strain or discomfort when writing.)

4. Pressure? (S/he is pressing too hard or not hard enough, or pressure within one piece of writing is variable.)

5. Speed? (S/he writes very slowly, producing too little writing, or too fast, becoming inaccurate.)

6. Motivation/enjoyment? (S/he is reluctant to write or gives up too easily.)

• survey style of questions when the parent first opens the app to gage how they need to best help their child.

How to help at home

1. Watch how he writes as well as what he produces.

2. Look at his general coordination and his fine-motor coordination with other implements, e.g. knife and fork. This will give an indication if immature or impaired motor coordination might be contributing to the difficulty.

3. Make sure he is in the correct environment for writing when at home, i.e. he is sitting at a table on a chair of the right height, and not lying on the floor, in front of the TV or in bed.

4. Make sure his writing tools are suited to his age and capabilities (pencils not too thick or thin, pens not scratchy, etc.)

5. Talk to him about how he feels about his handwriting? Does it worry him? Does he find it difficult? Does he care about it?

How to help at school, ask teacher

1. Is s/he also concerned about the handwriting?

2. How, and how often, is handwriting taught in class?

3. Is there a particular approach or style which is being used with the children?

4. How can you, at home, support what they are doing at school?

Frequently asked Questions

Do children grow out of the handwriting difficulty?

Evidence suggests that mild difficulties will be helped with good teaching and the maturation of the child. However, more severe problems persist into adolescence and beyond if appropriate intervention is not given.

Can all handwriting difficulties be cured?

Targeted intervention, either from an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist or a specialist teacher will make a noticeable difference for most children. There are a few, however, who may never manage to write well enough and fast enough to do themselves justice on paper. For them, keyboarding is an essential alternative.

Are difficulties always the result of poor teaching?

Good basic teaching, particularly at in the lower primary school, is important. However, there are some children who still find handwriting hard, despite having had lessons in school.

Does keyboarding solve all the problems?

It certainly helps a great number of children and young people to express their ideas at the level of their intellect and it should be encouraged. But handwriting should not be ignored completely for several reasons:

1. There are times when handwriting is needed, e.g. for certain school subjects (such as maths, science) and in other everyday circumstances.

2. There is some evidence that the physical act of handwriting helps the flow of ideas for written composition in ways which keyboarding doesn't.

3. Handwriting is very personal. It is an expression of a person's identity, like how they dress or wear their hair. In adolescence it is common to find young people adopting a particular style of handwriting to suit their personal image. This should not be discouraged as long as the handwriting remains functional.

Is being left-handed the cause of the problem?

Being left-handed is not of itself a disability. The majority of left-handers write as well as their right-handed peers. Some evidence suggests that they develop fluency a little later than right-handers because they are 'pushing' the pen across the page rather than 'pulling' it, but this should not be a problem in the long-term.

Are handwriting problems more common in boys?

Girls seem to master good handwriting earlier than boys but boys catch up by the time they reach secondary school if there are no underlying difficulties. Handwriting difficulties are reported more frequently among boys than girls but most improve, given the right help.

How important is pen grip?

Many children with difficulties hold their pen or pencil in unconventional ways. However, so do many competent writers and there is no evidence to date to link poor pen or pencil grasp with poor handwriting. The dynamic tripod grasp (with the pen pinched between the ball of the thumb and the fore-finger, supported by the middle finger with the other fingers tucked into the hand) is recommended once the child is old enough to hold a writing implement. This minimizes the risk of strain and offers the greatest control. However, for those with handwriting difficulties, changing the grasp will, of itself, not solve the problems. It may be that the poor grasp and the poor handwriting are both visible symptoms of the same underlying factors.

My child's handwriting is slow and untidy. Does this mean he is dyslexic or dyspraxic?

Many of the children who are diagnosed with a developmental disorder experience difficulties with handwriting. These include those with problems with reading and spelling, those with attention issues, those who are poorly coordinated and those with disorders on the autistic spectrum, but a handwriting difficulty on its own is not sufficient to indicate the presence of one of these disorders. A full assessment by an educational or clinical psychologist or paediatric neurologist is needed for an accurate diagnosis.

What is dysgraphia?

Dysgraphia means "disturbance of or difficulty with orthographic-motor integration" (i.e. handwriting). The term describes purely the handwriting difficulty as it is possible for this to be an isolated problem and not associated with a more general disorder. Some researchers have described sub-categories of dysgraphia in order to study it better, such as 'surface dysgraphia' or 'deep dysgraphia'. These recognize that weaknesses in different types of processing may be responsible for the problem, such as motor control, visual perception and spelling difficulties. The term may be used differently by different professionals so it is important to check what is meant by the term in any one context.

Bilateral coordination assessment

Hand and finger muscle assessment

Posture assessment

sensory participation assessment

Games to improve handwriting

Have a section to links to help parents. 

Handwriting within the national curriculum

Foundation Stage - Using phonic knowledge to write words to match their spoken sounds.

Use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable letters, which are formed correctly. 

Handwriting Policy

Problems within Handwriting

• letter and word spacing issues
• Poor body posture and pencil grip
• Reluctance or poor writing speed
• problems with letter formation
• Eye tracking and handwriting
• Spatial awareness and handwriting
• Visual memory
• Motor memory

Developmental Stages

• Starts with mark making and simple drawing
• Grip on the writing tool between the fingers and thumb. Grip Development.
• children can’t be forced hold a writing tool using the correct grip before they are developmentally ready.
• Young children tend to prefer thicker drawing tools. 
• Vertical surfaces and painting surfaces. 
• Plain paper rather than lined paper. 
• Learn sitting position and paper position .
• A tripod grip
• pre handwriting letter patterns 
• size and neatness comes later
• Proprtions and positioning, sky, grass, earth
• Formation of letters using pictoral or colour clues. 
• Teach letter formation in groups and families rather than alphabetical order.
• Children are ready to join letters when;
• They have learnt to form letters correctly
• Letters are of a consistent and suitable size
• Letters are positioned appropriately on the writing line as well as in relation and proportion to one another. 
• Goal - They can produce and maintain a good speed, have fluid hand movement, letters are consistent and handwriting is legible.

The different sections split into colours - three colours used throughout the app. 

Activities and Games to Help

Keep handwriting separate from homework, make writing fun and positive and give praise. 

Colouring and dot to dot puzzles, painting ,mark making all help. 

Try some activities at home such as...  climbing  crawling  throwing  kneading dough  grating cheese  painting  large drawing using chopsticks  using tweezers  play dough  cooking

We provide experiences for children to...  develop upper arm strength through physical activity  develop hand and finger control through hands-on practical activities such as playdough and using tweezers  develop spacial awareness learn about good presentation through modelling handwriting and looking at different texts learn about the formation of letters  develop a joined handwriting style

Encourage sky writing with both hands. • Make the letter shape using finger paints. • Let your child practise their letter formation in the air or on your back. • Go outside and use chalk or wet paint brushes to practice letter formation on the ground. 

Precursive handwriting

Each individual letter is formed with an exit stroke

About Cursive Handwriting

1. Size - This refers to the letters in relation to each other and to the lines or spaces on the paper.

• Tall letters should touch the headline, or top line position, of the paper.

• Short letters should touch the mid line, or center line position, of the paper.

• Some letters actually go below the baseline, or bottom line position.

• Depending on their position, similar letters should be uniform in height.

2. Shape - There are four basic shapes, or motions, to guide your cursive handwriting:

• undercurve (this stroke swings up).

• downcurve (this stroke dives down).

• overcurve (this stroke bounces up).

• slant (this stroke slides at an angle).

3. Slant - All letters in cursive handwriting slant. Here are some important things to remember:

• Slants should be uniform.

• To check for uniformity, draw an imaginary straight line through the center of each letter, from the top to the bottom. If the slant is uniform, all of the lines should be parallel.

• Proper hand position can improve the degree of slant.

4. Spacing - For increased legibility, there should be consistency in the spacing between letters, words and sentences throughout the writing. In other words, the spacing between letters should all be the same. The spacing between words should be consistent, and slightly larger than the spacing between the letters. The spacing between sentences should be uniform, and slightly larger than the spacing between words.