How to teach: English - Chris Curtis 2019

Handwriting
How to teach accuracy

At secondary school, handwriting becomes a bit of a mixed bag. There tends to be a clear divide between those who can and those who can’t. And then you have the students who baffle you with their handwriting. The students who only write in capitals. The students who always put a love heart over the ’i’. The students who use capital letters wherever they want in a sentence or word or, bizarrely, only with words starting with the letter ’r’.

Handwriting is another way to judge students. Examiners might deny it, but there is a certain style that we expect from high-ability students. Either a variation of ’doctor’s handwriting’ or its opposite — perfection. Therefore, a student who has big, circular, bubbly handwriting that fills a line in four words gives the reader an impression that is probably unfavourable. I read it and see, regardless of gender, a student who daydreams and has a pen that lights up when they write. I’ve had numerous arguments with students on this one because their handwriting is, to them, reflective of their ’individuality’. To which, I have responded: ’No, that’s your haircut. Now, start writing like an adult.’

I am not going to tread down the path of ’cursive script’ or ’not cursive script’ but, instead, I am going to focus on making handwriting legible. Again, it is about the visual aspect of reading. Of course, we use phonics to break down unfamiliar words, but the majority of reading is based on word recognition and if the students are not using shapes that help readers to recognise the words, then they are going to struggle to convey their ideas.

A lot of the work I do with students is around the formation of letters and not the joining up of them. The first piece of writing with any class is my opportunity to set my stall out. I always focus on the handwriting and the presentation of the work. I will walk around the classroom monitoring the writing and advising students how to improve. Handwriting can be one of the biggest fixes and one of the quickest things to slip. Aside from students who struggle because of issues relating to fine motor skills, the majority of them can easily improve the presentation of their work. They just need a push. And some direct instruction.

My first lesson will address some of these issues:

✵ Writing that floats above the line.

✵ Writing that has capital letters the same size as the lower case letters.

✵ Writing that doesn’t make the gaps between words obvious.

✵ Writing that is so big the letters fill the complete space between the lines on the paper.

I will highlight these issues in a student’s work and ask them to address them. I might even model what I want to see. They say God or, occasionally, the Devil is in the detail. I think the details of handwriting should be addressed from the start. I have seen some of the biggest improvements in writing between the first and second lesson. We want to catch students making progress and reward them for those improvements, yet with writing that can be hard. By looking at handwriting from the beginning, I am able to spot improvements and changes and reward appropriately. If the attention to handwriting is there, it is likely that the attention to accuracy and content will be too.