What Happened to Handwriting?

Is it just me or has there been a decline in the quality of students’ handwriting? Over the past few years I have noticed student handwriting getting worse and worse. I, also, notice that handwriting is not being taught explicitly in most classrooms. Why is that?

Here are my thoughts on that. 1. The curriculums that teachers are being forced to use do not include a handwriting component. 2. With that, most teachers don’t have time to add that in with everything else they are required to teach. 3. Increased use of technology. Most, if not all, schools nowadays have 1:1 technology providing an i-Pad, Chromebook, etc. for each student and they want teachers to incorporate the use of them as much as they can to save on printing and paper costs. But at what cost to the student? That comes with a litany of other problems, including students who do not know how to write correctly.

We need to bring back explicit instruction of handwriting. It is an important skill for students to learn. Holding a pen/pencil correctly, how to form letters, and the sizing of letters are all important. And to hold a pen/pencil correctly and write with the right amount of pressure, children need to have strong fine motor skills.

I see too many students working with occupational therapists working on writing with a pencil. In fact, I spend time during my reading intervention groups teaching students these skills. I think this could be avoided if teachers are given the time, especially in the early grades, to devote more time to building fine motor skills and teaching handwriting.

Here are a couple programs I have used in the past that I thought teach handwriting well. The first is Handwriting Without Tears. It works with forming letters with lines and curves and has many fun songs to make learning handwriting more fun for littles.

The other is Zaner-Bloser. I found that one quick to implement if you’re running short on time. The students could complete a page or two for morning work, complete it independently in a center after the basic formation of the letter was taught, or as an early finisher activity. However, with the latter, you will have to figure out how to give the students that never finish early time to get it completed.

Also, it’s important to give students practice with handwriting throughout the day, not only in a workbook where they trace and practice writing letters, words, and sentences. So, give students a break from the screen, have them pull out a pencil and paper and let them write. It could be taking notes for any subject, writing a rough draft of a story, filling out a graphic organizer, writing down their homework in a planner, and more. This is just as important in the early years as in the upper grades.

In fact, I want to share a short story that happened recently with my son. He is about to start sixth grade. In third grade, he was taught cursive. There were sheets that he had to copy the words and sentences in cursive. He didn’t do much outside of that with the cursive that I recall. Well, fast forward to this summer. He needed to sign a form. He told me, “I don’t know how to sign my name. I never learned cursive.” I told him that he had and that I had a worksheet to prove it. Thus proving my point that writing needs to be practiced to stick.

Also, it’s an important thing to note about teaching cursive, even if it is just used to write a signature. I’ll admit I don’t write in cursive on a regular basis, except for writing my signature on the many things that require one as an adult. But, I know for some people cursive is easier than printing and some say it is faster as well.

Furthermore, there are many studies that show correlations between writing and reading. So, when students become better writers, they become better readers as well! Here is an article called, “How to Teach Handwriting-and Why It Matters” from Edutopia that explains it in a bit more detail.

If you have noticed the same decline in the quality of handwriting in your school that I have observed, it may be time to have an honest conversation with your admin team. Hopefully they will share in your concern and support you on how to include handwriting in the school day.

That was what my first grade team did about five years ago. We shared our concern at a meeting and the next year they were able to include in the budget to purchase handwriting books for our students. What a difference it made! I wish I could say we were able to get them from that year going forward, but, in reality, there was a curriculum change and we weren’t able to get them any longer.

Our school changed to Open Court, which does include handwriting, but it was not as good. It is scripted how you are supposed to describe the formation of the letters and the description is terrible for little learners. It is too long for a student to remember and somewhat complicated. I ended up saying it the way the curriclum wanted, but then changing it to make it easier for my students to understand. So it’s good to note: Just like with any curriculum, not all programs are created equal.

I’ll get off my soapbox now about handwriting and sum up with: If we find a way of bringing back handwriting instruction to students, it will benefit them for years to come. Think about how often and what you hand write today and I’m sure you’ll see the value of it.

If you have already found a way to include handwriting instruction into your day, I would love for you to comment below on how you do it.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Handwriting Without Tears or Zaner-Bloser in any way. I have included links to their sites as a convienance to you.