Teaching handwriting - a stroke based approach

Learning to print the letters needs to be approached in a stepwise manner by starting with the basic units (letter strokes) that make up the letters and moving on to combining these units to form letters. This needs to be done with enough practice time to master these basic units following the best practice guidelines for teaching a motor task.

The basic handwriting strokes

Letter strokes are the basic units for writing letters. Each letter stroke has a specific direction, length and curvature relative to the other strokes in a letter. Each letter is written by combining two or more letter strokes.

Best practice for teaching handwriting in kindergarten

It is important to recognize that printing letters is a sensorimotor task and the basic principles of teaching and learning a sensorimotor task need to be followed.

Writing materials and templates

The HWG Developing Handwriting Tools makes use of different sized grids and single lines for teaching the motor plan and the positioning and sizing of letters.

Grids, blocks and letter spaces

In this lesson the learners are introduced to grids, the idea of a letter space, a base line, start positions and the left-to-right rule for writing.

Writing long and short sticks

In this session the learners/children practices drawing long and short sticks in a grid of large blocks. They make use of their previously learned knowledge of blocks as letters spaces and left to right progression of writing in a grid.

Writing humps and bumps

In this lesson the learners learn to write humps and start to join a stick and a hump to form the letters n, m and h. They build on their previous knowledge and skills related to letter spaces, start positions and drawing short and long sticks.

Writing humps introduces the learners to letter strokes that are formed in a clockwise directions starting on the left hand side of the letter space - including n, m, h, r, b and p.

Writing "doughnuts"

A doughnut is a rounded shape with a very specific starting point on the right hand side of the letter space slightly below the halfway mark. The stroke is started by first moving upwards and then around and up and back up to the starting point. The verbal directions are "up-around-and-up-again".

Letter reversals: b's and d's

It is important to establish the sequence of strokes for b's and d's firmly from the very begining using easily remembered mnemonics that do not interrupt the flow of retrieving the letter plan from memory.

Writing donut letters

Once the learners have mastered writing doughnuts, the doughnut letters can be introduced, usually starting with an a. It is also useful to get the learners to identify doughnut letters in the lower case alphabet.

Why only smart practice makes perfect

Skills needed or learning from instruction include: knowing how to pay attention, attend to and remember instructions, complete a task and persist in the face of failure. Importantly children need to learn the rules of smart practice.

Using sound feedback to improve fluency

The term fluency refers to the ability to form a letter using a smooth movement of the tip of the marker (pencil or pen) on the writing surface. The letter is formed without hesitations and the lines that form the letter strokes do not have sudden, sharp or unnecessary changes in direction.

Why tracing is a very bad idea

It is important to remember that learning to write letters starts with learning the motor plan for the letters and being able to fluently link the successive strokes to form the letter.
Tracing encourages visual monitoring of strokes and undermines learning the motor pattern.

HWG Tools for Teaching Handwriting