Handwriting Practice, Practice and More Practice

by Donna
(Brisbane, Australia)

Having been out of 'hands-on' teaching for a while now, I still take a very keen interest in what is going on in the Teaching arena.

My son has just entered Grade 2, and has a wonderful male Teacher whom my son thinks is just great.

I find it really interesting to observe the differences between teaching styles of males and female teachers (generally speaking only of course). It truly is wonderful to see just the bare minimum in terms of classroom display and 'fluffy stuff', and the children responding all so wonderfully well to this style.

Anyway, I digress, in the last few weeks, I have witnessed a major improvement in my son's handwriting. Wondering how a boy's handwriting can improve so much, so quickly, I had to investigate (isn't it annoying when one of your Parent's is a Teacher!)

My son's Teacher explained that at the beginning of the year, he wants to get all those 'mechanical' things solid, so that the children don't get caught up on those aspects as they are thinking and writing.

My son has been telling me, that they had to write out the alphabet 6 times (possibly a bit of exaggeration) today - but you know, I could tell that he actually enjoyed doing it and was quite proud of the result.

This made me think about how sometimes, we try to make every learning experience nice and interesting and 'fluffy', when the children just want to master the basics, basically! - dare I say even by doing 'rote/repetitive' tasks every now and then. This handwriting practice technique certainly worked with my son.

I thought this concept was really interesting, and made sense, as at this age, I am sure the flow of children's writing ideas is held back by getting 'stuck' on the mechanics of their handwriting. To get this out of the way, not only does their flow of writing ideas improve, but they also feel a sense of pride as their work is neat, tidy and more 'readable' as well.

Probably would not be appropriate for younger ages, but from Year 2 (6-8 year olds) on, I thought it was a terrific idea.

Hope this helps.
Cheers
Donna