Teaching handwritingto young learners

session 1

Aims

• To make teacher/ students aware of the basic principles of teaching handwriting and give appropriate techniques for teaching

individual letters and joining letters.

• To help teacher/students develop strategies for dealing with handwriting problems.

When to start teaching handwriting ?

The earlier to start the more chance to practice

GW

How teaching writing can help students to learn English?

• It can help students to develop other skills

• It can help with reading

• It can help them to remember words

GWWhat style to teach? HO 1

Discuss the three examples of handwriting in your groups

• How are these three styles different?

• Which one do you think is easiest to learn?

• Which one is the most useful?

Trainer’s input:• The first style is printing. The letters are separate, and

they look the same as in printed books.• The second style is simple cursive. Most letters are

joined, but they keep the same basic shape as in printing. Most children in Britain learn this style, and most adults use it.

• The third style is full cursive. All the letters are joined, and many have different shapes from printing. Many people in Britain still use this style, especially older people.

PW

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EACH

STYLE• What are the advantages and

disadvantages of each style ? (HO 2)

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EACH STYLE

PW

What order to introduce the letters?

• It is not necessary to introduce letters in alphabetical order. The alphabet can easily be learned separately

GW Think of a possible order in

which to teach the letters:

Trainer’s input:

• Letters with similar shapes are taught together. This helps students see important differences between them (e.g. between 'n' and 'h').

• Vowels are introduced near the beginning. This is useful as they are common, and can be joined to other letters to make words

• In practice, of course, the order of letters is often determined by the syllabus or the textbook

GW• Make suggestions, and build up a list of

features on the board. Think about the ways of helping students. For example:

left to right directionObviously, teachers should make this clear

from the beginning and remind students constantly of it.

Trainer’s input• Writing 'on the line': Teachers can make this

clear by drawing lines on the blackboard. It is best to draw four lines: this makes it possible to show which letters go above and which go below:

•Shape and size of letters: Students may find it difficult to form the basic shape of some letters. Before learning a new letter, they can practise making the basic shape: for example, before learning 'i', 'u', ‘l’ and 't' they could practise:

Trainer’s input

• Joining letters• Capital letters: This becomes important

later, when students begin to write sentences. But students can start practising capital letters by writing their own names and the names of towns, countries, months, etc.

• Imagine you are teaching a new letter. Which of these steps are important? Which are not important?

HO 3

Trainer’s input: THE ESSENTIAL STEPS ARE:

• writing the letter on lines on the board, and getting students to copy it several times.

• it is also very useful to describe the letter, to help students see how it is formed - this can be done in simple English or the students' own language.

• It is important to give the usual sound of the letter, so that students can connect sound with spelling. But there is no need to get students to repeat the sound: the aim is to practise writing, not pronunciation.

THE ESSENTIAL STEPS ARE:

• Knowing the name of the letter is useful, for example when spelling words aloud, but is not really necessary for writing. Giving the name of the letter at this stage could be confusing, especially if the name is different from the sound (e.g. the vowels).

• Some teachers find it useful to get students to practise forming the letter in the air before they write it down; this helps students to 'feel' the shape of the letter. However, this can be difficult to control in a large class.

Look at a quick demonstration, to show how the main steps fit together:

1. Draw lines on the board, then write the letter 'n', large enough for everyone to see.

2. Tell the class what sound it makes, and give some words it appears in (e.g. man, ten, no, new).

3. Show how to form the letter. Write it two or three times and describe the direction: 'Look - it starts here - then down, back up again, then round and down. See - it stands on the line'

4. Ask your students to copy the letter in their books and write it several times (separately) along the line, from left to right.

5. Move around quickly, checking.

Joining letters• When students have learnt a new letter, they

can practise joining it to other letters they know already. Obviously, they should only practise combinations which really exist in words, and as soon as they know enough letters they should practise writing words and sentences. Write these letter combinations on the board:

• ta ti et ot yt th tg nt dt

. Letter joins can be taught in the same way as individual letters. It is very important to show clearly how we make joins from the end of one letter to the beginning of the next (not always the closest point). Give a quick demonstration. Imagine that you have just taught 'h' and the class already know 'c'.

• Write 'c' and 'h' separately on the board • Point to where “c” ends and 'h' begins and draw

a line joining them

• Then draw the joined letters several times, and describe the shape ('. . . round, then up to the top of the "h", then down . . .').

• Ask students to copy the joined letters several times. Go round the class and check.

Copying words• Once students have learnt enough letters, they can start

writing words and simple sentences. The simplest and most controlled form of practice is simple copying. Make these points about copying:For students who have to learn English script, copying is a useful exercise; students do not have to produce words of their own, so the focus is entirely on handwriting.

REMEMBER Simply copying words or sentences from the board can be a very mechanical activity. Students can easily do it without really thinking, and it soon becomes very boring.

GW

How Can We Make copying more challenging?

What techniques do you know?

One way to make copying more challenging is to use a technique called 'delayed copying'. The teacher writes a word on the board (or shows it on a card), and the students read it; then the teacher erases the word, and the students write it. In this way, students have to think what they are writing, and they have to think of the word as a whole, not just as a series of letters.

. Technique: Demonstration Write a word on the board. Ask students what it says. Spell the word. students should not write anything yet.

Erase the word from the board. Students write it from memory. Go round quickly and check, making sure that teachers are joining the letters together. Repeat the procedure with other words, As a check, ask individual students to come and write the words on the board

Simple copying tasks

• Another way to make copying more interesting is by including a simple task for the students to do. For example, we can ask students to match words together, match words with pictures, put words in the correct order, etc. This makes sure that students think about what they are copying and understand what the words mean; it also gives a reason for writing the words.

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. HO 4 GW Discuss each activity, focusing on these

points:– How well did it work?– How could it be organized in class?– What preparation would be needed?

Micro TeachingWork in groups.• Teacher A: Choose a letter. Teach it to the others in your group. Help

them with any difficulties. The others: Imagine you are students. Practise writing the new letter.

• Make the same mistakes as your own students would.• 1. Divide the teachers into groups. Choose one person in each group to

be 'teacher'. They should choose a letter, and teach it to the others, using a piece of paper as a 'blackboard'. The others copy the letter, but make the kind of mistakes that their own students would make. The 'teacher' should check and help them to improve.

• When they have finished, another person in the group becomes the teacher, and they repeat the activity.

• 2. After the activity, ask each group to report briefly how successful the teaching was, and how the teacher corrected mistakes.

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THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION !

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