Research on handwriting programs

If children cannot write fast enough or correctly during kindergarten, they often struggle by the time they reach the 2 nd or 3 rd grade. According to the latest recommendations, students in kindergarten should be spending at least 30 minutes each day developing their writing skills, such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Purankik et al. The results, published in the journal of Reading and Writing , were disconcerting to researchers since the ability to correctly and efficiently write letters is a building block for spelling and reading comprehension.

The goal of the study was to obtain greater information regarding teaching guidelines and benchmarks at the end of kindergarten. To test this, researchers observed the types and frequency of writing instructions in kindergarten classrooms.

A total of kindergarten children and 21 teachers participated in the study. Researchers found most of the time spent on writing instruction did not include teachers providing explicit directions, but rather students were writing independently. The time spent on handwriting instruction averaged less than 1 minute per day in the start of the fall semester and less than 2 minutes per day toward the end of the semester.

Dysgraphia is a learning impairment that makes the act of writing difficult. It can lead to problems with spelling, handwriting legibility, and the communication of meaning through writing. Pausing on paper and the dysfluency of pen movement are additional indicators of writing difficulties experienced by children with dysgraphia, according to a recent study. The findings, published in the journal, Research in Developmental Disabilities , found children with dysgraphic characteristics demonstrated significant differences in handwriting performances compared to their typically developing peers.

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The influence of writing practice on letter recognition in preschool children: A comparison between handwriting and typing. Acta Psychologica, 1 , May , Mackenzie, N. Handwriting, keyboarding or both? Mackenzie and J. Scull Eds. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Medwell, J. Handwriting: what do we know and what do we need to know? Literacy, 41 1 , Handwriting automaticity: The search for performance thresholds. Language and Education, 28 1 , Poole, D.

Schlagal, B. In Steve Graham, Charles A. New York: Guilford Press. Victorian Curriculum Foundation English. Victoria State Government. Our website uses a free tool to translate into other languages.

This tool is a guide and may not be accurate. For more, see: Information in your language. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. Skip to content. Page Content. The letters b , d , p , and q are often confused by younger students.

Teaching the correct formation of these letters can help diminish the confusion, as they have different starting points— b , for instance, starts from the top, whereas d starts in the middle.

Internalizing the motor patterns for these letters can help make recognition more automatic. Legibility: An important factor impacting legibility is spacing between words. Pacing: If students are using an appropriate pencil grasp and forming letters correctly, that will often solve any pacing challenges.

Another factor to consider when looking at pacing is the press: Students should not be pressing the pencil down on the paper too hard as they write because doing so can lead to writing fatigue and a greatly reduced rate of letter production. But if they press too lightly, it can be a sign of weak muscles or inappropriate pencil grasp. Encourage students to write with a variety of materials markers, short pencils, crayons, erasable markers on whiteboards to help them adjust how hard they press.

School days are packed with instructional priorities, and it can be easy to let handwriting fall by the wayside.