Handwriting to
Writing:
one leap or
many hops?
Angela Webb
22nd January 2013
A commonly asked question
How is it that a child can write well
in a handwriting lesson but not
transfer that skill into his/her
classwork?
What can we do about it?
The Simple View of Writing
Translation
Words, sentences,
paragraphs.
Working
memory
Transcription
Handwriting, keyboarding,
Spelling.
Executive functions
Planning, review
Adapted from Berninger & Amtmann (2003)
A two-pronged approach
1. Modify the expectations of the class/subject
teachers…particularly in the short-term.
2. Move the child from Point A (where s/he is)
to Point B (where you would like him/her to
be) in a series of graded and highly
structured hops.
A Case-Study
“Billy”
•Age 12 years
•Mainstream secondary school
•Left-handed
•Problems of legibility (but not of speed)
•DASH percentile ranking = 64%
•Copy Best-Copy Fast difference = 12 wpm
Look at the finished product.
Use the ‘S’ rules.
1 Excellent
Shape/legibility
Size
Spacing
Sitting on line
Slant
Speed
Style
2 Good
3 OK
4 Not so good
5 Poor
Evaluation of Billy’s handwriting
1 Excellent
2 Good
3 OK
4 Not so good
Shape/legibility
X
Size
X
Spacing
X
Sitting on line
X
Slant
Speed
Style
5 Poor
X
X
X
Prioritise what to work on
1.
2.
3.
4.
Extending the writing horizontally.
Rounding the curved letters.
Correcting mis-alignment.
Keeping ascenders and descenders parallel.
You can’t achieve everything at one
go: practise by building
1. Begin with the most important and practise.
2. Add a 2nd element.
Practise on its own then add it to No.1.
3. Add a 3rd element.
Practise then add it to 1 + 1.
4. Add the 4th. Practise on its own then add 1 + 2.
Lesson 1: moving across the page
Lesson 2: Rounding letters
Lesson 3: correcting mis-alignment
Lesson 4: making vertical strokes
parallel
Leap 1
What next?
High frequency bi-grams
…and tri-grams
…common words
Keep writing tasks simple
• Copying? (Not if you can help it).
• Short dictation of CVC words better (see
below).
• Simple close exercises (see below).
CVC sentences for dictation
(from Alpha to Omega)
Gradually increase task complexity
•
•
•
•
Simple stories – cloze.
Simple narrative.
More complex narrative.
Free writing.
Try this…
The child reads and selects words.
Then retells the story orally.
Writes the story using clue words
5 hops = 1 leap
Billy six months later