Handwriting Ideas for the Classroom

Teaching handwriting to children is a complex task. Some classrooms no longer teach handwriting and students struggle to master legible writing and fluency when it comes to written expression. There are many factors to consider that affect the student’s abilities from fine motor skills, visual perceptual skills, hand strength, seating, desk height, motivation, and more! Wow! Who knew that handwriting was such an intricate skill. There are ways that teachers can help. Here are several handwriting ideas for the classroom to help improve written expression.

Why Do We Need Handwriting Ideas for the Classroom?

Handwriting practice is critical in order for students to improve their abilities. If they are only practicing in chunked periods of time, it is hard to carry it over into daily skills. If a student is really struggling and their handwriting is inefficient or illegible, teachers make refer that student for extra help or specific evaluations like Occupational Therapy.

These suggestions are great for RTI (Response to Intervention) strategies for students who are being progress monitored before recommending services.

Handwriting Ideas to Help with Written Expression

Practice, Practice, Practice

It might sound old, but improving handwriting requires daily practice for a minimum of 15 minute sessions. This helps your students with:

• reinforcement of letter formation
• hand strengthening
• memory
• pencil grasp – If you are working on trying to change the way a student holds a pencil with an inefficient grasp, it can be hard to break a bad habit.  This pencil grasp hand out can help to provide a reminder and a visual reinforcement to help promote the efficient grasp.
• letter recognition
• visual motor coordination
• endurance – handwriting is physically tiring and the hand needs to build up endurance to prevent fatigue
• fluency – when students get more practice time, writing letters becomes more fluid
• handwriting speed – practicing letters over and over help students to form motor plans of how to write each letter

The easiest way to add practice to the school day is to make it part of a daily task. Many schools have morning meetings or warm-up activities. This is a great time to add in this handwriting practice. When it becomes part of their daily routine, students know what is expected of them each day.

Adding handwriting in at the same time each day, reduces the time it takes for students to prepare for the lesson. They know right away to get out their paper and pencils and begin to practice.

Mix Up the Daily Practice

Try this handwriting idea and mix up the daily practice. Maybe some days you practice just letters of the alphabet formation and other days you are working on words or functional handwriting tasks. It is important to have a variety of handwriting activities available.

Remember, to progress your students as well, removing handwriting prompts as you go. For young learners, they made need to practice tracing letters to learn how to form letters correctly.

FADING PROMPTS – Fading Alphabet includes worksheets that gradually increase in visual motor difficulty while decreasing visual input for letter formation. There are 26 double lined worksheets for boxed capital letters and 26 double lined lowercase letters (Handwriting with Tears style) OR Fading Alphabet – 26 Uppercase Letters and 26 Lowercase Letters Dotted Lined worksheets (Zaner-Bloser style). 

Suggestions for FUN Handwriting Activities

Have you run out of ideas to encourage your students to practice handwriting?

HANDWRITING PROMPTS – These handwriting prompts provide 100 questions of the day to answer throughout the year.  Students will answer questions and draw a picture for engaging daily prompts. The packets are provided in single line AND double line style. Use this for your daily student journals!

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS – Think Outside the Box questions challenge creativity and ingenuity with 50 different critical thinking questions to ponder and respond (handwriting practice too)!

DECODING JOKES – This Decoding Jokes download, created by Thia Triggs OTR, is perfect to start your OT or Speech and Language session with a laugh! Engage and motivate your students to practice handwriting. Great individual or small group activity. Build your therapeutic relationship through humor, laughter, and connection.

Offer a Handwriting Friendly Classroom

Set up your classroom to foster and encourage handwriting skills. Hang up letter formation posters around the room for visual supports throughout the day in a younger classroom.

Provide many examples through posters, books, and worksheets that make it easy to practice writing.

Place clipboards, different pens, markers or crayons around the room that are easily accessible.

Have word and letters games in the classroom such as magnetic letters and Zingo for younger children. Boggle or Categories is a great game for older students.

This interactive Category Games for Kids collection can be played on the computer or print it and grab a pencil! It is available to play on Google Slides, Powerpoint or PDF to print. Great for telehealth sessions, distance learning AND in person!

Handwriting Ideas that are Motivating

Using handwriting worksheets over and over again to practice letter formation is necessary to make progress but it is also important to mix things up to keep your students motivated. Give your students a choice of how they want to practice handwriting sometimes.

FREE FUN IDEAS – Try adding some fun to your handwriting practice with these 3 FREE handwriting games to just print and play.  No prep required!

Suggestions to Increased Motivation for Handwriting Practice

• functional practice such as writing grocery lists, thank you notes, gift ideas, classroom notes, birthday cards, and more!
• answer this or that questions
• hangman style games
• Have you ever heard of MASH, the fortune telling pencil and paper game?  These two FREE games are just like MASH but with different topics. 

MASH HANDWRITING GAME – This is a fun, silly game that has been around for decades.  By counting and eliminating options with your lucky number, you will determine with 100% accuracy (LOL obviously not) what your future holds – will you live in a mansion, apartment, shack or house?  who will you marry?  what job will you have? and what kind of car will you drive? Kids have been playing this for years and it never gets old.  This MASH Game takes it to a whole different level with 20+ games in total to complete for fun handwriting practice too!  The download includes so many more themes to plan your future to cure boredom, promote literacy, encourage creativity, sneak in physical exercise and more!  FIND OUT MORE.

Check In Often on Handwriting Progress

Another beneficial handwriting idea, is to check in often with your students to see how they are progressing. You can provide them feedback on what is working for them and what aspects of handwriting they need to work on more.

For example, check for the following:

• letter sizing
• letters on the line
• letter spacing
• word spacing
• speed
• letter formation and legibility

When students are ready progress them to the next level of practice such as smaller lines or removal of the dotted middle line.

If teachers are not available for check-ins, try pairing up the students in small groups and they can give each other feedback. Kids alwasy enjoy getting to pretend to be the teacher. In addition, it reinforces what they know when they are able to teach others the skill.

SELF CHECK HANDWRITING BOOKMARKS – In between these check-ins students can use self-check handwriting checklists to make sure their practice sessions have been successful.

Model Correct Handwriting

It is important for teachers and other school staff to model correct letter formation and spacing whenever possible. Many times teachers use slide decks for lessons but try to use clear, legible fonts that students can practice copying.

Integrate Handwriting Skills Throughout All the Subjects

Do not make handwriting practice a stand-alone activity. Students should be having ample practice throughout the school day in all subjects such as science and social studies to utilize these handwriting ideas.

Get Comfy and Ready to Practice

PROPER POSITIONING AND POSTURE – For focused handwriting sessions, make sure your students are comfortable and ready to write. They should be positioned properly in the chair and have the proper desk height. Check the child’s position.  The child should be seated with: a stable base of support at the feet, the hips, knees and ankles should be bent at 90 degrees and the desk should be 1-2” higher than bent elbows.

What To Do If Your Students Are Still Struggling with Handwriting?

Step one may be to try practicing handwriting at home. Provide practice worksheets for your students depending upon their abilities, that they can work on outside of school time.

USE RUBRICS TO DETERMINE AREAS OF WEAKNESS – You can quantify handwriting skills such as letter formation, speed or copying? Handwriting Rubrics can be used as assessment tools to quantify an individual’s written productivity.

TRY HANDWRITING STATIONS – The Handwriting Stations digital download includes the materials to create a handwriting station (large and small) and handwriting practice pages (double line and dotted line format) for your students who are practicing their handwriting skills.

After implementing these handwriting ideas in the classroom and progress monitoring, you find that your students are still having difficulites with handwriting further interventions may be necessary.

What Does OT Do For Handwriting?

Some students may receive occupational therapy services to help with their handwriting. OTs can help with the following:

• evaluating exactly what skills may be affecting handwriting abilities such as fine motor activities, dexterity, or pre-writing skills.
• provide specific practice sessions to improve those skills
• consulting with teachers and parents on strategies to help throughout the day
• offering product suggestions or specific handwriting curriculums that would be best for each individual student
• making recommendations to move to technology instead of continueing to practice the componants of handwriting

The Handwriting Interventions Bundle includes 3 occupational therapy tools to help you with handwriting instruction and help your students succeed.  Created by school-based OT, Thia Triggs, this intervention starts at the beginning and will allow you to guide your struggling writer to feel confident and successful, regardless of age. This research-based method has been pivotal for children with and without visual-motor delays, including students with dysgraphia, learning disabilities, ADHD, and autism. Using these SIMPLE strategies, you can make a real difference in helping clients gain legible handwriting.

Resources – More Handwriting Ideas

HUGE BUNDLE – This Handwriting Bundle for PreK-5th Graders is created by school-based Occupational Therapist, Thia Triggs of Print Path. This Handwriting Without Tears© -style letter font, uses 3-lines to best support your students. There are Go-Dots, Gray-Boxes, and Simple Arrows that inform rather than confuse learners. Best practices include research-based methods incorporating application of developmental and motor learning theories to benefit your struggling learners.

FUN HANDWRITING ACTIVITIES – This Pencil Obstacle Course download is filled with unique activities that combine imagination, pretend play, pencil and scissor control.  Practice loops, lazy 8s, visual scanning, speed of writing and more! There are 13 hand-drawn activities in black and white. The “obstacle courses” have the following themes for pencil control: Amusement Park, Ancient Cave Ruins, Circus, Mars, Day at the Un-Races, Time Warp, Jungle, Pirates, Playground and Skate Board.  The scissor practice pages include a Beserk Robot and Fabulous Art.  The eraser practice page has a dragon theme.