5 Tips for Students with Poor Handwriting

Every year I have at least 1 or 2 students with really poor handwriting. I’m sure you’ve experienced it too... You know , the students that like to write ONEREALLYLONGWORDWITHOUTANYSPACESINBETWEENANDINALLCAPS! How about those whose letters always seem to float off the paper like balloons. My personal favorite, are those that can’t even read their own writing, but expect you to understand it!

Well after years of struggling to read some of my students' writings, I've come up with a few tips and strategies to help my kiddos out.

Let me begin by saying that I understand that we live in a digital world where most of what we write takes place on some form of a digital device... we type rather than write nowadays. However, I still think that it's important for every child to be able to communicate effectively the old fashioned way... with a pen or pencil. So here's how to help those poor babies whose writing might look somewhat like this...

Use Graph Paper:

I like to use graph paper or grid paper for my students that have difficulty with letter sizing. I usually print out a few copies of this 1 cm graph paper to have handy whenever I neat it. I then have them practice copying the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." (This sentence uses all of the letters of the alphabet.) I tell my kids that they can only write one letter inside each box and that their letters must stay inside of the box. This activity helps them practice keeping their letters uniform.

Use Small Stickers or Stamps:

I like to use small stickers or stamps for students that like to squish their words together. To help them remember to leave space between words, I ask them to place a sticker or stamp between every word. Students love using stickers and stamps so this trick helps them remember to space correctly! As long as you don’t mind a few stickers on your students work, this trick has been a winner with my kids! They love using stickers so much, that they WANT to space their words so that they can use them.

Use Shaded Paper:

Shaded Paper, as I like to call it, (otherwise known as highlighted paper) is great to use for students that have difficulty with letter formation and don’t quite understand that some letters hang below the line and others go to the top of the line. My favorite shaded paper can be downloaded for free here. In this picture, you can see how the first time my student copies the sentence his letters are too big, however, he does MUCH better on his second attempt. Also, notice how he's using the stamp to space out his words.

Try Different Pencils:

Many times my students with poor handwriting write so hard that their pencils have absolutely NO POINT on them. The flat point not only makes their writing messy, but I also believe it’s part of the reason their letters are illegible. That’s why I like to give them mechanical pencils with different sized lead to try out. This helps make sure that my students are writing with a “sharp” point at all times. At first, your student will tend to gravitate back to their #2 pencil, since that’s what they’ve been used to writing with, a flat tipped pencil. But encourage them to keep using the mechanical pencil. At least until you start to see some improvement in their handwriting.

Use a Pencil Grip:

With some students, I’ve found that part of the problem lies with the way they like to hold their pencil. I’ve found that some of them don’t like the feel of the gritty pencil tip against their skin so they hold their pencil in all sorts of weird and uncomfortable looking ways. So with these students,  I like to introduce pencil grips. Again, there are a few different varieties out on the market so test some and  see which one your student feels most comfortable with.