Phonics International

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/ed ... kills.html

So, it's not just me worried about the demise of teaching handwriting then!

This spurs me on even harder to address this issue.

I have a joined handwriting font in development and hope to have some video footage very shortly.

I'm worried about those countries where very young learners are taught joined handwriting in words as 'wholes'.

For example, this is the dominant way of teaching handwriting for youngsters in Spain. I really don't advocate this - and it's very far removed from a systematic synthetic phonics teaching approach.

Here in the UK, I'm often asked by teachers what I advocate for the teaching of handwriting:

1) Teach 'print' (separate letters) at first (with no 'joining leaders').

2) Embed the phonics with print at first.

3) Teach joined handwriting with 'leaders' and 'washing line joins' (or 'smiles' - I prefer the latter description of course).

4) Teach joined handwriting rigorously and quickly for the whole class around the age of six or the beginning of Year Two here in England. If the children are quite 'advanced' with their print writing and phonics, you might start teaching joins at the end of Year One.

This subject for me will continue on this forum!

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Joi ... riting.pdf

Here's my preferred method and 'teaching' style for joined handwriting.

There will be a font to match this shortly.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 22518.html

How Handwriting Trains the Brain - blog

Short comment about handwriting followed by a comment by me!


http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6124255

This is such an important issue to me. I wrote:

I notice that many children are writing with their wrists curled around so that they are writing from above the letters on the page rather than beneath their writing.

If teachers took a look at their pupils when writing a piece of text, I wonder what percentage of the children:

hold their pen or pencil with a tripod grip

sit with good posture

hold their paper steady with their 'free' hand

write below the words rather than above them?

I wonder what the effect is on pupils' progress of writing with the current trend to sit on the floor writing on mini whiteboards and whiteboard markers in preference to paper and pencil activities sitting at desks?