Making Sense of Handwriting Rules
Start as soon as a child can hold a crayon.
1. Sit with both feet on the floor. This provides the balance needed to move the arm smoothly from one side of the paper to the other, thereby keeping the writing neat. Sit up nice and straight.
2. Rest your whole forearm on the desk for comfort. The arm should glide or skate over the paper. The back, chest, neck and shoulders all work together to help the arm have this freedom. If you lean on your writing arm, you cramp your style!
3. Slant your paper so that your arm, which moves like a windshield wiper, will be moving in the direction of the lines. Otherwise, it will get curled into a cramped position.
4. Use your other hand to hold your paper steady and keep it in the right position. As your writing moves toward the bottom of the page, your other hand should be pulling the paper up on the desk so that your arm doesn’t hang off the desk or curl into a cramp.
5. Hold the pencil back on the painted part so that you can see the tip of the pencil and the words. If you don’t, you’ll have to put your head on the desk to see what you’re writing.
6. Your fingers need to move as you form the letters, so do not squeeze the pencil! Your hand will hurt. You will hate to write because your hand will always feel tired.
7. Hold your head up so that you can see the paper, judge margins, spaces between words and sentences, and see where the writing is going.
HELP!! What do you do when the children say, “But this is just the way I write!”
Tell them:
In the 10th grade you might have your first job. When you go in to fill out the application and the boss sees you put your head down on the desk to write, he’s going to think that either you can’t see or don’t know what you’re doing. The boss needs someone who can talk on the phone, take a message and greet customers with a smile.
So, the head must be up. You need good posture to look polite and interested in your job. This will make the customers want to come back and the boss will be happy and give you a raise.
Whatever you practice you’ll get good at, so practice good writing habits.
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