Do you see your child making a lot of reversals and other mistakes in their handwriting?
It is common to see children make errors while forming their letters, especially in the early years. Early writers will tend to scribble or make different distortions with their letters. Nonetheless, we want to make sure to create a sense of accomplishment, so they will continue to practice making progress. In addition to building confidence, giving specific feedback will help the child identify their errors. Furthermore, with the proper feedback and practice, over time the child will write more of their letters correctly.
The biggest way for us to see improvement is to have consistent accurate practice. As you may have heard before, slow and steady wins the race.😊
It is better to write one word with accuracy and best effort, than have a full sheet with multiple errors.
Four ways to teach letter formation.
A way to avoid reversals and other errors
- Teach the letter formation sayings.
- Prove scaffolding appropriate to the students’ needs.
- Do hand over hand and gradually releasing.
- Ask the child to spot their errors.
Common Handwriting Errors
Handwriting is a skill that has to be taught and practiced repeatedly to become automatic. In the process of learning to write the ABCs and numbers, we will see common errors. As a result, it is important that we bring attention to these errors and help our kids learn the tricks to make them properly. By starting this from the beginning, we can eliminate bad writing habits.
Can you think of the common reversals?
If you said, d, b, p, q. You are right. In addition, there are other letters/numbers that tend to be confused among the new or struggling writer.
Letters that are often confused
- n and u
- w and m
- s and z
Common Letters written backwards
- a
- c
- S
- j
- g
Which letter error do you see your child make?
Let me know in the comments if your child struggles with forming a specific letter.
Teach the proper formation early on
Please note that these errors are common for our early writers and readers. Typically, you will see the errors till early second grade.
Even though this is common and is typically outgrown, children should be encouraged and guided to make the letters properly from the beginning.
This is just a way to be proactive instead of reactive in our children’s learning journey.
Helping our kids be aware of their handwriting mistakes, helps them to think critically, focus on what they are doing, and ask questions to make sure they are doing it right.
I know that sometimes this can cause anxiety for a child. I will encourage them to be brave and just try to form the letter on their own.
Build confidence by starting with basic lines
If they still struggle, I will then have them make one of the individual pre-writing strokes a certain amount of time. At this point we are working on building confidence and focus.
I find more and more kids need this step, especially once they see that they can do it, and are safe if they make a mistake. The important thing is that they are willing to try.
If you were a fly on my wall, you would hear me saying, “Be brave and give it your best effort.” or “Okay, now this is going to be a challenge are you ready to be brave?“
Back to talking about Handwriting
When we start learning the proper ways to form the letters, students typically will start asking questions to help make their letters or numbers properly.
It is not uncommon for my students to say, “Wait a minute, is it a smile line or rainbow?” Or “Oh no, I made 9 backwards. How do I do it again?”
This skill can create a good character trait that will serve the child his or her entire life!
Now let’s take some time to discuss some simple ways to help your child become more automatic at forming their letters properly.
- Learn the letter sayings on how to form each line.
I have created a little letter saying for each of the letters. This helps the kids to build the habit of forming their letters properly and learning where we start and end to form each letter.
A couple of examples would be
‘curly c, up and short line down, a”
or
‘tall line down, up a bit hook around.’
Learning the sayings helps lessen the writing errors, because when we start in the right place, we are less likely to form the letters incorrectly.
For example, d and b. They are similar; they both have a tall line and curve line.
In fact, help students differentiate in two ways.
- Looking at the letters, and observing ‘d’ has a hiney and ‘b’ has a belly
- Teaching the letter formation saying as we write the letter
When we write d, we say, “curly c, up tall line down. Then for b it would be, tall line down, up a bit, hook around.”
Providing Extra Support
Generally speaking, some students need the lessons to be scaffolded; therefore, I will teach them the basic prewriting strokes and their names, which are the individual lines in a letter. You can get your own Beginner Handwriting Guide here. In this resource you will have a cheat sheet, showing how to form each line and its name.
This resource was created because I needed a way to help my students differentiate between the different straight lines, curvy lines, and slanted lines.
Moreover, the letter formation sayings help students have a more concrete way of forming their letters.
Summary
In the big picture, encouraging our children to write neatly and properly is a skill that they will need throughout adulthood. Additionally, physically writing things allows us to help remember concepts and ideas. Furthermore, there are simple ways we can teach our kids to avoid making letter reversals and become stronger writers.🙌😊
Until next time, cheers to building lifelong learners!
In the meantime, I would love for you to join my Facebook group. I share reading, phonics, and writing tips and tricks. It is a great place to post questions and get the support you need. Cannot wait to see you over there! 😊🎉🏫
If you know someone who could benefit from this, please share so people won’t feel like they have to do it alone.