Why is Handwriting So Important?

Handwriting practice is useful for much more than handwriting. The motor control used in the fingers, hand, and arm while writing transfers to other physical skills that children may need, such as using buttons or tools; playing a cards, a musical instrument, or a video game; tying shoelaces; or braiding hair. In addition, most arts and crafts and some sports rely on hand control. A wide range of professions, such as electrician, mechanic, baker, dentist, or surgeon require manual dexterity as well.

Both cursive and printing increase retention of information over typing, and both make the brain ready for deeper learning. Every part of the brain is engaged in handwriting, which requires recognition, recall, spatial skills, and muscle coordination.

How to Teach Your Child Handwriting

Like most learning, handwriting happens in stages. The youngest learners are learning to control a pencil and make intentional marks. Kids naturally want to doodle, make pictures, and imitate adults. Channeling their scribble energy into tracing or completing pictures makes repetition fun.

Practice makes progress!

• Use handwriting practice sheets to learn the different strokes needed to make letters.
• Once your learner has basic control, challenge him or her to practice tracing, completing, or writing funny or meaningful words and names in fun tasks.
• Encourage your child to say each letter’s sound while writing it to reinforce the sound-symbol relationship and say each whole word at the end.
• After completing a sentence, have your child read it, or read it aloud yourself to reinforce that writing is communication, just like talking.

• The next step after strokes are familiar is to practice cursive letters. As with manuscript letters, grouping cursive letters that start the same way or have the same strokes can be very efficient.
• An additional step for learning cursive is the joining of the letters. Since the letters don’t start and end in the same places, it’s important to focus on the joining of letters into words.
• Using a handwriting cursive workbook with silly sentences or fun facts makes practice a breeze.

• Augment current games: Get more out of any standard word-based commercial game by offering players additional game points for writing out any words they form.
• Sidewalk/sand art: Have your child brainstorm words to illustrate or positive words of encouragement. Give your kids chalk and to write the words on the ground and decorate them. Or if you are at the beach or have a sandbox, have them write and draw in the sand.
• Air writing: Play charades but write a word in the air, one letter at a time, instead of acting out words. The “writer” indicates how many letters are in the word and then draws each letter in the air as players guess each letter and the word as well. The winner of the round becomes the next “writer.”
• Foggy mirror message: After a shower or bath, have your child write a word or short message in the fog on the mirror.

For a classroom or homeschool reproducible resource, check out the all-in-one Handwriting: Manuscript and Cursive practice book and e-book.

Kathy Jorgensen has been an educator most of her life, starting as a peer tutor in second grade and tutoring her way through high school and college. After teaching grades 2 through 12, she spent two decades editing standardized tests. Kathy happily returned to her teaching roots, providing instruction and practice in Evan-Moor’s math and science products. When she’s not polishing words on the page, Kathy is flitting down the dance floor indulging her passion for Scottish country dancing as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher.