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Handwriting (Proper Sizing & Alignment)

The document discusses strategies for improving a child's handwriting skills, specifically letter alignment and sizing. It recommends using lined paper with double lines or sky-grass-ground paper to guide letter placement. Warm-up finger exercises are suggested before practicing handwriting. The sky-grass-ground technique teaches which letters sit on the sky, grass or ground lines to help with sizing. Fading the visual cues over time helps build independence with sizing and alignment.

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Vera Chan
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70 views

Handwriting (Proper Sizing & Alignment)

The document discusses strategies for improving a child's handwriting skills, specifically letter alignment and sizing. It recommends using lined paper with double lines or sky-grass-ground paper to guide letter placement. Warm-up finger exercises are suggested before practicing handwriting. The sky-grass-ground technique teaches which letters sit on the sky, grass or ground lines to help with sizing. Fading the visual cues over time helps build independence with sizing and alignment.

Uploaded by

Vera Chan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Handwriting

Letter Alignment & Sizing


WHAT IS IT?
• Handwriting is an important aspect of your child’s everyday communication skill
which remain as a primary tool of communication and knowledge assessment for
students in school.

WHY PRACTICE HANDWRITING SKILLS WITH YOUR CHILD?


1. To build good habits for efficient and legible handwriting

2. Legible handwriting that can be produced comfortably, at speed and with little
conscious effort is important in higher education
ENVIRONMENTAL SET-UP DURING
HANDWRITING TASKS
• Pre-empt your child beforehand the task that they are expected to complete
• Ensure workspace is comfortable and conducive by removing distractions such as
toys nearby, switch off any television, devices or loud music.
• Ensure enough lighting
• If your child is getting fidgety or restless, allow a short rest break (about 5 min)
• Keep the activity interesting and praise your child to keep them motivated

• Proper sitting posture


o Proper sitting posture during handwriting is important to:
▪ Minimize physical discomfort
▪ Improve quality and efficiency of handwriting
HAND WARM UP EXERCISES BEFORE HANDWRITING TASKS
• Below are lists of activities to ‘wake up’ the small muscles of the hand and to get the
hand ready for small movement and dexterity needed in handwriting

Finger wrestling competition


• Pinch thumb and
index finger together
to make a circle
• Pinch fingers together
then pull!

Squeeze/ pinch fidget toy/


stress ball

Finger push
• Place each finger tip
of the left hand with
the matching finger
tips of the right
hand.
• Push fingers
together.

Hand squeezes
• Squeeze hands into a
fist for 5 seconds and
then stretch out the
fingers and wrists for
5 seconds
COMPONENTS OF HANDWRITING SKILLS
Below are all the components that are important for a child to develop handwriting skills.
• Visual motor coordination
• Letter formation
• Spacing
• Pencil pressure
• Sizing
• Alignment

However, in this booklet, we will focus on improving your child’s sizing and alignment of
letters

Alignment and sizing


• Sizing
o Size of the letters relative to the writing guidelines and to the other letters
• Alignment
o Placement of writing on the line

WHAT CAN YOU DO?


Proper sizing and alignment
• Double lines help children place letters correctly, eliminating line confusion. The
base line guides placement, and the mid line controls the size of the letters
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Sky-grass-ground technique
• This technique will help your child to be more aware of the letter sizing and letter
formation.
• You can either search for the sky-grass-ground writing paper online or find a plain
foolscap paper/ lined notebook and colour/ highlight the lines in blue (sky), green
(grass), brown (ground).
• Teach your child that some letters (e.g. b, h, l, t and uppercase letters) goes up to the
sky, some letters (e.g. c, e, m, u) stays in the grass and some letters (e.g. g, j, p, y)
goes down to the ground.

• Steps to slowly fade off sky-grass-ground:


Step 1 Step 2

Step 3 Step 4

• Once your child can form most letters accurately on a coloured background as
shown in step 1,
• you can progress them to step 2, with only the lines underlined with colours or
remove one of the colours
• Subsequently, you can further reduce the visual cues by progressing them to step 3
and eventually step 4.
• Use dark/bold lines and/or “bumpy” paper
• Thicken the lines by using
marker/highlighter or trace the top and
bottom lines with glue. When it dries,
your child’s pencil will “bump” the lines as
he/she writes.

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