Letter Formation
Letter Formation
Episode #44 Show Notes
The Complexity of Letter Formation
Letter formation is the foundation for literacy development. This is because practicing letter formation helps students with shapes and sounds of letters, which is important for foundational reading skills.
Students also need fine motor skills in order to accomplish appropriate letter formation. Good letter formation needs good fine motor skills.
Writing by hand engages the parts of the brain that enhance memory and learning. When students are writing the letter and saying the sound, we’re helping them make the sounds stick.
One study found a significant correlation between letter recognition and handwriting fluency in students who were practicing their letter formation and had handwriting fluency. This proves that children who practice writing letters become more familiar with their shapes and sounds.
Another study showed that explicit instruction in letter formation is effective. As educators, we need to guide students through the correct strokes, use correct visual aids, and even teach students chants so they can understand how to write each letter.
Prerequisites for Handwriting
Before you dive right into teaching handwriting, there are a few things that we need our students to have before we implement this instruction. Students should have…
…fine motor skills, or at least be building them. Building with playdough, writing their name, coloring at the table - these are all amazing ways to incorporate fine motor into your daily activities.
…the correct writing positioning. This mainly encompasses the physical handwriting experience.. Here, we think about posture, paper position, pencil grip, and even knowing what hand to use while using a pencil.
A great way to teach posture is to say, “Bottom to bottom, back to back, feet flat on the floor.” This will encourage students to keep their bottom on the bottom, back facing back, and their feet flat on the floor.
Then, move onto paper positioning. Now, this one can feel a bit arbitrary, because paper position is largely up to the writer. Some people like their paper straight up and down, while others prefer to have their paper almost completely sideways. Here, all you simply have to do is correct it if you feel that the position they’ve chosen isn’t serving them well.
As for pencil grip, we must think about how we can help them consistently pick up the pencil with the same grip every time. One of my favorite songs for pencil grip comes from Linda Laporte Torres! Have students place the pencil on their dominant hand side with the tip pointing towards them. Students will make an “OK” sign with their thumb and sing her chant as they learn to grab their pencil during her song.
…an understanding of lined paper. They need to understand the difference between the top line, bottom line, and the middle dotted line. They also need to know that we “never, ever, ever start a bottom up letter.”
Beginning Handwriting Strokes
After the handwriting prerequisites have been met, it’s time to start learning strokes! Yes, we actually want to start out with strokes and not letters. There are five main strokes involved in handwriting:
Tall lines (straight sticks) ”Start at the top line, straight stick down.”
Example letters: l, t, b, h
Short lines (short sticks): “Start at the dotted line, short stick down.”
Example letters: i, j, u, n, m p
Circle backs
Example letters: a, c, o, s
Slanted lines
Example letters: x, v, y, w
Diagonal lines
Since there are five days in a week and five strokes, a great idea is to take one stroke and work on those letters that contain that stroke for each day. For example, on Monday, consider taking tall line letters and work on those. On Tuesday, move onto the short line letters, and so on.
How to Teach Letter Formation: Two Main Aspects
Unity across the board.
When we’re teaching letter formation, visuals are just as important as verbal cues. It’s vital that these verbal cues are the same across the grade levels and contexts.
Special education teachers, the reading specialists, the classroom teachers, parent volunteers, etc. - everyone should be teaching letter formation with the same verbal cues.
These uniformed routines will help students master these letter formation skills more efficiently and at a quicker rate.
Combining letter formation with letter sound knowledge
We need to ensure we are integrating letter formation into our literacy instruction. When we combine this approach, it reinforces those neural pathways that are involved in reading and writing - just how we mentioned earlier.
Students are more likely to internalize the connection between spoken and written language by engaging in phonemic awareness and letter formation activities throughout the day. This type of practice enhances decoding and encoding.
Key Podcast Takeaways
Handwriting is a critical literacy skill.
We must integrate letter formation early on in a child’s academic career. We do this through systematic, explicit, and consistent instruction with lots of practice.
We must also be uniform with how we are teaching that letter formation so that students can learn them at a quicker rate and in a way that makes sense and is familiar to them.
In Case You Missed It:
Research studies
Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Fink, B. (2000). Is handwriting causally related to learning to write? Treatment of handwriting problems in beginning writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(4), 620-633.
Ray, K., Dally, K., Rowlandson, L., & others. (2022). The relationship of handwriting ability and literacy in kindergarten: A systematic review. Reading and Writing, 35, 1119–1155. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10224-8
Santangelo, T., & Graham, S. (2016). A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Handwriting Instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(4), 609-627. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000082
The letter formation chants we use at my school that students love!
Literacy Edventures Resources:
Check out these awesome resources at Literacy Edventures that can help you with letter formation in your own classroom!
