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The art in handwriting

Writing Time 12/5/16

When you think about it, handwriting is art. The act of handwriting is a combination of subtle shifts in pencil control, clockwise and anticlockwise movements, and the use of a variety of exit and entry angles.

Applying these handwriting movements requires fine motor skills; and creating artwork can be an enjoyable way to develop and refine those skills.

Incorporate art into your handwriting lessons with these great ideas:

• Warm up with abstract art
  Students create an abstract artwork incorporating core shapes of a focus letter or letter combination.

• Create patterns
  Instead of colouring, students draw a series of repeating patterns to complete a picture.

• Fill pictures with words
  Another way to complete an image (apart from colouring or patterns) is for students to write the name of the image in all the empty spaces, such as filling the shape of a balloon with the word ‘balloon’.

• Create characters
  Students draw a series of characters that represent different emotions. Students will find subtle variations in the characters’ faces have a big impact on how their emotions are represented.

Writing Time Student Books contain fine motor skills art activities that give students ample opportunity to practise the movements necessary for good letter formation. Students will love making ‘rounded entries’ as they create bug pathways across the page, or ‘diagonal joins’ to form a precarious rope bridge.

The benefits of drawing, tracing and creating patterns also cross over into other aspects of literacy, particularly writing. Recent research has shown that the similarity of the two semiotic systems – drawing and writing – means that learning is ‘most powerful’ when they are used together ¹.

References

1. Adoniou, 2013 <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/16/cognitive-benefits-handwriting-decline-typing ↩

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