Importance of Penmanship

Penmanship is so important. Lots of moms give no thought to how accurate or neat their child’s handwriting is once they can make all their letters, but it is immensely important. There are so many connections that are made in the brain when a child writes, and it is important for those connections to be exact and clear. Neat legible handwriting where each letter is made with one stroke leads to the child being able to write fluently – meaning with speed and without much thought. If the handwriting is complicated and jumbled, then fluency will never be obtained. There is a lot of research which suggests that starting with cursive or moving quickly into cursive is best for kids as well.

Purposeful teaching of penmanship pays off.

How do you teach “good” handwriting? With perfect practice. And perfect practice takes time. Charlotte Mason states the obvious – Perfect practice makes perfect, sloppy practice makes sloppy. If you have your child go very slowly at the beginning (don’t start so young that they can’t do it.) they can practice each letter perfectly a few times and then move on. Do not give them a full page of practice and walk away. Their goal will be to “get it done.” You must instruct and stay with them. Make sure that they are only practicing slowly and perfectly. No penmanship lesson should be longer than 10 minutes, and 5 minutes may be just as good.

As with all the other fundamentals, you will be glad that you worked on this. By third grade your child should be able to read their own writing easily and be able to write words with no thought of how to form the letters. I see way too many

kids who struggle with handwriting in 3^rd grade or higher which hinders their ability to spell and to compose. Don’t let their penmanship slip, always have something they are required to “pen” perfectly each day. Habits are a wonderful gift which moms can develop in their children with consistency and perseverance. No one gets nice handwriting by accident. You can have your child develop this wonderful habit which will help them succeed in many ways.