The 5 Main Components of Handwriting
The key to being able to support students in their handwriting journey begins with understanding the basics of handwriting. There are 5 main components of handwriting that impact overall legibility - formation, sizing, placement, orientation, and spacing. In this blog post I will break down each of these components of handwriting to better explain what they are and how they impact overall handwriting legibility.
1.Formation
Letter formation refers to the sequence of strokes that a child uses to form a letter. The first component of letter formation is starting point. This refers to the place that a child initiates the formation of a letter. Typically, children are taught that letters start at the top - with a few exceptions (ex. Lowercase ‘e’. ‘g’, etc.). Additionally, letter formation encompassess the sequence of strokes used to form letters. This refers to the order in which a child creates the strokes of their letters, and the method in which they transition between strokes.
2. Sizing
Letter sizing refers to the size of a letter within the lines. Generally, there are 3 sizes of letters: tall, small, & diving. Handwriting programs will often use their own verbiage to describe or label these letter sizes, but the concept remains the same.
Tall Letters
Tall letters are letters that touch the top line and the bottom line. This includes all capital letters, and the following lowercase letters:
Small Letters
Small letters are letters that touch the middle line and the bottom line. This includes the following lowercase letters:
Diving Letters
Diving letters are letters that start at the middle line and have a tail that falls below the bottom line. This includes the following lowercase letters:
3. Placement
Letter placement refers to whether or not a letter touches the bottom line. All letters should touch the bottom line, but each letter touches the bottom at a different point.
Tall letters & small letters all touch the bottom line at the bottom of the letter. Here are a few examples.
Diving letters are a bit trickier in terms of placement. Diving letters touch the bottom line at the bottom of the “belly” of the letter. I’ll put some examples of that below.
I refer to any letters that are not touching the bottom line as “floating letters”, and my students all know that floating letters have no business coming around during our work together!
4. Orientation
Letter orientation is also known as ‘letter reversals’, and refers to the direction in which a letter is facing. Letter reversals can be frustrating, but are developmentally normal up through the second grade. Regardless, I try to get ahead of letter reversals during my work with students by reinforcing proper letter formation from the beginning.
5. Spacing
There are 2 types of spacing that impact handwriting legibility - letter spacing and word spacing.
Word Spacing refers to the amount of space placed between words within a sentence. This is the most common type of spacing that is addressed, and can be extremely impactful on overall legibility.
Letter Spacing is less often talked about, but it is equally as important for overall neatness. This refers to the amount of space placed between letters of the same word. If a student places too much or too little space between letters of the same word it can often reduce legibility and negatively impact the overall neatness of otherwise legible handwriting.
It is important that students learn to address all of the above mentioned components of handwriting in order to develop truly successful and independent handwriting skills. Often times it is helpful to provide students with visual aides that assist them in remembering each of these handwriting components. Check out some of the links below for visual aids that can assist students during independent work time.