Handwriting Sheets: A dime a dozen.

Actually, you can get a zillion free all over the internet. So then, why do I spend so many hours researching and creating quality handwriting products?

I have spend a good deal of my life’s work around researching and developing handwriting products that adhere to research based best practices.  If you are a parent, teacher, or a therapist, your efforts at teaching efficient legible penmanship could be enhanced by using these best practices.

Despite extensive research documenting the fundamental life long importance of handwriting [writing fluency, reading acquisition, long-term memory, self-esteem, academic success…] many children continue to struggle gaining legible and automatic handwriting skills.  As many as 32% of typically developing children are hindered by poor handwriting automaticity skills.

I have recently added and updated my practice books that I thought I would like to share this sequence with you.

Capitals First!: Book One [Preschool / Kindergarten]

• Teacher's Guide with research based practices outlined.

• Practice book with CAPITAL letters grouped and sequenced in development order.
• Structured Sheets provide phonics and reading connections.
• Gray boxes and go dots serve to help children learn correct motor memory.
• Path of movement language used to teach and help your children recall letter formations.

Capitals First!: Book Two [Preschool / Kindergarten]

Perfect for helping children establish efficient motor habits when you need to:
☞ Extend your curriculum.

☞ Supplement instruction for low flyers.
☞ Send home for homework.
☞ RTI.
Letters are specifically sequenced to help children use skills they already have to learn new letters.
Capital letters are made with lines and curves and are the prefect way to begin instruction so that your children learn to start letter formations at the top! Print Path letter font is compatible with Handwriting Without Tears materials but allows your children to learn formations on the three-lined paper they are most likely to encounter.

Numbers Next [Preschool / Kindergarten]

Lowercase at Last!: Book One [Kindergarten/ First Grade]

Lowercase at Last:
• 40 practice pages. Letters are specifically sequenced to help children use skills they already have to learn new letters.
• Word practice including previously learned letters.
• Path of movement language used to teach and help your
children recall letter formations.
• Group names assist in memory of formations.
• Pages structured to support single stroke formations, which
start at the top.
• Gray boxes and go dots serve to help children learn correct
motor memory.
• Effective teacher feedback supported by gray boxes, go dots,
and stop sign.
• Culturally inclusive images.
• Illustrations provide phonics and reading connections.

Teachers Guide: 17 pages
1 Quick users guide: Practice pages use of gray boxes,
go dots, and stop sign.
2 Differentiation options.
3 What “Lowercase at Last” is all about.
What “CAPITALS FIRST” is all about.
4 Sequence
5 Lowercase Path of Movement Language
6 How does teaching printing relate to CCSS
Common Core Sate Standards in Kindergarten?
Research based best practices to teach handwriting.
7 Explicit Instruction
8 Use of feedback to optimize skill acquisition;
Small group-teacher supported pencil practice on
structured practice sheets.
9 Seven Critical Components of Effective Feedback
Reflected in Print Path
10 Use of Theory of Motor Learning to Teach Printing.
11 Why Capitals First
12 Lyrics to songs used to teach: a. Starting at the top,
b. pencil grip, c. size and placement of letters.
13 Practice book table of contents
14-17 Group title pages.
18 License & Acknowledgments: 

Lowercase at Last!: Book Two [Kindergarten/ First Grade]

There are some children who can be shown how to form letters and then they always use great penmanship; this is a product is for all the others! After initial explicit instruction with (a single stroke curriculum such as) Lowercase At Last Book One, this product Book Two, is perfect to use as a supplement to instruction. This workbook includes path-of-movement language with each new letter so occupational therapists, teachers, volunteers, or parents can support interventions with integrity and ease.

BOOK TWO: 

Pages 1-17
* Unique visual supports such as Go-Dots, Gray-Boxes, and easy to understand arrows that give your children essential motor practice using correct and efficient motor-paths.
* Sequence of letters based on motor learning so that children are able to use what they have already learned to make the next letter.
* Top-notch visually evident single stroke formations that start at the top.
* Sequence that corresponds with Lowercase At Last so this product could be sent home as individual homework sheets as you are teaching!
* Group names assist in children remembering letter formations.
* Path of movement language is supplied on each worksheet so no lesson plan or teacher guide is needed.
* “Blocking” techniques are used so that children move past just forming letters and incorporate letters learned into simple CVC and CVCV words.
* Fun illustrations provide phonics and reading connections. Letter/sound correspondence, singular/plural, CVC initial/medial/last sound practice.
* Handwriting Without Tears-style font but on 3-lined primary paper!

Pages 18-34 Systematically guide your student through the next steps of legible printing after they are able to copy correct formations.:
* Designed as a Tier II, or Tier III intervention tool to help target specific skills that support legibility.
* Acquire automatic motor-memory of every formation with decreasing auditory and visual cues.
* Discriminate between the thee sizes of lowercase letters and place them in the correct writing space.
* Demonstrate alphabetic awareness and sequencing with one to one correspondence of letter name through the “l m n o p” section of the alphabet.
* Practice visual skills of left to right sequencing, sweep to left margin, and gaze shift back and forth for increasing distances between model and writing space.
* Transpose uppercase to lowercase.
* Acquire visual-memory of lowercase letters.

Winged Writers [First Grade / Second Grade]

Do you want your children to use legible and automatic handwriting in their everyday work? Are you tired of giving your students worksheets that they hate and that do not help them write correctly or efficiently in their daily writing? Upgrade your teaching to include research-based best practices. Legible and automatic handwriting is not old-fashioned; two decades of research has found that handwriting is the single most important factor accounting for success in written language skills (Connelly, 2005 & 2006; Graham, 1997; Jones 1999: Medwell 2007 & 2009; Puranik 2012). In fact, it has been found that interventions addressing handwriting are more effective in improving compositional fluency than those addressing phonological awareness (Graham, Harris & Fink, 2000). Research using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) finds that the act of learning to print letters aids in the acquisition of letter identification and reading skills (James and Engelhardt 2012).

Raise the Roof: [Third Grade - Fifth Grade]

Teach children to:
• Transition from 3-lined primary paper to standard two-line notebook paper.
• Learn several subtleties of mature handwriting including Raise the Roof, which means writing small enough within lines that the ‘tall letters do not bump their heads’ on the top line.
• Increase the speed of legible automatic printing with the use of a periodic alphabet race activity and charting tool.
• Use the principles of the three spaces of writing to write legibly in open spaces without lines.
• Review correct letter formations within four lowercase letter groupings, with an emphasis on correct top-to-bottom letter formation.
• Practice the use of a conventions checklist. This checklist is especially useful for those children who need greater support to maintain legibility in their daily writing after they have finished Raise the Roof instruction.

Why does Raise the Roof work so well?
• Writing prompts are incorporated between lessons to help students generalize skills rather than just practice copying skills.
• Fun cartoon characters give handwriting tips and prompt students to self-check their work. 
• Children also learn to self-check through the gradual introduction of a checklist.
• Children are motivated to improve their scores through the use of a self-charting, progress-monitor system.

Included:
* Raise the Roof, 35-page workbook. Raise the Roof is ideal for third- and fourth-grade students, especially those who are not learning cursive. This book could also be used as a differentiation tool for second-grade students who have solid basic skills, or for fifth-graders who still struggle with automaticity of handwriting. 
* Path of Movement Language.
* Lowercase Group Formation posters.
* About Raise the Roof teacher’s guide.