The Best Handwriting Activities for Beginners

Some students will come to school with some experience with knowing how to form uppercase and lowercase letters. Others, based on their backgrounds and early learning opportunities, will not. As a teacher, you will notice them right away: some students will write only uppercase or a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, and some will need support with grasping a pencil correctly. 

And that’s okay! 

Teaching letter formation is one of the skills that they learn in kindergarten. Although you may have students that can write most or all their letters, they can still learn from you too. In the past, I have been overwhelmed with the variety of handwriting needs in the classroom, but luckily I have had time to develop the tools and resources you can use today. 

What do you use to teach handwriting?

I use Handwriting Without Tears. I found that my students’ handwriting is neat and legible with this program.  With HWT, you start with uppercase letters in a specific order and they provide you with the language to use to explain how to form each letter. I highly recommend you check out this resource! They also have HWT letter formation worksheets. 

What I love about teaching handwriting is that you are not just teaching writing. You are teaching letter id and names. Students begin to learn the attributes of letters and distinguish between how two letters are the same or different. This is important because this will help with reading.

Use Your Fingers

Some students need to feel the letters. It’s okay to have students use their fingers to write letters in the air or on the carpet. This will help them focus on the strokes (i.e., making a big line or small curve) and less time trying to form the “perfect letter” on a sheet of paper. 

For this activity, students pick a card and make that card with their finger by following the numbers (this is not HWT). 

Spin and Write

Spin and Write is an active and engaging activity to get students writing the letters repeatedly (a task that could get boring after a while) to get that extra practice. 

Students spin the spinner (they can use a paperclip and pencil if you haven’t purchased arrow spinners) and make that letter. They continue to play until they fill the paper. 

I use this activity during literacy centers. First, I laminate the worksheets and put them in a folder. I only include letters in the folders that I have modeled first as a class. If students forget how to form letters correctly, I always have the alphabet letter formation cards nearby for their reference. 

Click here if you want more information about Handwriting Without Tears (I am not an affiliate, just a huge fan that noticed remarkable results in my students’ writing). 

Learn about more literacy centers.

Happy Teaching,

Tee