14/ Teaching

Teaching
Lecture Fourteen
Teaching of Language Activities
4. Teaching Writing (Handwriting):
Learning to write from left to right is difficult for many pupils at
the very beginning, and they require ample practice to master this skill.
The Trace the line exercises in the Activity Book-Fourth Primary,
present left to right practice as an important element in the handwriting
development of pupils.
Handwriting requires the use of fine motor skills. Ask pupils to
draw vertical lines, circles, triangles and rectangles. After shapes, you can
begin teaching lower-case letters. Pupils should use a pencil at the very
beginning to feel comfortable.
Before pupils learn to read words, they should see how letters of
the alphabet are placed. There is a space between every two letters, not a
large space but enough to indicate that it is being reserved. Printing
practice helps the pupils match the letters in printed materials. Learning
cursive is helpful for speed.
Learning handwriting is not a creative exercise. It is all about
copying the right shapes to form words and eventually, sentences. Leave
creativity to compositions. When writing compositions, do not focus on
both content and handwriting. Allow pupils to hand in a paper that is
almost right with regards to handwriting technique when you are
grading for content.