The Power of Penmanship

Penmanship can be seen as a follow-the-bouncing-ball mindless activity where children learn the basic strokes of the alphabet. You demonstrate how to make the smalls and caps of the letter “a,” for example. Show kids the method to write the letters and give practice drills so they will get it right. Penmanship, in this manner, becomes a copying and busywork lesson. But as an inner-city elementary school teacher, I created something a little different.

I began each day with a 20-minute handwriting lesson. New letters were presented from Monday through Thursday, and on Friday, I gave a penmanship “test.” For the exam, children wrote, repetitiously, the letters of the week, including words, sentences, and short paragraphs with those letters. Sounds pretty boring, yes?

I introduced a fresh perspective for kids to view cursive writing by saying: “Penmanship is art.” Why? When you write the letters, you’re really drawing them, making sure you’re getting the strokes and the final picture “correct” or as good as you can get it. I was really prompting them to concentrate carefully when doing penmanship. My approach and the handwriting process got their attention, tapping early morning energy to complete the task. It woke them up, and calmed them down, without too much thinking. Penmanship immediately after lunch also helped to focus hyper children with similar results as morning lessons.

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