The Dark Side of Legibility

Most teachers, at home or in the classroom, have a background in handwriting legibility. When learning they were presented with models to emulate. That has created a focus on product that is actually exploited by publishers.

A publisher uses a 'font" to create the models in the manuals and workbooks. Each tends to use a font that is slightly different from the others. Our "product focus" tends to cause worry about the various font differences. Teachers and parents are attracted to a "font" that seems familiar due to their exposure in grade school. And they worry, particularly when teaching primary children, that even slight variations will cause confusion for the child.

Comments like the following are common.

"The capital M in our reading program has slant strokes that are all the same height. This handwriting program teaches a capital M with short slants. It will be confusing for the children."

However, When Mary or John come to the teacher to report that difference, it is instantly clear that they recognize both variations as the same letter.

The fact is, all of the various fonts are far more similar than they are different. If that were not true, an "outsider font" would not be legible. It is also true that each fluent writer, will produce a distinctive variation of the letters that is recognizable as their handwriting by the teacher, family members and friends.

The dark side of legibility is it's tendency to cause laborious handwriting process that is not functional. It is rooted in a lack of understanding. In the beginning, it is far more important to teach the correct start point, sequence and smooth movement, than to fuss when a model is not replicated precisely. A large range of variations will still be recognizable as a version of the target. Practice will improve control and the outcome will be much improved. Fluency is all about learning how to use smooth, fluent movement. That objective is almost universally ignored.

Children cannot produce perfect copies of a model letter when they are learning to move smoothly and fluently. Too much attention to precise reproduction causes the child to turn away from using the kind of movement we want them to learn. It is important to keep working toward a model, but not at the expense of fluent movement.

Read Pen World Magazine?

The August volume of Pen World, beautiful as always, offers two very interesting articles about handwriting. One addresses the importance of handwriting from the perspective of graphology. The second article, "Why Handwriting Still Matters" is the first in a series by Deborah Basel. It is powerful and will shed some light on a serious situation in our schools. I can't wait to read the next in the series and urge you to seek it out.

It is obvious that our schools have been steadily reducing priorty for teaching handwriting skills. The evidence is everywhere you see adults using handwriting. It is particularly true in the public schools. Far too many students in our classrooms struggle to put thoughts on paper, if they can at all. But, too many educators are willing to ignore the obvious connections to poor spelling and ineffective compositions.

Do your schools pay any attention to handwriting fluency? It takes only a minute to measure it, but it is rare to find a teacher who does, even occasionally.