Teaching handwriting effectively impacts the wider curriculum and the development of the whole child offering, among others the following benefits:
- When children can write autonomously they can concentrate on what to write rather than how to write so their ideas and writing content will improve
- A significant impact on children's self-esteem, when they see beautiful writing which they have created with their own hand
- The huge effect of good handwriting on children's motivation and enjoyment for writing
- Develops a strong sense of pride which cannot be measured by attainment level or standardised testing
- Where children have good handwriting, and are proud of how their work looks, they become far more meticulous about spelling, punctuation, grammar and their use of language.
- When children take care to produce beautiful work they are more likely to take care in other areas of their life – e.g care for resources, care for each other.
As a school we use the achieving excellence in handwriting resources from Martin Harvey to teach handwriting.