Two children can write an identical o on the page. One of them drew it anticlockwise from the top and one drew it clockwise, and in three years' time the second child will be visibly slower at writing anything.
The part nobody can see
Handwriting teaching is almost entirely about three things: where the pencil goes down, which way it travels, and how many times it leaves the paper. None of them survive into the finished letter, which is why a child can practise a page of neat letters and reinforce a habit that will cost them later.
The cost is real and it is about speed. A letter formed in one flowing movement joins to the next one. A letter built from strokes that start in the wrong place has to stop, lift and restart, and by the time that child is writing paragraphs they are half a sentence behind.
Start with small letters
Capitals are easier to draw — mostly straight lines — which is why children gravitate to them and why so many arrive at school writing THEIR NAME LIKE THIS. Almost everything a child reads is lower case, and school spends a year undoing the habit. Start with small letters even though they are harder.
Say it out loud while they write
Every letter has a sentence, and the sentence is what a five-year-old actually remembers. "Round, up, and straight down" for a. "Down, up, over the bridge, and down" for n. Say it while they write it, every time, until they say it themselves.
Groups, not the alphabet
Teaching a to z in order puts letters that are formed completely differently next to each other. Teach by movement instead:
- Round letters: c, a, d, g, o, q — all of them start the same way
- Down and up: i, l, t, u, y, j
- Bridges: n, m, r, h, b, p
- Zigzags: v, w, x, z, k
A child who can write one letter in a group can nearly write the others.
Before the pencil
Letters in sand, in flour, in the air with a whole arm, on a steamed window. A child whose hand is not ready for a pencil can still learn the movement, and the movement is the part that matters. Big first, small later.
What not to worry about
Reversed letters — b for d, and s the wrong way round — are normal until about seven and are not a sign of dyslexia on their own. Correct them without alarm. Which hand a child writes with is settled by them and not by you.
Where to practise
Trace the letter is built on exactly this: a green dot where the pencil starts, an arrow for the direction, and a trace that goes the wrong way round is refused even though the shape is right. It has every small letter, every capital and the ten digits, and it says the sentence out loud.