Kindergarten Writing Readiness and When to Teach Handwriting

Personal Experience Teaching Handwriting

I vividly remember the first year of teaching Kindergarten when the vice principal came to the classroom for a visit amid a handwriting lesson. She kindly said that the Kindergarten teacher need not take time away from curricula areas to teach handwriting; it is the role of an after-school worker, parent or teacher assistant. This first year teacher experienced great discord with this feedback due to hours of practicing and teaching proper handwriting technique during student teaching and being told "this is the way it is to be done." Furthermore, learning that on some written state examinations, a grade can be deduced for illegible handwriting; after all, of what use is correct content if one cannot understand the written words therein? After that first year of teaching, I continued to teach and model proper handwriting to my Kindergarten students. It also drove me to study research about the subject of handwriting readiness and when handwriting should be taught.

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