Teachers and parents are wedded to the idea of the weekly spelling list. There are very few primary schools, as far as I know, where children  do not come home with the obligatory spelling list, which has to be committed to memory, and tested either in the next day or two after, or the next week, if they bring the list home on a Friday.

With mum or dad encouraging, urging and assisting, the spellings are usually learnt – somehow!  They are then duly tested by the teacher, and the results recorded. 90% of the class will get at least 90% of the spellings  right. However, were they to be tested three days later, on exactly the same words, 90% of the class would get 90% of the words wrong. How strange, you may think. As parents say so often to me, “But he learnt that word last week for his spelling test and he got it right!” Of course he did! However, what these parents and teachers fail to realise are some simple facts about the way our memories work, and how we remember things.

If I had my way, I would ban learning lists of spellings from every primary school in the country, and this is why.

Good spellers are born, not made. Children who are good at spelling  tend to be good at English, have an excellent vocabulary, and  read a lot. They subconsciously absorb spelling patterns, punctuation and new words. They work out the meanings of words from contextual clues, and they use the new words which they have learnt in either their own writing,  conversation, or both. They love language, and have favourite words, which they constantly use,  just for the pleasure of hearing them. I was one such lucky person, and I can remember, as a child, being fascinated by the word “kedgeree”, which I kept using as often as I could, whether appropriately or not! Good spellers can look at a word which they have written and know straight away whether it looks right or not. They have an instinctive knowledge of English letter sounds and phonemes, without really needing to be taught them.

Sadly for the others, however, spelling is a chore, an impenetrable mist, whose rules constantly evade them, and whose patterns they never quite see. For these children, and there are a great number of them, learning lists of spellings will never, ever, ever, turn them into good spellers. So what do we do? How do we help these students to grasp the basics of this tricky subject? It’s actually quite simple, although I doubt if schools will do it. You simply teach them spelling rules, from a very early age.

 I will digress here slightly, but this next bit is very relevant. You see, some teachers are not very good at what they do, and some are poor spellers themselves. I have a Year 6 pupil who happens to be a natural speller. Her class teacher, who has taught Year 2 up till this year, is a poor speller, and, on Friday nights, when I see Alice (name deliberately changed), she tells me how Mrs Jones (ditto) has spelt this word, or that word. I cannot believe that no-one has said anything to this lady. In another case, a national newspaper published a letter from a private tutor who works with children with literacy and dyslexia difficulties. She frequently comes into contact, through her work, with schools and teachers. She writes that she recently sat in for a Year 4 teacher in a school, where the class were learning about similes. It took her a while to figure out what the lesson was about, as the spelling on the whiteboard was “simaly.” She also tells of another occasion when she had a letter from a primary school teacher who used the word “accept” when she meant “except”. She was asking what hope there was for the children if the teachers themselves cannot spell. The reply to the letter came from Chris Woodhead, the former Chief Inspector for OFSTED. He says that the letter writer’s experience is all too common, as he found out for himself on inspections. He states that, for years, entrants to the teaching profession have had to have passed GCSE English, or a similar qualification. As he says, “The problem is that GCSE English is no longer a real test of linguistic competence.” He goes on to state that  ”the linguistic rot is so deep, it is hard to know what to do. Teachers who cannot spell produce generations of children who cannot spell, some of whom will become teachers themselves.”  He concludes by asking, “How is the inexorable decline to be reversed?” I couldn’t agree more. I, too, despair of the poor practice that I see in my pupils’ books, the dreadful handwriting, the sloppy way that the children sit and the way they hold their pens or pencils.

However, back to spelling. If you want to help your child, there are two books you absolutely must get. One is called’ The Hornet Literacy Primer’, and the other, which follows on after it, is called ‘The Word Wasp’.They are both written by Harry Cowling, who is the son of Keda Cowling, the author of ‘Toe by Toe’, which is the most brilliant book ever written, and which I write about elsewhere on the website.In the introduction to  ‘The Word Wasp’, Harry has written the most hard-hitting and thoughtful pieces of writing on the subject of spelling that I have ever read. In it, he states that good spelling skills cannot be acquired by memorising lists of  unrelated words.When you think that a small dictionary contains over 70,000 entries, how on earth are we going  to get children to remember just 5% of them? These two books break the mould. They have been trialled with students at a school in Yorkshire, as an experiment, in just one hour a week. The results, according to the headteacher, were amazing!  Everything – including articulation, spelling and reading – improved. So, too, did the confidence of the students.  

The books can easily be used by parents, all that is needed is the committment to carry out a short session five days a week.If your child has been through whole word systems, memory training, mnenomics, multi-sensory and kinaesthetic techniques, and still can’t spell or read vey well, then give’ The Hornet’ a try. You can order the books from either the ‘Toe by Toe’ website, or from Amazon. After all, you have nothing to lose, and a very great deal to gain!

It is a very carefully constructed method of learning to read, and believe me, it works! Let me give you a little background information about the author and the book. Keda Cowling, who wrote the book, grew up desperately wanting to be a teacher. Sadly, in those days, there was no money available to support her, and so she had to go and find work in the mills (she lived in Yorkshire). She was amazed one day, many years later, when confiding her youthful ambition to a friend to be told, “You still can be a teacher. You can be a mature student.” She lost no time in applying to go on a training course, and after qualifying as a teacher, began to work in a village school near her home.

She stayed in the same school for the rest of her teaching career, and she stayed with the same Year Group – Year 2, or Top Infants, as it used to be called. During this time, Keda worked tirelessly, trying to help all the children in her class to learn to read, but there were always about four who never really “got it”. 

One evening, quite unexpectedly, there was a knock on her door, and when she opened it, there stood one of her old pupils, now grown up and married. He had come with a request.

“My wife sits with a book, laughing out loud. I don’t know what she is laughing at, but I want to be able to do that. Mrs Cowling, will you teach me to read?”

This spurred Keda to try and invent a method that would help children and adults of all ages to grasp the concept of reading. In the course of time, and with the constant encouragement and support of her family, and also the head of the school where she taught, she came up with the idea of  ’Toe by Toe.’

“You see,” said a friend, “it isn’t quite step by step – it’s smaller than that. It’s more like toe by toe!” And so the name was born. It has now become a global success. It is used in countries across the world, as well as the UK. It is used in prisons, where one in three inmates cannot read, and it is used in some – but not all – schools, where there are enlightened teachers, carrying on Keda’s aim of helping everybody to become literate. 

So, how does ‘Toe by Toe’ work? It uses phonics, that wonderfully sucessful method of teaching children to read, which got thrown out by the trendy educationalists somewhere in the eighties, and replaced by ‘reading with picture books’,  or  ‘choosing a book you like’  (regardless whether it matched your reading age). Suddenly, colour-coding for different reading levels was ‘out’ – (old-fashioned) – hearing children read on a regular basis was out – (not necessary), graded reading schemes were ‘out’  (old-fashioned as well)and all the careful work done by experienced, caring teachers was abandoned. (I know, this happened at a friend of mine’s school. She is now one of my tutors.)

Then, suddenly, someone realised that the new, trendy methods were not working, and standards of reading were going steadily downwards. So what did we get then? Why, phonics, of course. Only this time, rebranded as ‘synthetic phonics’ and the Department for Education, in its wisdom, brought out yet another of their helpful books, called “Letters and Sounds” to guide us on our way!

Some of us oldies never actually stopped using phonics, because we know this method works, and if you look at ‘Toe by Toe’, you’ll see exactly why it works. The book is most carefully graded, and every exercise must be completed before moving on to the next one. The book uses sound names for everything including capital letters, and words are broken down into chunks, so that they can be decoded.

The book is actually written to help dyslexics, but it can be used by anyone of any age, who struggles to learn to read. Read this  from a 10 year- old boy, and hear how he felt.

“Before “Toe by Toe”, I was living in a deep dark hole. Everyone else understood things, and I didn’t. When I was given the book, I felt a rope ladder had been thrown down to me. It didn’t have any rungs…I had to build them myself and that has taken time. Now I feel I’m near the top and I can see daylight. I feel sorry for anyone stuck at the bottom.”

Edward C  (Aged 10  )  Nantwich, Cheshire.

‘Toe by Toe’ also helps with spelling. Most people learn to spell by constantly seeing and subconsciously remembering the written word. Reading and spelling become a mutual activity. If you can’t read, however, you  are disadvantaged, because you can’t pick up a book and read either for pleasure or  for information. Your spelling, therefore, never improves. As a tutor, I often use some of the ‘Toe by Toe’ sentences as dictation with weak spellers, as they can easily spell them phonetically, and this builds up their confidence.

Finally – some of my success stories:

Robert, who was still working at Level 2 when he came to me in Year 6, barely able to read and write. After setting him off on ‘Toe by Toe’, and with the constant support of his mum, who worked with him every day, (including  holidays at their caravan),  he achieved Level 5  in his English SATs (above average for his age.

The 6 year-old twins, whose reading ages increased by 6 months during the 6 week’s summer holidays of 2011, (we tested them before the holidays and at the end of them) and who both went up three reading levels at school, thanks to their mum, who also worked with them on a daily basis.

Olivia, 6 years old, in the same class as the twins, struggling to make sense of reading, and getting switched-off in the process. I tested her reading age two days ago, and she is now reading 5 months above her chronological age. She, too, has gone up three levels on her school reading scheme. (Again, thanks to mum.)

Then there was Alex, in Stockport, who was dyslexic, and who got no help from his school, because dyslexia was not accepted. He was ‘just slow.’ He worked with me for three years, and, at the end of it, was awarded the headteacher’s prize for the child who had made the greatest progress in English in the whole school.

I could go on and on. If you want to read some amazing and heartwarming stories, go to the ‘Toe by Toe’ website, and find out more about it. If you want to try it with your child, you can order it from the ‘Toe by Toe’ website, or you can get it ( a little bit cheaper!) from my shop. It is an easy book to use, and I will be glad to help anyone get started. There are coaching pages right through the book, and parents are just as good as teachers when it comes to using it.

One word of caution – the book demands commitment! I have started many children off on it, only for the parent to give up after a few weeks. You need to understand that it will probably take a year to work through the book, and the work should be daily  (Monday to Friday)  for 20 minutes a session. Unless you are prepared to put this level of effort in, then it is not for you. If you are, then the sky’s the limit. Trust me, I know!

There was a more inspiring feel to last night’s programme, with several of the students considering their futures in a considered way, and finding out about the options that were open to them, and the subjects that were engaging them. For instance, one boy discovered a love of art, and Rolf Harris worked tirelessly with him to create a painting  of which he could be really proud. Another girl was drawn to the world of medicine, although she wasn’t quite sure which field, having viewed an operation in hospital and feeling rather put-off; and a third boy was thrilled to be on the stage of The Globe Theatre, and realised he would love to become an actor. It seems as if, finally, the students are waking up to the world of reality, where dreams can be achieved and finding that there is another alternative to either a life on benefits, or a dead-end job.

However, and this for me is still the crunch line, their behaviour was still unruly when they were all together, and their bad habits of not listening and constantly talking in a lesson continue. It is my opinion that we have to try and sort this out long before the students get to the ages of sixteen. I know I am behaving a bit like King Canute, trying to hold back the waves, but couldn’t we begin, in just small ways, to rescue the children like those on Dream School who do have something to offer society, talents and gifts which are never realised, and which they never even knew they possessed?

How we do this, I’m not sure, but I believe we should begin in primary school, and make sure that all children can read when they leave at Year 6. Statistics just released show that 1 in 5 pupils at Year 7 – the first year in secondary school – cannot read.

Why not?  One of the reasons, I believe, is the constant interfering and meddling by those on high in the methods teachers use to teach young children how to read. I well remember, when I was a young teacher, the ridiculous fad of ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet), where strange combinations of letters were used to represent sounds and words. When a child had mastered that, they then had to go back to TO  (Traditional Orthography) and learn to read all over again, using the conventional method. Then we had phonics, followed by Look and Say, followed by Learning to Read by Picture Books, and now we are back to ‘synthetic phonics.’ One of my pupils in Year 6, can read really nicely, and loves to show off his prowess.  If I then ask him to tell me about what he has just read, he can’t. He has not understood any of it. He chooses his own books, writes his own comments about them in his reading diary, and takes them back to school, only to choose another one. Looking at his reading diary, he seems to be heard by an adult once a fortnight. His parents have poor English and can’t help, and none of his older siblings is interested in helping him. How will he cope at secondary school? I really don’t know. At the moment, he is still engaged, and thinks he is doing well. How long before he, too, becomes disaffected, and turns to inappropriate behaviours through sheer frustration?

One of my tutors, semi-retired, was the deputy head of a school in South Manchester. Under her experienced and expert lead, all the children in the Infant Dept. were heard to read by their teachers at least four times a week. Teachers gave up their time before school, at break and at lunchtime to make sure this happened. Now she has gone, (but still goes in once a week to continue with her dyslexia tuition) the new headteacher has abandoned the reading scheme, the carefully graded books, colour- coded for easy recognition, and introduced a system of ‘child- centred learning’. Now, the children pick any book that attracts them, regardless of how easy or difficult it is for them, and the structure of hearing the children read has been abolished.

Child-centred learning? Haven’t we been here before, (in the Sixties), along with open-plan classrooms and integrated days? Don’t we ever learn anything from the past?

As a teacher, it has always puzzled me as to why education is so subject to fashionable fads, and why this is allowed. Who are the faceless ones who dictate how our children should be taught, and what they should be taught? One thing I do know, and I shall defend this opinion to the death, is that they do incalculable harm to our young people. They are the ones who are the guinea pigs for these trendy methods, and who suffer as a result. When I was a headteacher,  my  youngest member of staff, who joined us an  NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) told me one day that she had no idea how to use punctuation and grammar. When she was at school, it wasn’t deemed important, it was the content of the writing that mattered more than anything. We then had to lend her books and give her a crash course, because how could she teach theses things to her class if she couldn’t do them herself?

[As a student on my final Teaching Practice, I well remember having to take the class for ‘creative writing’. This entailed putting on a piece of music, and getting the children to seek inspiration from it. I can never hear the “fight music” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet without remembering that lesson. I was sick to death of it by the time we had listened to it over and over again, waiting for the muse to strike!!]

Please post your comments below, join the discussion on facebook, or post a comment on Poynton Tutorials facebook wall – I really want to hear them.

It is about Jamie Oliver’s attempts to motivate and encourage back into learning, a group of twenty young people, average age seventeen, by providing them firstly with a building, made into temporary classrooms, but, more importantly, inspirational people – not necessarily teachers – in an attempt to inspire the students. The criteria for choosing this particular group was that none of them achieved the requisite five GCSEs, and neither did Jamie, of course, a fact which has spurred him on to help these students.

The team working with the students has so far included David Starkey, Rolf Harris, Alistair Darling, Robert Winston, Simon Callow and Alvin Hall. There is also a real headteacher, John Dabbro, in charge of the day to day running of the school.

My initial response to the programme was, quite literally, shock and horror. I have never witnessed behaviours such as these, and I felt profoundly depressed. There was no attempt by any of the students to exercise any form of self-discipline. Indeed, I doubt whether any of them know the meaning of the word, let alone be able to practise it. They talked incessantly amongst themselves while the teacher was speaking, they chewed gum, they insulted each other and they constantly used their mobile phones to send texts, completely ignoring the lesson which was going on around them.

Halfway through his first lesson, David Starkey walked out. He had insulted a boy by calling him fat, and described the whole class as ‘failures’. This did not go down too well with the students, and they responded in kind!

It is interesting to watch the way the experts handle the pupils, some of whom, admittedly, come from difficult backgrounds. Their behaviour is enough to try the patience of a saint, and even the headteacher rounded on one girl last week, and excluded her. Her diatribe against him, in which she loudly and vociferously denounced him for what seemed like five minutes without pausing for breath, was unbelievable. Even her own mother, who initially took her part, was appalled when she watched the recording, and told her daughter off for her rudeness and dreadful behaviour.

This programme raises some interesting questions. How do children in school get to this stage? Why do secondary school pupils think that this is acceptable behaviour? David Starkey described them as ‘feral’ and many people would agree with him. When the camera focuses on a particular student, they actually come across as pleasant and sensible. It is just that, when they all get together in the ‘classroom’, the pack mentality cuts in, and the behaviour becomes obnoxious. Some students do, admittedly, come from difficult backgrounds, but not all: one boy comes from a home where both parents are working professionals, but they have, as they admit, “given up.” The students have had a very rocky three or four weeks, and their behaviour has been appalling. They think nothing of getting up and walking out of the lesson if they feel like it, either because they are “bored” or because they want a smoke. They yell at each other across the room, carrying on their private squabbles, despite the fact that there is a lesson going on, and this week (23rd March), they reduced the very capable headteacher to tears, and almost caused him to quit.

However, there does seem to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Andrew Motion, the former Poet Laureate, whose first class ended in utter chaos, tried a different approach, and it worked. He spoke to each student individually, explaining how he could not teach in an environment where he couldn’t make himself heard, and offering the students the chance to stay away from his lesson if they wished – only two did. When the others turned up, he made it very clear that he expected silence and attention, and he got it.

Another success was Alvin Hall, teaching maths. He, too, was able to engage them, and ended up with at least two of the students choosing to do extra maths in their own time.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes, in my opinion there is. Several, in fact.

Firstly, we need to impose discipline and structure within the classroom at a very early stage, because, as these students demonstrate, when the classroom situation descends into chaos, nobody learns anything, and pupils become disaffected.

There is a strong case for banning mobile ‘phones, which were constantly being used during lessons for texting (and chewing gum!).

Secondly, the most successful lessons so far have been the ones which relate to “real life”. For example, Alvin taught maths from the point of view of going shopping – how much things cost, giving change, etc. All the lessons which identified with the students’ lives were successful. However, by becoming more engaged in one subject, they became more engaged in another, and so, gradually, a new understanding of, and respect for, learning is growing.

I will have much more to say on this subject after this week’s programme.

Please post your comments below, join the discussion on facebook, or post a comment on Poynton Tutorials facebook wall – I really want to hear them.

How can you help your child prepare for the exam?

As a parent, you will know how bright your child is. This, obviously, is the starting point.  You need to be thinking about taking the entrance exams when your child is in Year 4, and be ready to begin the preparation when he/she enters Year 5.  There are lots of things you, as a parent, can do.

Buy the Bond Assessment Papers. You can get these online at www.assessmentpapers.co.uk,  from Amazon, Waterstones or W.H. Smith.  Make sure that you get the right level for your child, and don’t start him/her on one that is too hard – you don’t want to put them off! The tests are all age-graded, from ages 5 to 13, and children enjoy working their way through them, particularly the Verbal Reasoning ones, as these contain little crosswords and codes. If you read the information on the first page of the Bond books, it explains how the tests practise a wide variety of skills and question types, so that the children are always challenged to think. The answer sheets are in the middle of each book, and are designed to be removed, so that you can keep them separate from the questions. Bond will even send you a replacement copy if you lose yours!  Get your child to work through about four papers in a week. They don’t take long, and help children develop their skills.

Reading
Many children nowadays do not read for pleasure.  This is a problem but it must be addressed.  Children who do not read struggle with comprehension and understanding texts.  They also lack a good vocabulary and this can make an enormous difference.  A good vocabulary is vital to writing interesting stories but also in understanding verbal reasoning questions, saving valuable time in the test.  Try to encourage your child to read and learn new words.  Make a game of learning one new word a day and give them their own little dictionary to look up unfamiliar words.

Grammar and punctuation
This is another problem which I frequently encounter.  Children do not remember parts of speech and punctuation, especially the use of the apostrophe.  These skills are important as written English and presentation are sometimes overlooked in busy schools!

Maths
Strong mental arithmetic skills are very important.  Quick, reliable arithmetic can make all the difference in maths and reasoning tests.  All entrance exams are timed and children need to be able to answer questions quickly and accurately.  Mental arithmetic sharpens these skills and helps the brain develop.  Make little games out of the weekly shop, encourage them to add up the bill and work out the change, etc.

The other side of the coin
Not all children are grammar school material.   If a child does not have the intellectual ability to do well at a grammar school, then even if they “scrape through” the exam, will they benefit from the education if they are constantly at or near the bottom of the class.  Children need to be happy to be able to learn and to be always lagging behind the other members of the class is a very dispiriting experience.

Children can also suffer from over-tutoring.  The concern is that children can miss out on having fun, playing sport, socialising with their friends and so on.  These things are important as a young child develops.  If tutoring time goes above a couple of hours a week, then it is getting too much.  I have had children arrive for their lesson who are too tired to put in the effort that is needed to pass these exams or who do not even have the right personality or skills to sit the exam with or without extra help.

The benefits of a tutor
Tutors have knowledge of what the schools are looking for.  They are able to assess the children and give parents an idea of whether the child will be successful in the exam or not.

A lot of children can do maths, but when the problem is presented in a slightly different way, as a problem, for example then tutors can help the child to solve it.

Tutors can also show children how to manage their time in the exam.  It can take a few months to get the child to the point where they do not spend too much time on one question – tutors can help the child to fine- tune their exam technique.

Over the months before the exam tutors build up a strong personal relationship with children and can encourage and support them through the process of working towards the exams.

Of paramount importance is that a good tutor will help a child to understand that learning can be fun and that knowing and understanding different subjects is an asset that will benefit them throughout their lives.  A good tutor’s aim is to enthuse their pupil, to encourage them to want to learn and to make that learning fun.  The result is a child that can pass the exams but who has also learned how to learn and how to manage their time effectively.

Finally
PLEASE have a fall back plan!  I have seen families devastated because their child only sat for one school and did not pass.  Children only get one chance at this and it is important to put your eggs in as many baskets as possible!  If you have any doubts, queries or concerns, ring me and I will be pleased to discuss these with you.

Above all, good luck!

Please post your comments below, join the discussion on facebook, or post a comment on Poynton Tutorials facebook wall – I really want to hear them.

First of all, let’s just consider how many areas of maths require knowledge of the times tables: multiplication and division problems, long multiplication and division sums, fractions, percentages,ratio, algebra, volume. The list is endless.

So what can you, as parents, do? The first thing is to accept responsibility for the teaching of tables yourselves. Do not assume that the school will do it, because the teaching of tables now is very patchy, and is subject to ‘fashionable’ methods, which, in most cases, do not work. (The mother of one of my pupils, whose daughter was at a ‘good’ school in Hazel Grove, once asked her teacher if the pupils in her class chanted their tables. “Oh no!” came the horrified response. ”We don’t do that these days!”)

I cannot over-emphasise the importance of tables, and the fact that the best way of learning them is by chanting them. This takes time and effort on both parents’ and children’s parts. It is one of those things that people start with great enthusiasm, and give up after two weeks, because the child is ‘bored’, tired, wants to watch something on TV ……… You have to be committed as a parent, and realise that you are in this for the long haul. Explain to the child that you are going to be ‘doing tables’ together, and try to get across to them how important tables are. (They soon cotton on to this if, as happened to one of my pupils, the other children began asking her the answers to tables problems they could not solve – but she could. She grew noticeably taller and her self-confidence soared!)

Set yourselves some goals – “This week, we’re going to learn the 2x” Write them out on a piece of paper, and put them up on your child’s bedroom wall. Sit down together for ten minutes and say them. You can break the table up into two equal halves, and just learn one half at a time. Get the child to write them out, and time them with a stopwatch (on your mobile phone) or an egg timer. Children are extremely competitive, and love to try and beat their own times. When they have written the table out two or three times, get them to write it out backwards!

Chant the ‘Table of the Week’ in the car, on the way to school. A really good way to learn tables is to sing them. It has been proven that anything we learn as songs sticks in our memories far longer than facts – just think of the songs you learned when you were at school, chances are you can still remember the words, I know I can! There are some good CDs available from places like WH Smith and Amazon, and again, you can play these in the car and sing along to them.

Another little game is to write out the table you are learning onto strips of card, cut them up and place them over the doorways in your house. Each time the child goes through the door, he/she has to look up and say the ‘fact’ until it is committed to memory.

Fire tables facts at them at unexpected times, and make a little game of it. Children remember things that are fun. Fire division facts at them, too, because multiplication and division should be taught together. It is amazing how many children don’t realise the connection between the two.

TWO DON’Ts:

PLEASE don’t let your child say, “I know my three times”, and then go 3,6,9,12,15 etc. This is NOT knowing the three tables, this is counting in threes. There is a big difference. The table should always be chanted as one three is three, two threes are six, three threes are nine, etc, etc.
Lastly, DON’T STOP AT TEN TIMES! We need to knowour 12s as much as ever, otherwise children end up working out sums involving 12x as long multiplication and division, which is totally unnecessary.

Please let me know what you think, and whether you have any tips you would like to share about the learning of tables.

Please post your comments below, join the discussion on facebook, or post a comment on Poynton Tutorials facebook wall – I really want to hear them.

Handwriting is just one of the bees I carry around in my bonnet! I hate to see badly-formed, untidy, scrawly writing, and children with no pride whatsoever in their work. I have tutored children from different areas in and around Poynton, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, all from so-called “good schools” and all with poor handwriting.

So what goes wrong? As I am not in schools to observe at first-hand, I can only surmise. However, I suspect that the problems begin when a child is taught to write in Reception. I would say that a good 80% of my pupils do not hold their pencils correctly. Furthermore, they do not sit properly at the table, with their left hand resting on the paper, to keep it steady. (Vice versa if they are left-handed.) No, they sit with their left hand dangling down by their sides, and the paper wobbling about whilst they write. The way some children hold their pencil or pen has to be seen to be believed! I have pupils who grasp the pencil like a knife, others who contort their fingers into all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes, and others who wedge it between their thumb and forefinger in a position of their own devising. Habits like these should be corrected from day one, but apparently are not.

The important thing about handwriting is that it is a skill like any other, and should be taught and practised on a regular basis. It is a very personal thing, and habits are created in Key Stage 1. Once bad habits creep in, is virtually impossible to change them,. What happens is that children may get a brief lesson in forming letters, or, more frequently, be given the ubiquitous handwriting sheets to copy, but nobody ever checks that they are forming the letters correctly, and this is the basis of all good handwriting. The way the letters are formed is all-important. If nobody checks that the child is starting from the right place on the line, he/she quickly devises his/her own way, and so the first bad habit is formed. I am not exaggerating when I say that these habits are with that child for good, because, when under stress (tests, exams, note-taking) he/she will automatically go back to the way he has been forming his/her letters for years. The brain goes onto “automatic pilot”, and any different method which someone like me has been trying to teach him/her flies out of the window!!

Handwriting tends to change as we get older. Many students find that their handwriting becomes much less attractive when they are at secondary school, and have to take down notes. Many of the students I tutor, who are in their 3rd, 4th and 5th years at high school, don’t even bother to write in a joined-up style at all. They just print. However, children learning to write need informed teaching (in other words, the person doing the teaching should have a good, clear style themselves) and a firm but flexible method to ensure that the students develop good habits that will last a lifetime.

(This week, I lost a good friend. He was 95, and had been a friend of my family ever since I can remember. At the buffet following his funeral, I commented on the fact that he had sent me a birthday card only the day before he died, and that his writing was beautiful. One of his nieces echoed my sentiments. “Well,” said a friend of mine who went to the same primary school as I did some 56 years ago. “We were taught how to write properly in those days.” !! Maybe teachers these days don’t give so much attention to their pupils’ handwriting, but to me, it is inconceivable that some children have never been taught the basics of letter formation. Many employers now ask for job applications in handwriting Who can blame them? They can learn a lot from you from your handwriting.

I have given this matter a great deal of thought, and have researched the market for tools to assist children with poor writing. I have found that a slant board is a great help, because it supports the writing arm, and encourages the child to rest the other hand on the edge of the paper. Another little tool which helps considerably is the ‘Tri-Go Grip’. This is a small device which fits over the pencil but, importantly, it has three holes in it so that the child’s fingers are actually touching the pencil. This encourages him/her to hold the pencil correctly.

Please post your comments below, join the discussion on facebook, or post a comment on Poynton Tutorials facebook wall – I really want to hear them.