by Tom McNaught-Roberts
Handwriting is a perennial issue in the classroom. It can be especially frustrating to have a student who loses marks in their examinations and assessments due to their incomprehensible writing style and it can make giving feedback a challenge in cryptography!
One solution which I have hit upon thanks to Lee Hill, is the use of highlighters to draw lines in a students' book and then ask them to only write within the highlighted lines.
I must admit, I was dubious at first that it would work however immediately the student was concentrating on their writing more and was having to look at the page when they wrote (rather than at the board as they used to do!) and their handwriting improved phenomenally!
I have since used this technique a number of times, mostly when students are writing over multiple lines or have a wide range of letter heights, and it has worked almost without fail (there's always anomalies!).
The one issue I have had is building time into lessons to draw the lines but the benefits far outweigh the issues. I would however caution on allowing the students to draw their own lines as I had a case where the student's highlighted lines they were drawing began to deviate from the lines of the book and started overlapping!
I don't know who was more confused, the student who was trying to complete tasks but ended up writing over their own work, or me when I came to try and mark it!