Handwriting Accommodations

Description of Handwriting Accommodations

Handwriting accommodations are educational supports provided to students who face challenges with writing in public or charter schools due to learning disabilities, fine motor skill difficulties, or other related issues. These accommodations are aimed at overcoming barriers to writing by offering alternative ways for students to complete tasks and demonstrate their knowledge. The goal is to ensure that handwriting difficulties do not impede a student’s overall academic performance or confidence.

How Handwriting Accommodations Can Help

Handwriting accommodations can alleviate the frustration and stress associated with writing tasks, allowing students to better focus on the content and quality of their work. These supports can facilitate improved academic performance, increased engagement, and higher self-esteem by providing students with tools and strategies that play to their strengths.

💡 Advocacy Tip 💡

If your child finds handwriting extremely challenging, refuses to write, has illegible handwriting, or receives feedback from teachers or peers about their "sloppy" handwriting, it might be beneficial to request an educational evaluation. This evaluation can help identify specific areas of need and potentially lead to services and supports through an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

Before we review the list of accommodations, it’s important to note that Assistive Technology (AT) can turn the impossible into the possible. Older students can be provided with a school-issued laptop, such as a Chromebook or another electronic device. These devices come with tools to help alleviate the stress of writing.  For example, speech-to-text software allows students to speak into the computer and have their words converted into text. Additionally, text-to-speech software can read text aloud to the students. - LeAnn

Suggestions for Instruction

1. Remediation in letter form, automaticity, and fluency.

2. Multi sensory techniques that encourage them to verbalize the motor sequences of the form of letters (for example, b is big stick down, circle away from my body).

3. Students should also use large air writing to develop a more efficient motor memory for the sequence of steps necessary in making each letter. This is because air writing causes the students to use many more muscles than the use when writing with a pencil.

4. Use graphic organizers and concept maps to organize ideas into paragraphs.

Accommodations

1. Allow the student to take extra time on tests.

2. Provide worksheets, rather than requiring children to copy down problems from the board.

3. Remove neatness as a grading criterion.

4. Reduce the length of written assignments. In math or science classes, reduce the number of problems required.

5. Provide the student with the “teacher’s copy” of the notes. If this isn't possible, teachers can allow another student to buddy up and share notes.

6. Allow students to substitute “key words" for full sentences, whenever possible. This cuts unnecessary time struggling with handwriting, while still providing the student with an opportunity to answer the question correctly.

7. Create oral alternatives in writing assignments.

8. Allow for some spelling errors. When possible, teachers should permit the use of a dictionary or spellchecking device.

9. Use pencil grips, erasable pens, and paper with raised lines (hi-write paper), all of which help students with dysgraphia work on hand writing skills. Graph paper, which provides visual guidance for spacing letters and numbers, is also useful. For

big projects, students can use a Ghostline poster board, which is lined with a light grid.

10. Allow students to use computers with word processing software, whenever possible.

Created by: Kathy Denious, M. Ed. - Learning Disability Specialist