Australian school handwriting
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While the importance of handwriting is well-known, Australia’s Curriculum 9.0 is hilariously vague about it. After a year at school, children are expected to: “… correctly form known upper- and lower-case letters.” Which letters are expected to be known is unknown. Eight Handwriting and Keyboarding sub-elements are listed here. The first one says:
- produces simple handwriting movements (writing, or drawing?)
- experiments with pencils, writing implements or devices (up noses? down socks?)
- writes letters which resemble standard letter formations (how closely? what standard?)
Leaving handwriting style decisions up to the states has worked out about as well as letting states decide railway gauges. Australia now has five approved handwriting styles for beginners, most with manuscript, pre-cursive and cursive versions. This must be confusing for the thousands of young kids who move interstate each year. It must drive early learning publishers insane.
Since foxes are helping send our native wildlife towards extinction, I’ve devised my own every-letter sentence to demonstrate our five beginners’ handwriting styles, while promoting adorable marsupials.
The first style comes from my state. I’m not a fan. Beginners’ versions of Victorian Modern Cursive often make the letter ‘n’ look like ‘m’, ‘r’ look like ‘v’, ‘k’ look like ‘R’, and put a vertical line on top of letter ‘o’. Children don’t see writing like this in books, or much beyond school. I wonder if it’s based on the same teach-novices-to-imitate-experts logic as Whole Language. Does research show that learning to write cursive ‘p’ and ‘b’ helps you read non-cursive p/q and b/d in books? I’d prefer kids start with simpler letters, and get plenty of instruction about how to form and place them as they say and spell words, so that visual information, motor plans and articulation fuse nicely in their brains. Joiny bits can come later.
Educational Psychologist Murray Evely (a nice fellow, we once both worked at Footscray School Support Centre) led the development of Victorian Modern Cursive in 1985. NSW’s Foundation Style was devised two years later. Queensland’s 1984 handwriting handbook, with the above glorious cover photo, can still be downloaded here. South Australian Modern Cursive was devised in 1983 and updated in 2006. Tasmania’s 1985 style has been updated a few times, most recently last year, when Tasmanian Handwriting Guidelines were developed with the help of academic and consultant Dr Noella Mackenzie. I wonder why different conclusions about shape, size, spacing, slant and joins were drawn from (presumably) the same mid-1980s research?
Every state teaches cursive eventually, mainly because it’s considered more efficient. However, US handwriting expert Steve Graham et al’s 1998 research found that mixed handwriting was faster than both cursive and manuscript, and that a mixed style containing mostly cursive letters was also the most legible. Canadian research in 2013 by Bara and Morin also found that “cursive handwriting was the slower style, whereas mixed handwriting seemed to be more efficient”.
Steve Graham recommends teaching beginners traditional manuscript letters for four reasons (see p21-22 of this article):
- Most children start school already knowing how to write some manuscript letters.
- There is some (rather dated) evidence that manuscript is easier to learn (Researchers! This topic!).
- Once mastered, manuscript can be written as fast as cursive, and possibly more legibly.
- Manuscript may facilitate reading development, as kids’ reading material is manuscript, not cursive.
UK handwriting expert Dr Rosemary Sassoon (who Wikipedia says is 93 and now lives in Busselton, WA) researched handwriting styles children find easy to read in 1993, and based her fonts on this research. I wonder if any of the Australian font designers also had the novel idea of asking children which fonts they preferred. Sassoon wrote a book about teaching handwriting, which is now freely available online.
The Victorian Phonics Lesson Plans team is preparing early years systematic, synthetic phonics resources for our local schools. Great! They will be in Victorian Modern Cursive. Hmm. A free version of this font is freely downloadable here, but it’s pretty clunky so I hope the lesson planners have a better-quality version. There’s also a free Queensland handwriting font here, but otherwise Australia’s official school fonts aren’t freely available.
I rang Kevin Brown at Australian School Fonts and wasted about an hour of his time asking about handwriting styles, fonts and related topics (It’s OK, I then bought his fonts). He said since we’ve had a National Curriculum, (first drafted in 2010) schools can use whatever handwriting style they like. Judging from the orders he receives, many schools are using a different state’s style. He also said it’s not possible to copyright a handwriting style, only font installation files, which are difficult to write and need updates as software changes. Australian handwriting fonts are also available from the Schoolfonts website, and probably elsewhere – if you know of quality, affordable suppliers, please make a comment below.
Sticking to a specific beginners’ handwriting style promotes consistent teaching about letter formation, sizing and placement, and I doubt teachers ask kids who move interstate to unlearn their original handwriting style. Over time we all develop our own style. Explicit instruction and lots of practice seem to be the main things that lead to efficient, legible handwriting, whatever the starting style.
For times when kids say keyboards make handwriting obsolete, I like Bec from Talkin’ Chalk‘s recommended reply: “When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, there’ll be no tech. You’ll need handwriting.” And for an extra start-of-the-week laugh, here’s an AI generated version of my favourite handwriting cartoon: the Doctor’s Strike (OK, the eyes and fingers are weird, and the bot doesn’t understand “scribble on placards”, but the cartoons are all copyright and you get the idea).
- Phascogale picture and information: https://animalia.bio/red-tailed-phascogale/1000.
- Quoll picture and information: https://www.animalia.bio/eastern-quoll
24 responses to “Australian school handwriting”
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Thank you for this comprehensive review, Alison. I used to own a copy of the Queensland’s 1984 “The Teaching of Handwriting: a Handbook”, purchased during my undergrad degree, so I was grateful for the link to be able to access it freely online. I quite it, and the font that it explicitly teaches. I find it has a good transition between print, cursive and hybrid. I really wish that handwriting instruction and font was consistent nationally.
Thankyou for an assertive, objective assessment of the handwriting curriculum Alison.
As a Victorian who was taught using the Victorian font, and “speed loops” for cursive, I still feel shame that I have a mixed handwriting style and not fully cursive! Shame no more! Thank you for referencing that it is in fact efficient despite being taught otherwise 24 years ago…!
Glad to have helped get rid of your handwriting shame, I hope the blog post also helps prevent future kid-shaming about writing style. I’m sure your mixed handwriting is efficient, fluent and stylish. Why on earth would we want everyone to write the same way? One’s handwriting is like one’s fingerprint, it’s very personal. I love being able to recognise people’s handwriting.
I loved your post, Alison. I’m showing my age, but I was part of the Victorian Modern Cursive trial from the Footscray School Support Centre with a group of practicing teachers from Victorian University’s Footscray campus (me). We were taught all about the new ‘wonderful’ font and how to teach it, which we trialed with a group of Grade One students at Footscray Primary School before it was rolled out state-wide. So, maybe we crossed paths back then. (I also had the pleasure of doing placement one day a week at the Support Centre with the amazing Bill Rogers and a speech pathologist, whose name I have forgotten, but I’m guessing you may have worked with her – she originally came from Cann River and was also wonderful.) Back then, I thought that Vic Modern Cursive was the bee’s knees (young and impressionable and believing everything I was told; sadly, including the whole language approach – thank goodness I now know better!). After teaching for 33 years and now studying speech pathology, I wish there was more research into the easiest and best handwriting for children. I have discovered Hartley Knows Handwriting by Melbourne-based OT Maria McKenzie over the past few years. However, it isn’t a handwriting font; it helps children learn whichever font their school uses in an easier fashion. But more research in this space would definitely be welcome.
Hi Keryn, another FSSC person, how excellent! Though I started work there in 1989 so I think our time there didn’t overlap, the senior speech pathologist there when I started was called Nola, and I don’t remember a Bill Rogers. I must look up Hartley Knows Handwriting, and find out more about the OT world’s research on how to help kids write, thanks for pointing it out. I keep googling interesting-looking OT research and finding it is paywalled. Looking forward to meeting you sometime in the Speech Pathology world. All the best, Alison
I was a primary school student in Melbourne in the 80’s and to this day still clearly remember being told we would no longer be writing ‘ball and stick’ letters, and would instead learn a new way to write – Vic Modern Cursive. I hated it. We all hated it. Our ‘r’s never looked like ‘r’s again.
Hi Kristi, YES, the VMC ‘r’ drives me insane, if it doesn’t look like a ‘v’ then it looks like a ‘p’, and ‘p’ often looks like ‘n’ and ‘b’ sometimes looks like ‘v’. Vote 1 manuscript for beginners, I say. Hope you’ve sorted out your ‘r’ now and that your school is using SA Modern Cursive, or Sassoon, or something else nice. Alison
But we got stickers with the new font on our desks! I remember the change to Vic Modern Cursive, but thought it was a bit earlier than 1985.
As a Grade 3 teacher now, the troublesome letters are persistently difficult for many students. The NSW font is a better option for not having the open p and b.
It’s a shame we’ve very likely seen the last of the beautiful flowing scripts of our grandparents’ generation. Reading old greeting cards, it’s clear that precision wasn’t attainable for all, but it was quite an art form for those who mastered consistent letter formation.
Yes, I think we went a bit too far in the who-cares-about-handwriting direction, but now it’s being valued more highly and taught more actively, hopefully that will encourage kids to work at having nice handwriting, and some will always study calligraphy and keep it going as an art form.
Agree. I tell the older reluctant student that hand-writing is “a form of art”. Often such kids love art and are good at it. This changes the message a bit and their attitude to hand-writing.
The problem of the r continues. It looks like a v because of the looping in. When I was teaching in the NT I was impressed with the SA teachers. They used the term ‘tick’ not ‘loop’. The loops are now very big and are really not part of the letter. Kids love to do ticks and coming out of a letter I say “tick” and they know exactly what I mean. It avoids the silly loop coming out but does not solve the coming into the letter. I enjoyed your comment.
As a parent of a child who moved states in the first year of school, I can relate to the confusion of different handwriting fonts between states. Moving from ACT to VIC confused my son, not only with handwriting but spelling and reading. Lower case i was confused with j, p, n and r were confused, v and u, and then the weird looking k that looked similar to a capital R, just to name a few!
This is fabulous! Thank you. We were lost last year trying to work out what to do with VMC. We decided to use a print font in junior classrooms. During Sounds-Write lessons kids were distracted trying to form letters r, v, p, n, h. They’d forget what word they were writing.
Thanks for the nice feedback, some VMC letters are just too hard for beginners, good on you for switching to something easier.
Thank-you Alison.
Handwriting is key focus to my MSL teaching.
As to writing styles, I tend to mix’n’match, according to student needs.
Makes it fun to print & then cursive, even if just for headers.
Also create a verbal story about starting point, direction & form works wonderfully.
I often include working on lined whiteboards with soft-tip markers.
Get kids to do letters blindfolded (telling their story!). Make it a competition. They love it!
Onto the page, my students use 2B pencils (softer lead) – beginning with Junior Triangular.
I tend to avoid pencil grips, preferring incremental build in instruction & responsibility.
Students can utilise adjustable slant boards, forward-sloping stool/chair with occasional write-up on a vertical surface, art easel or floor.
For all students, targeted hand/finger warm-ups before any writing.
Fidget spinners and skate fingerboards are v.popular with all my kids.
See some valuable resources below;
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Teaching Handwriting to Children: Don’t Forget Your Lines!
Sky-Cloud-Grass-Dirt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxwkXYgvL5I
* For students requiring high-focus intervention,
_____
Write the Letter E – ABC Writing for Kids
123ABCtv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMk7HrB77I4
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How to Write Letters A-Z – Uppercase and Lowercase Letters – Whole Alphabet
123ABCtv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsue4unC7YQ
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123ABCtv – Letter A-Z individual
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLVGPH2tZsZRDVdIuPhCyYg/videos
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Learning to Write Numbers 1-10 | How to Write 1 to 10 for Kids |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrA-GV1ThtI
……….
Fine Motor Skills videos
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Finger Aerobics
OT Toolbox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VpARNgbb8c&t=33
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Finger Warm Up Exercises for Handwriting and Fine Motor Dexterity
Kokeb McDonald – Occupational Therapist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7U4jFs1jo4
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HANDWRITING WARMS UPS With Pencil l Beginner Hand and Finger Exercises for Kids
OT Closet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMpq7ql9fAw
* Lots more in video notes
_____
All fun to do anytime!
Regards,
Pete
Hi Peter, sorry to take so long to approve and respond to your comment, i have been a bit snowed under. Thanks for the interesting links. I’m not sure about verbal stories regarding letter formation, though, the Steve Graham article I link to in the post says that having a verbal script for forming each letter is not helpful as it overwhelms working memory. I also think the jury is out on the usefulness of fidget spinners, see https://www.orlandohealth.com/content-hub/do-fidget-spinners-actually-work-or-are-they-a-distraction, do you know of solid research to support their use? I have a couple of clients who are always asking for fidget toys, and from my POV they waste quite a bit of session time on them when we should be focusing on our actual session goals. I also wonder how valuable physical warmups for handwriting are when kids have typical fine motor skills and can hold a pencil to draw perfectly well, they just can’t write well. Their difficulty with handwriting is linking the sounds in their speech with how to form, size and place the relevant symbols on the page, not the physical task itself. I work with kids who are well behind their peers, so need to use every minute of our sessions on things with high impact and a solid evidence base. All the best, Alison
Thank you once again Alison,
I so look forward to your articles – they ‘stir the fire in my belly’ about our Victorian Education Department!
I finished my teacher training in 1984, at Bendigo, and was taught the ‘ball and stick’ letter formations (on little backboards with chalk in those days). I started teaching in the February of 1985 and the ‘ball and stick’ style was no more! I had to learn AND teach this new Victorian Modern Cursive handwriting!
It has never sat well with me. I spent time at a school in the early 2000’s where we used the Sassoon font and I loved it but the ‘powers that be’ decided we return to the VMC script.
After almost 40 years in teaching (and more than half of that in Prep/Foundation), the Victorian Modern Cursive script is still difficult to teach and master, and I am still waiting to see that particular font anywhere else besides in the our curriculum in Victoria.
Now I will step off my soap box.
Thank you Alison, thoroughly enjoy your articles.
Jenni from Shepparton, Victoria
Thanks for the lovely feedback, Jenni. Nearly 40 years teaching kids to write in a style that you can see they find hard is true staying power! I think more and more schools are dropping it now and I’d love to see the new phonics resources being produced in SA font as well as VMC for schools wanting a simpler font. I guess unless the Minister says ‘stop using it’ some schools will continue, there has been a lot of investment in handwriting resources in that style. I’m sure it was devised with all the best intentions but we don’t really write in cursive any more and research suggests trying to write full cursive actually slows you down. All the best, Alison
There are many, many reasons why we need handwriting – the most essential being that it is the first subskill of reading. As Dr S Deheane wrote, handwriting is the bridge between speech and print. I’m trained in The Spalding Method which has a strong emphasis on handwriting using a multiple sort approach. It is an old font – similar to the NSW font. It concerns me that there is a lack of understanding of the fundamental importance of handwriting. I am also concerned by the large number of students who have very poor handwriting. As Romalda Spalding wrote, when letters are formed incorrectly, they are visualised incorrectly, and this can lead to reading failure. Also, publishers are not churning out handwriting books for philanthropic reasons – it is a million dollar industry and copying from a handwriting text book is busy work with very little thinking going on. All one needs is a pencil and lined paper with a baseline and a line above. I find all the different lines on handwriting text books ( some different colours) confusing. In addition, all the lines are unnecessary and are a crutch which do not support learning or thinking .
Thanks for your comment, sorry to take age to approve it and reply, I’ve been a bit snowed under. Yes, it’s a little crazy that there are so many handwriting books and styles, but I work with many kids who find handwriting extremely difficult so we use coloured dotted thirds paper to help them with forming and placing letters, making sure the ascenders go up and the descenders go down and the main parts of the letters are all located in the central line. The colours seem to help some kids (blue sky, green grass, brown dirt) and Occupational Therapists recommend using this system, though I haven’t seen any randomised controlled trials of it, so maybe that’s something to ask OT researchers to investigate. I agree that if it’s possible to avoid using crutches, it’s good to do so, and if using them, they need to be phased out as early as possible. All the best, Alison
So wonderful to read a comprehensive overview of handwriting which has been a passion of mine since it was changed in Queensland schools in the 80’s. I was fortunate to be asked to assist with the roll-out of training Queensland Teachers in the South West Region and later 8n Brisbane North. Then even more fortunate to be asked to co-write a series of handwriting books for Queensland and later study the scripts of other States and produce a series for NSW, Victoria and Western Australia. I found this fascinating work as we also provided workshops in every State. All the research clearly shows how important handwriting is for learning! I can never understand why Educators who create curriculum don’t give it the attention it deserves so students reap the benefits! Aaah well, Greater Minds than ours Horatio! I guess!
Hi Chris, thanks for the nice feedback, I googled your books and it looks like some of them are still available, another thing for me to find out more about sometime. All the best, Alison
Handwriting is an intellectual activity. More of the brain is used writing in script (linked letters) than in hand printing. And more of the brain is used in hand printing than in keyboarding. Nor do I understand why educators who write curricula do not take these scientific facts into account.