A Show of Hands: Developing Legible Handwriting

Agnes C. Farrell is a public-school teacher in Richmond, B.C.

At last, teachers of upper-primary students have a book that provides
ideas for making the practice of cursive writing more interesting. Young
students eagerly anticipate the day when they are finally introduced to
cursive writing. However, they usually become discouraged soon after
they begin, because they find that cursive writing is just as tiring and
boring as manuscript printing.

Plattor and McQueen have followed up Give Them a Hand, their excellent
guide to teaching manuscript printing, with A Show of Hands. Unlike most
handwriting guides, which are simply a series of black-line masters that
introduce letters one at a time and provide dotted lines on which the
students are expected to practice, this book provides more than one
hundred teacher-tested activities designed to make the learning of
handwriting more interesting. It even includes several alternative
“every-letter sentences” to replace the venerable “The quick brown
fox. . . .”

Teachers are perfectly capable of introducing the letters to be
practiced and are well equipped with lined paper. What they need are
ideas that help make the process more interesting. In this book are more
ideas than could possibly be used within a school year. This is an
important attribute for teachers who have the same students for two or
more years, as is becoming increasingly common in many schools.

A Show of Hands includes a section on diagnosis and assessment and
provides activities that encourage students to assess their own and
others writing. There are several black-line masters that help in this
assessment process. These include both manuscript and cursive alphabet
desk strips, a joining-stroke chart, a slant liner, and several award
sheets.

This book recognizes that students absorb all language arts skills more
efficiently when they are taught in a meaningful context. For those
teachers who are committed to a literature-based or whole-language
program but who realize that some skills require constant practice, A
Show of Hands provides several ideas that integrate handwriting into the
curriculum in an interesting manner.