Legible Handwriting: Its more than the ABCs

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Legible Handwriting Its more than the ABCs
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Writing is communication

• We write in order to
• Remind ourselves of something we want to remember
  
• Tell another person what we know
• Let a person know what we want

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Writing needs to be legible

• Legible means that our writing is easy to read
• We need to be able to read what we write
• Others need to be able to read what we write
• But how do we know if it is legible?

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Legible handwriting follows 5 simple rules

• All letters touch the foot line.
• Tall letters are tall.
• Short letters are short.
• Tail letters go below the foot line.
• There are spaces between words.

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Rule number 1

• All letters touch the foot line.

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Even when there isnt a foot line,

• you can still imagine one is there.

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Sometimes the foot line is not straight.
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Rule 2 Tall letters are tall.

• ALL CAPITAL LETTERS FIT THIS RULE
• Lower case letters that fit between the head line
  and the belt line.
• Here they are b, d, f, h, k, l, t
• ADD deal
• teeth TEN

head line
foot line
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Lets take a look.
Heres the rule with capital letters. See how
using this rule makes all the letters the same
size.
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Here is a first grade friends writing.
Notice the tall letters touch the top and bottom
lines, or the head and foot lines.

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Rule 3 - Short letters are short.

• These are lowercase letters that fit between the
  belt line and the foot line.
• mom cow run
• maize is cove

belt line
foot line
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Here is another friends writing.

• Notice that he is keeping the short letters in
  the short letter space.

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Rule number 4

• Tail letters go below the foot line.
• There are only 5 of these, and they are g, j,
  p,q, and y.

• Lets look at this in another style
• g, j, p, q, and y.

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Heres an example of where they go.

foot line
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Heres a friend who remembered the rule about
tail letters.
She made sure the tail letters went below the
foot line as she was writing.

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Rule number 5 There are spaces between words.

• Sometimes we use our finger to help us remember
  to put in the spaces.

Sometimes more than one!
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Ill bet you are getting pretty good at finding
when the rule is followed.

• This person is pretty good at rule 5. Can you
  find the spots where he forgot?

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So, here it is againour 5 rules.

• All letters touch the foot line.
• Tall letters are tall.
• Short letters are short.
• Tail letters go below the foot line.
• There are spaces between words.

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Happy writing!