Re: Order to teach letters in Handwriting

Grace/IL

Posted on 12/28/10

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I've never seen a prescribed order for teaching letters but as
a first grade teacher I started with 'c'. You can use a clock
face and have the child trace counter-clockwise from 2 all the
way around to 4. Then I'd teach a, d, g, o, q -- simply
because they all involve the same beginning motion as c. I'd
also teach the basic sound they represent at the same time.
They can then write 3 words (ad, dad, dog -- and gad if you
want to add that one.). Next I'd teach 'm' and 'n'. Some
teachers think these look too much alike but if you teach that
the sound m represents involves a closed mouth and n's sound
involves an open mouth, children quickly learn the
difference. Children can then write the words am, an, mad,
man.

I do have a suggested sequence in my "Seeds" book
(kindergarten) simply to teach words at the same time the
children are learning to print. As each new letter is taught,
there is a list of words that can be made with letters taught
up to that point. You can find info about teaching printing
on my website under Free Resources. Everything there is a
modification of D'Nealian -- no slant and no monkey tails --
which leads to much neater printing. That's just my
preference.

Grace

On 12/28/10, Amanda wrote:
> I am teaching D'Nealian but do not have any books or
> resources so I am just using what I find online. I was
> wondering if there is a specific recommended order in which
> to teach the letters? Should I go A-Z, or most common
> letters first (e,s,t, etc) or should I go with the easiest
> ones first and progress from there?

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