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Let’s Read and Write! Handwriting for Beginning Readers

I spend time at the beginning of each school year practicing handwriting skills with my students.  Most of them need a quick refresher but because I have the inclusion class, a lot of them need the practice after a long summer break.  

I’ve used rote handwriting practice pages before. I not only find them boring but they lack the potential to use handwriting as a valuable teaching experience for other subject areas. Handwriting practice is the beginning of the writing experience for my first graders – it sets the tone that writing in my class is important and will be done every day – no exceptions. 

I’ve always believed “What you can write, you can read, and what you can read, you can write.” So, I wanted to use handwriting practice this year as a way for my students to not only practice letter formation, but to use that time to practice decoding words and reading simple sentences.  

I created this little packet and will be using it at the beginning of the year as we launch writing behaviors in my classroom.  I called it: Let’s Read and Write! Handwriting for Beginning Readers. It combines handwriting, decoding, and early reading skills.

Each letter of the alphabet contains two pages. The front page contains practice on letter formation for both the capital and lowercase letter. Students identify and draw things that start with the letter, and it contains three words for students to decode and draw.
The second page contains two easy-to-read sentences that students read, trace, and draw a picture of for comprehension practice.  The sentences contain easy sight words and color words.  At least one or two words in the sentence contain picture cues in a rebus-style to help ALL students be successful with this packet! 🙂  
Use it for independent work, in a writing center, or as a whole group.  Use just the front pages in the beginning of the year and save the second pages for later, or copy them double sided and create a book for each child. I’ve also included pages at the beginning to practice lines and circles, and two review pages at the end of the packet.  Two versions of the packet cover are provided if you wish to create a booklet for your students.
Click HERE to check out the product in my TpT store.  Download the preview version and get the pages for letter “D” for free to try out. 🙂  I’ll also send this packet free to the FIVE followers who leave a comment and email address below.  Tell us: How do you make handwriting practice fun for your students?  

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9 Comments

  1. I can't promise that handwriting is fun in our room, but I sometimes make pages of riddles or use the students' names in our practice. This is really great for double-duty reading and handwriting!

    tokyoshoes at hotmail dot com

  2. Great question! We do not have time to practice handwriting so we have to fit it in with other things. We use shaving cream and white boards a lot. I am not blessed to have nice "teacher" handwriting, so I always demonstrate how I take my time, etc. when I am writing in front of the kiddos. Would love to have this packet for some of my kids who really need the additional help, but I also think this would be perfect for my daughter!

    rpayne36@hotmail.com

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