Timed Writing
When my children were younger, I had them do something that I called timed writing. I'm not sure what I can say about it to recommend it except to say — It helped them. They started out at the first of the school year, sort of freezing or taking too long at the process of writing to being comfortable with writing. It is a quick exercise to do and I will explain how we did it.
The children did all of the timed writing exercises in a composition book like the one pictured above. For timed writing, they used the same composition book each year, picking up on the next clean page.
Level: 3rd grade and higher.
How to do Timed Writing
There is one rule. Tell them: Write any words or sentences that you want to write in legible handwriting for [a specified amount of time].
To clarify the rule: The children can write anything they want to write as long as they are writing words, not random letters or numbers. They do not have to write in complete sentences. It's nice if they do and those who do not might eventually write in complete sentences during the course of this exercise. The point is writing something on a blank sheet of paper. Some are intimidated by blank paper and they need to get over that.
During the first and second weeks:
- Do the exercise at least 4 days in a row, every day is better.
- Time them for 5 minutes.
- Do not say anything negative about what they write, some kids just write the same word or sentence over and over at first. That usually improves.
During the third week:
- Do the exercise at least 4 days in a row.
- Time them for 7 minutes.
During fourth week:
- Do the exercise at least 4 days in a row.
- Time them for 10 minutes.
You can stop the exercise at this point if they have become more comfortable with writing. Otherwise you may reduce the exercises to every other day.
Donna Young
October 4th, 2007, edited 10/23/2009
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