Free education · No account needed
The Making Sense of Handwriting Model
A practical and balanced approach for busy classrooms
Teachers are being asked to fit an extraordinary amount into every school day. Alongside teaching the curriculum, they are responding to increasingly diverse learning needs, supporting children’s wellbeing, managing behaviour, completing assessments and communicating with families and other professionals. Handwriting support cannot simply become another lengthy program or responsibility added to this already demanding workload.
The heart of the model
The Making Sense of Handwriting model brings two essential elements together:
Support the foundations that make writing possible
Explicitly teach and practise handwriting itself
Neither element should stand alone. Foundational activities without handwriting instruction may help a child develop the capacity to write without teaching them how to form letters. Repeated writing practice without considering the foundations may leave a child repeatedly attempting a task that is physically, visually or cognitively too difficult.
Effective support begins at the child's current developmental level — not simply at the point their age or year level suggests they should have reached. For one child, the next step may be learning to draw vertical and horizontal lines. For another, it may be correcting an inefficient letter pattern. An older student may need support to develop fluency, endurance or access to keyboarding and assistive technology for longer tasks.
Meeting a child where they are does not mean lowering expectations. It means identifying the next achievable step that will help them progress.
This does not need to become another large program
Teachers are not expected to assess or treat every skill beneath the iceberg. Nor do children necessarily need long handwriting sessions.
A short period of correctly targeted instruction and practice can be more useful than repeatedly asking a child to complete work that is currently beyond their capacity. Small adjustments can be incorporated into existing literacy lessons, transitions, individual support time or classroom routines.
The Making Sense of Handwriting screener and practical activities are intended to help teachers and school support staff decide:
- What is the child currently able to do?
- What may be making handwriting difficult?
- Does the child need an environmental adjustment, support for a foundation skill, explicit letter instruction — or a combination?
- What is the most useful next step?
Bringing experience, evidence and classroom reality together
For forty years, occupational therapist Anne Basedow has worked alongside children, families and schools. During that time, requests for help with handwriting have remained among the most common concerns raised by teachers and parents.
The Making Sense of Handwriting model brings this clinical experience together with current research and a deep respect for the realities of classrooms.
It is not about returning education to the past or asking teachers to do more with less. It is about protecting an important learning experience, understanding why children struggle and using the time available as purposefully as possible.
Handwriting develops when we support the foundations and teach the skill itself — meeting each child where they are and helping them take the next achievable step.