Left Hand Writing Skills  by Mark and Heather Stewart

The Left Hand Writing Skills series provides a specially designed learning programme to help the budding left-handed writer.

Handwriting remains a vitally important skill - despite the ubiquitous keyboard. Acquiring it takes perseverance and practice, whether the writer is left-handed or right-handed. For the left-handed, though, development of the skill of handwriting - in the 'right-handed' world where text runs from left to right - needs just a little more help.

Unfortunately, not many schools have made special provision for left-handed children, especially when it comes to handwriting. This can result in frustration, not just in handwriting development but - later - where handwriting is required for essays and other written work. Despite any initial difficulties, with good regular practice and patient guidance from adults, left-handers can write just as well - and often better - than their right-handed friends. Five to ten minutes of regular daily practice is needed - and this is far more effective than occasional lengthy sessions.

The problem has been that no really user-friendly materials, dedicated to the task of establishing good writing habits, were available for left-handers. The Left Hand Writing Skills series now meets that need. The series is available in two formats, each consisting of a total of over 80 enjoyable, highly-illustrated worksheets.
 

For use at home, where parents can work with their child, there are three separate books:

Book 1:  fabulous fine motor practice: establishes good basic habits of paper positioning and pencil hold, and develops the fine motor skills needed for accurate, consistent writing at a later stage. The book takes the young writer from basic pencil handling and co-ordination exercises through to formation of letters & simple short texts.

Book 2:  funky formation and flow: begins with some revision of the essential letter formation exercises in Book 1 & then focuses on the flow of letters into word formation. Left-handers who have already developed their fine motor skills but not yet the necessary good habits of pen/pencil & paper holding might prefer to start their practice with this book.

Book 3:  successful smudge-free writing: consolidates the process of developing good writing habits. In this book, the writer applies all that has been learnt in Books 1&2 to writing with a pen - in ink! This is the test of success for the left-handed writer. First to create words that are accurately formed & legible, and then to avoid spoiling them by smudging as the left hand follows the pen across the page. 

For use in schools, the series is presented in a combined photocopiable edition (black & white) for use in one establishment.

Also now available on CD:

This edition of the Left Hand Writing Skills series combines the three colour-illustrated books in the series, as well as the mono version of the exercises in the Combined Photocopiable Edition.

Altogether, the CD contains the 83 worksheets which can be printed out by teachers – or parents – in either mono or colour. The exercises help students through the phases of fine motor skill development, formation and flow of letters and words, and on to successful smudge-free writing using ink.
 

The authors, Mark and Heather Stewart, are highly experienced in helping left-handed children. Heather is a former Primary Teacher and Mark runs specialist courses for teacher training, “Left-Handed Children – The Right Way to help!”, in Schools, for Local Education Authorities and Early Years practitioners as well as for Child-minders and Pre-School Learning Alliance Groups. His training guidelines have been endorsed by the Department for Education and Employment and have been incorporated into The National Literacy Strategy.

Together they spearheaded the campaign for addressing the problems of left-handed children within teacher training in the UK.

The series is brilliantly illustrated by Fred Chevalier.


"The Left Hand Writing Skills series is invaluable for left-handers learning how to form their letters and numbers. Beautifully presented, the series makes learning to write fun. For the first time, left-handers will have the advantage over right-handers and won’t be overlooked in the classroom. Just having the spine at the top makes it so much easier for the left hand to relax. I would recommend it, with no hesitation, to parents and teachers."

Diane G Paul
(Broadcaster, and author of The Left-hander's Handbook.)