Mary Koska shows how to test a child's handwriting speed in one minute: have them copy a grade-matched passage, count letters per minute, and compare to benchmarks for grades 1-8. Check the back of the paper for writing pressure.
First grade: 20–25; Second: 30; Third: 40; Fourth: 50; Sixth: 67; Seventh: 75; Eighth: 80 (letters per minute).
HAAHALFOFF (all caps, no spaces)
Aloha, Mary Koska here with our third video in this series. Our three video class on how to improve handwriting grasp to reduce fatigue and increase speed. In this video I'm going to show you how to test handwriting speed. It's really simple thing to do. What you're going to do is just pick out a book and I just picked one out of our lobby, this cute little gecko book. So any book, just something that matches like their reading ability. And then what you're going to do is you're going to get a. I'm doing this on my phone. I usually use my phone timer. But just get a timer of some kind and you're going to have them copy for one minute. So you just have them write on some lined paper. So, so you'd open up your book. I usually have them read it to me first to make sure it's something that I know that they can understand. And then you tell them to go ahead and write on the line and you say go. And so I'm just gonna write some of this. So you're just having write for one minute. So mine says, but geckos don't pick flowers or swim. So I'm not going to do it for a full minute here. But you get the idea. So you're just copying and then when you're done, then what you're going to do is you're going to actually count how many letters they copied. So in my example I didn't write the whole thing. So I'll just say what my example is. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. So, so let's say I could only do 19 letters. So it would be 19 letters per minute, like miles per hour letters per minute. It's a speed. And then you can compare that to what's expected for that grade. So to give you an example, If I was 19 letters per minute, I wouldn't be even at first grade speed. First grade is 20 to 25 letters per minute. Second grade is 30, third grade is 40, fourth grade is 50 letters per minute. Sixth grade is 67 letters per minute. Seventh grade is 75 letters per minute. And eighth grade is 80 letters per minute. So you can see we get pretty fast in middle school. Another thing you can do as part of this test to see if they're doing better, this is an easy way to measure improvement because if they can write a little faster, as long as it's not getting messier, but they're writing a little faster. You know that the things that you've done are helping. Another thing you can do is turn the paper over and feel the back. And when the kids press too hard, you can just feel, you can feel the writing on the back of the paper. So just, it's an easy way to see. Wow, they're not pressing so hard anymore. So if they still struggle with handwriting after these ideas, just keep in mind it affects them emotionally as well as academically because handwriting is an extension of ourselves. So if they're doing great, wonderful. And if you are feeling like you would like some more help, take our full online handwriting course and it'll give solutions for the 12 most common reasons that kids struggle with handwriting. And for each of those 12 problems, I go into depth on what to do for each of those things. And here's my special gift you've been waiting for. It's a half off coupon. So when you click on the link, you enter in this coupon and you just. The coupon is actually half off. So it's all caps, H, A, A, H, A, L, F, O, F, F. Just right. Half off altogether, no spaces, all caps. And you will see it magically bing, cut the price in half. So it's very reasonable and affordable and it'll give you all kinds of great ways to help your child so that they can succeed. Aloha. Thank you.
