How to transition your students to wide ruled paper

Today I've launched two resources on TeachersPayTeachers to help students to transition from 3/8" fully lined paper to wide ruled paper. I've created these resources because of a problem I noticed in many handwriting curricula: the transition from 3/8" fully lined paper to wide ruled paper is too abrupt. Because multiple ‘helper’ lines disappear at the same time that the size of the letters is drastically decreased, students struggle to understand what is expected of them, and some give up on cursive altogether.

So, how can we do better? Here is my guide for planning a smooth transition from 3/8" fully lined to wide ruled paper.

Step 1: decide how to divide the vertical space

As I've explained in the article about Line height per grade in different handwriting curricula, there are two different ways to divide the available vertical space when writing on ruled paper. You can use one third of the available vertical space for small letters, so that ascenders and descenders will never overlap. Or you can use one half for the small letters, write tall letters against the previous baseline, and end up with overlapping ascenders and descenders. All materials that you use should be compatible with the end goal you want to achieve: either you want the small letters to take up one half of the space between baselines, or one third.

The remainder of this guides assumes you'll want to avoid overlapping ascenders and descenders.

Step 2: make certain students can identify and name all the lines

If you and your students name the lines, it will be easier to discuss and understand what changesand what stays the same each time you are removing some of the ‘helper’ lines.

If your students have previously used materials where the baseline has its own color (pink/red) or symbol (like a little triangle), take extra care to teach them to identify the baseline, and let them practice writing on fully lined paper in a single color.

Step 3: plan your intermediate steps

Plan for a number of intermediate steps. With each transition between steps, either remove one of the ‘helper’ lines or decrease the size of the letters, but don't change both at the same time.

I've linked some resources on TeachersPayTeachers that can help you create worksheets or print empty writing paper for each possible intermediate step that you could come up with, but don't use everything in those resource! Your students don't need to master all the line styles at a specific size; they can transition to a smaller size as soon as they are ready, while keeping the same line style. One possible ‘path’ from 3/8" fully lined to wide ruled could be this:

But another ‘path’ could be this:

In both cases, there are two transitions to a smaller size, and 3 transitions in line styles: first, the headline disappears, then the midline disappears and is replaced with a small height indicator at the start of each line, and finally the height indicator disappears as well. The difference between the two paths is that the changes in line style happen at different text sizes.

Step 4: do it

Take time to consolidate each step
Be mindful that copywork is much easier to do than writing cursive without an example. After you transition to a smaller size or new line style, gradually increase the difficulty, for example:

1. copying words or sentences from cursive sample text
2. copying entire paragraphs from cursive sample text
3. transcribing paragraphs of print text to cursive
4. using cursive for dictation, free composition, or other language tasks.

To get materials for copywork, you can either create them from scratch using a good cursive font, or you can use my editable cursive worksheets. For transcribing, dictation or other language tasks, you only need empty handwriting paper.

It's OK to stay at a step for months. Just make certain that students are supported outside of their handwriting lessons with (empty) handwriting paper at their current level. When giving feedback on handwriting, pay special attention to the proportions between letters. Do all the small letters touch the same ‘imaginary’ midline? Most tall letters have ‘parts’ that should touch the midline; are those parts sized correctly, too?

Transitioning to a smaller size
Transitioning to a smaller size is fairly self-explanatory, as long as you make certain there are no changes to the line style (which ‘helper’ lines are present or not). Check that the small loops of the letters e and k remain open at the new line size, and provide the student with thinner pens or with a mechanical pencil if necessary.

Transitioning to a new line style
When transitioning to a new line style, make explicit which ‘helper’ line is disappearing, and that the student should continue to write letters or letter parts against this - now - ‘imaginary’ line. My TPT resources includes pages on which lines literally ‘fade out’; these will encourage the student to keep imagining this line.

At the later steps (with less helper lines), students need to receive explicit instruction on how to divide the line vertically: small letters should take up one third of the vertical space between baselines, and tall letters should take op two thirds (and therefore, should not touch the previous baseline). 

Tips for the final step: writing on ruled paper

• have the student draw a small vertical line at the start of each line to indicate the desired height of the small letters
• tell students to skip the first line and start writing on the second line

Conclusion

The end goal of handwriting is that students can write on ‘ruled’ paper: paper with only baselines drawn on it. In the first years of handwriting education, we provide scaffolding to help students with letter size and proportion: fully lined paper with baseline, midline and headline. We need to eventually remove those scaffolds. In this article I've outlined how you can do so gently and gradually, and provided resources that can quite literally ‘fade’ the scaffolds.