The Screener of Handwriting Proficiency: What Does it Measure and How Can it Support Teachers?

A student’s writing may be difficult to read, but “poor handwriting” does not tell a teacher how to better support that student or what to focus on next.

Is the student having trouble remembering letter forms? Reversing letters? Placing them correctly on the line? Spacing words? Connecting cursive letters? An effective handwriting assessment should help answer those questions and make it easier for teachers to help individual students and classes print and write in cursive proficiently.

The Screener of Handwriting Proficiency from Learning Without Tears provides teachers and specialists with data on critical, measurable handwriting skills so they can better identify students’ strengths, uncover areas that need remediation, and refocus classroom instruction, if needed.

Handwriting Without Tears includes the Screener of Handwriting Proficiency within the Interactive Digital Teaching Tool (IDTT), creating a more direct connection between student lessons, assessment results, and the instructional resources educators can use in response. 

A Handwriting Screener Designed to Guide Instruction

Educators can use the Screener of Handwriting Proficiency with any handwriting curriculum and any type of instruction. Teachers can use it independently or as part of a Response to Intervention (RtI) model.

Its purpose goes beyond identifying whether a student is struggling to print or write in cursive. The Screener of Handwriting Proficiency is designed to help educators:

• Inform and focus handwriting instruction.
• Generate reports showing students’ handwriting needs.
• Identify children who may need intervention earlier in the year.
• Implement remediation based on specific areas of need.
• Monitor progress and adjust instruction over time.

The Screener of Handwriting Proficiency is intended to be used as a screening and progress-monitoring tool. It’s not intended to replace an individualized or diagnostic evaluation.

• Educators can screen an entire class, identify misconceptions and patterns, recognize students who may need intervention, and monitor whether struggling students are progressing.
• The Screener also appropriately separates scored skills from broader concerns. For example, large-group assessment administration doesn't allow teachers to score every aspect of letter formation formally. The Screener sample and everyday classroom work allow teachers to observe formation, neatness, speed, pencil grip, posture, and other factors.

Go Beyond “Messy Handwriting” With Data on Print and Cursive Skills

The Handwriting Without Tears Screener of Handwriting Proficiency breaks print handwriting into specific skills educators can easily observe and measure at each grade level, from Kindergarten through Grade 5+. In Grades K–2, the Screener assesses print; in Grades 3–6, it addresses cursive handwriting. For states and schools required to teach cursive in Grade 2, cursive screening is an option at the end of second grade.

Print

In print, six major domain areas are measured:

• Memory: The ability to remember and write dictated letters and numbers. This domain measures quick and automatic recall of letters and numbers essential for independent writing. Poor memory affects written production, speed, and accuracy.
• Orientation: The ability to write letters and numbers facing the correct direction. Children who reverse letters and numbers often stop to think about the direction that letters or numbers face, which slows their writing. Orientation errors are distracting and interfere with overall legibility.
• Placement: The ability to place letters and numbers correctly on a baseline. Correct placement makes writing easier to read and supports the horizontal flow of writing. Haphazard placement makes printing appear messy or illegible.
• Sentence Skills: The ability to use sentence conventions, such as beginning capital, distinct lowercase words (letters close), space between words, and ending punctuation. Sentence errors make writing disorganized and difficult to read. Students need to use a beginning capital, lowercase letters in words, appropriate spacing between letters and words, and ending punctuation.
• Name: Children typically develop name-writing skills in three stages. They begin with all capitals, move to a mix of capital and lowercase letters, and end in title case. The stage of name-writing skill reflects the child's maturity and prior instruction.

Cursive

For educators teaching cursive, assessment can be just as important as instruction. The Screener of Handwriting Proficiency includes a cursive assessment beginning in Grade 3. It targets two skills critical to handwriting development that are measurable and can be screened in large groups: letter skills and word skills. The “concerns” section of the Screener includes other important skills as observations.

• Letter Skills (Lowercase and Capital Memory): The ability to recall and write cursive letters. Quick and automatic recall is essential for independent writing. Good memory boosts writing speed and accuracy. Poor memory discourages children from using cursive writing and hurts their cursive reading ability.
• Word Skills (Memory/Connections): The ability to join lowercase cursive letters to form words. Connections make it cursive. Students must join letters efficiently and correctly to form words and build speed. Connections require students to:
  • Write the first letter and end it correctly.
  • Travel away from the first letter.
  • Start the next letter correctly from the ending of the first letter.

Students who do not connect letters correctly will have noticeable problems. Poor connection skills can change letter appearance and, ultimately, the meaning of the word. Words are grouped by the end of the first letter.

• Name/Signature: Students must be able to write their first and last names correctly in cursive. Students typically develop a cursive signature in three stages. They begin with printing, attempting cursive, and end using cursive correctly.

The Screener of Handwriting Proficiency also provides a space for teachers to assess additional skills that are critical to handwriting success for both print and cursive.

• Formation: Poor letter and number formation habits (such as starting from the bottom) interfere with automatic printing.
• Size: Writing too large makes it difficult to complete school papers and maintain spacing.
• Neatness: Messy work creates a negative impression of a child's ability and effort.
• Speed: Rushing results in messy work. Slow writers have trouble keeping up with class.
• Posture: Posture is related to having the right size of furniture and guiding children on how to sit and place their hands and papers for handwriting.
• Pencil Grip: Awkward grips may cause pain, fatigue, or difficulty seeing the pencil point while writing.
• Helper Hand: Using the helping hand to stabilize the paper is important for control and posture.

Other concerns include any cognitive, physical, language, attention, and other skills that affect a child's written work.

Using Data to Drive Instruction

Assessing students in print and cursive across these areas can reveal important gaps and instructional differences. A student may remember how to write individual lowercase cursive letters correctly but struggle to join them within words. Another student may connect lowercase letters fluently but struggle to recall cursive capitals.

By identifying specific areas of need, educators can use the Screener of Handwriting Proficiency data to gain greater visibility and identify broader gaps in students’ handwriting. For educators working in states or districts that have adopted cursive writing requirements, that visibility can be particularly valuable to demonstrating student proficiency in writing cursive by Grade 5.

Not a current Handwriting Without Tears user? Access the lite version of the Screener of Handwriting Proficiency on our Resources page.