Using finger spaces

Hello, I'm Mr McPartlin, and we're going to grab our pencils and do some handwriting.

Neat!

When our handwriting is neat, the letters are not too big and not too small.

We leave a space between each word and that space is… you guessed it.

Not too big and not too small.

I'll show you how to do it.

You'll need a pencil and some paper to put lines on.

Feel free to put me on pause while you get them.

To get started, sit at table with your back straight and your feet on the floor.

Hold your pencils so you can see the pencil point clearly as you write.

Speaking of holding your pencil, let's check that we're doing it properly.

You should be holding your pencil between your thumb and your first finger.

Then let your other fingers curl underneath.

They will keep the pencil steady as you write if you are right-handed or left-handed.

Look at the lines on your paper.

The letters should fit neatly between them and sit on the bottom line.

The top of capital letters should touch the top line and go all the way down to the bottom line.

It's the same with tall letters like B, F, H, K, L and T.

What about A, C, E, I, M, N, O, R, S, U, V, W and X?

All these other letters start in the middle and go down to sit in the bottom line.

That makes them all about the same size.

Nice and neat.

Letters G, J, Q and Y all start in the middle.

And then they go down to sit on the line and tuck their tails under like this.

Let's try writing some letters together.

OK, letter D. Try it with me.

D starts in the middle, it curls around until it reaches the bottom line, then it goes up until it nearly touches the top line, and then comes all the way back down again.

Have a go at writing it on your page a few times to get the hang of it.

OK, now let's try the letter P.

Starts in the middle and then it goes down below the line to make its tail. Then comes back up to curl over and sit on the line.

Try writing a whole line of Ps. See how neat you can get them.

Now, let's try some sentences. Watch how this sentence is written and then try writing it yourself.

The happy dog plays.

The capital letter T starts near the top and it goes down to stand on the line. Then, the pencil makes a straight line across the top to finish the T.

Letter H starts near the top and goes down to the line, and curls over.

Letter E starts in the middle, curls around to sit on the line. Now there's a space.

And the next word… and a space.

And the next word… and a space.

And after the last word we finish our sentence with a dot. A full-stop.

There.

The happy dog plays.

Put me on pause and try writing it yourself. How did you do? Here's mine.

The… happy… dog… plays.

What do you think?

I tried to get all my tall letters the same height and all the other letters to start in the middle.

Look. Between each of my words is a little space.

There's just room for the tip of a pencil in each space.

I'm going to keep practising my handwriting so it gets neater and neater.

I hope you enjoy practising too.

For more help, challenges and games on this subject visit bbc.co.uk/bitesize.