--- title: Handwriting: holding the pencil and joining up — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Handwriting: holding the pencil and joining up», a lesson of the english course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A pencil held in a fist like a dagger is driven by the big muscles of the arm, so it wobbles and the hand tires after one l --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / Handwriting: holding the pencil and jo… # Handwriting: holding the pencil and joining up Lesson 5 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/0/) — A pencil held in a fist like a dagger is driven by the big muscles of the arm, so it wobbles and the hand tires after one line. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/1/) — Schools teach the tripod grip: the pencil pinched between thumb and first finger, resting on the middle finger, near the tip. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/2/) — The small finger muscles can then steer it. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/3/) — Every letter has a starting point and a direction. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/4/) — Isla starts her «d» at the bottom and pushes up; her teacher says «start at the top». - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/5/) — Many letters, a, d, g, o and q, begin just like c, so practising a good c helps them all. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/6/) — Letters started the right way come out even and are much easier to join later. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/7/) — Letters come in three sizes. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/8/) — Small ones like a, c, e sit between the lines; tall ones like b, d, h reach up (ascenders); tails like g, p, y hang below the line (descenders). - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/10/) — Mixing up b and d is very common up to about seven, because they are mirror images and the brain is still learning that direction matters for letters. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/11/) — A trick: make two fists with thumbs up, b on the left, d on the right, and you have a bed. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/12/) — Left-handers write just as well as right-handers; they tilt the paper the other way and sit where their elbow won't bump a neighbour's. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/13/) — Handwriting still matters: in tests a marker can only mark what they can read, and joined-up writing (cursive) helps speed and even spelling, because the hand learns letter groups like «ing» and «th». - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/14/) — But neat letters and good writing are different skills: a brilliant story can come in messy letters, and the two are marked separately. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/15/) — The tripod grip holds the pencil between thumb and first finger, resting on the middle finger; a fist grip tires the hand fast. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/16/) — Each letter has a correct starting point and direction; most small letters start at the top. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/17/) — The letters a, d, g, o and q start like c. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/18/) — Tall parts of letters (b, d, h) are ascenders; tails below the line (g, p, y) are descenders; the line letters sit on is the baseline. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/19/) — Mixing up b and d is common up to about age seven and does not by itself mean dyslexia. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/21/) — Left-handed writers tilt the paper to the right and sit on the left of a right-handed partner; forcing them to use the right hand, as was done in the past, caused harm. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/22/) — Legible means clear enough to read; in a test, writing the marker cannot read cannot get a mark. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/23/) — Capital letters go at the start of sentences and names only, never in the middle of words. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/24/) — A finger space is a gap about one finger wide between words. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/5-handwriting-holding-the-pencil-and-joining-up/25/) — Handwriting (presentation) and composition (what is written and how well) are different skills and are marked separately. - ← previous: [Vowel teams, split digraphs and choosing the spelling](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/4-vowel-teams-split-digraphs-and-choosing-the-spelling/) - next →: [Spelling plurals: -s, -es, -ies, -ves and odd ones](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/6-spelling-plurals/) - ↑ back to [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/)