Episode 155: Teaching Handwriting with Holly Britton of Squiggle Squad
Holly Britton is a handwriting instruction specialist with teaching experience in grades K-8. She educated her own four now-adult children, has taught in private and public school classrooms, served as a curriculum director, and founded Squiggle Squad, a unique approach to handwriting instruction for children, Pre-K to 2nd grade.
In this episode, we go in-depth into strategies for teaching writing, with emphasis on early transcription skills and letter formation. If you’re helping kids with writing, you’ll want to take notes.
Topics Discussed:
Her start in education through homeschooling
Using animal characters to teach handwriting
Needing support when starting a business
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
Holly Britton is a handwriting instruction specialist with teaching experience in grades K through eight. She educated her own four now-adult children, has taught in private and public school classrooms, served as a curriculum director and founded Squiggle Squad, a unique approach to handwriting instruction for children, pre K to second grade. Welcome Holly. So nice to have you here.
Holly Britton 0:21
Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here.
Lily Jones 0:23
Can you tell us in whatever direction you'd like about your journey as an educator?
Holly Britton 0:29
Well, I did not grow up thinking I was going to be a teacher. I did grow up in public school system. I'm a product of of the 70s and 80s and 90s school system, or, I guess, 70s and 80s, early 90s, finishing up college, I went, I did go to public university, but my plan was to become a veterinarian. So no thoughts of being a teacher until I had my first baby, and then everything about having kids, you know, screamed, how are these kids going to have a great education? So my first foray into education was actually homeschooling my own children, and back at a time before Internet, and so it really meant that you had to do your work to to be the teacher they needed to be me to be so I became a teacher, and I absolutely loved it. I did go on to get my formal instruction in education. So I do have a master's in curriculum and instruction. I really focused on that, because of all of the creating, lesson planning. I ended up writing a book for how how you approach lesson planning when you have every curriculum that you could want at your fingertips, and how do you choose those correctly? How do you how do you source them? How do you research them? How do you make sure that you're giving the best information possible to the students that are sitting in front of you, and so from that went on to formal education. Got my teaching credential. I worked in private school. I've worked in public schools and and now I get to sit by and watch my own child homeschooling her new kiddos, so that's kind of fun, but I've been in now out of the classroom since COVID. I was working in third, fourth and fifth grade when COVID happened, and at that point, I was at a career crossroads. So where maybe a lot of your audience has been or is right now, like as a classroom teacher, do I want to continue in that there's so much merit in being side by side with kids and teaching them one on one in whole group instruction, one school at a time, one year at a time. There is so much you can do and making a difference in the lives of kids. So that was choice one. Choice two was to go and get my PhD, but I live rural in a very small town, and it would mean moving away for some time in order to further my education, and I'm going to visit that again in just a second when I tell you choice number three, because I have visited and revisited that idea of going back to school. But the third choice was to start squiggle squad. And earlier in my career, I had had an opportunity to be in kindergarten classrooms, observing and coaching brand new kindergarten teachers, and I was seeing a very huge chasm between what I needed them to know when I was, say, teaching in third, fourth and fifth grade, and what they were being taught and started in the early years. And I really pinpointed some key missing links, and squiggle squad was an attempt to fill that gap, to bridge that gap back to the idea of the PhD. Of course, that means a lot of study and more research, but what I had found is that the research is out there, the research supporting what I'm doing in squiggle squad, namely early transcription skill teaching, starting with letter formation at four, five and six years old, teaching kids to get what's in their head onto paper in a in a way that leads to fluency. Writing fluency was missing the the progression and the teaching needed along that skills progression had some very big obstacles, bumps, holes in the road, and we were feeling it up the academic pipeline in the higher elementary school years. So that's ultimately what I did -- I came out of the classroom, started Squiggle Squad. It's now five years in the making. We're in classrooms across the United States, and it's been... it's been a journey, but very rewarding to date.
Lily Jones 5:14
Congratulations. That's amazing. And I love hearing your kind of crossroads. And before, I want to hear all about squiggle squad, too. But before we dive into that, I'm curious. Just like you said, a lot of our audience are teachers who may find themselves in front of a few choices. And I love how you laid out like choice one, choice two, choice three. And can you talk to us a little bit about how you made the decision to go with choice three?
Holly Britton 5:39
Well, I'm sure there were several variables that contributed to the decision. I think ultimately it was that I felt, one, I had the knowledge, the know how, and the idea to move forward with squiggle squad. And two, it's not out there. The the way that we're approaching handwriting instruction has necessarily, it has needed to change, and because a lot of the programs that we have been using over the last decades have been in a culture completely different to ours, namely, a very digital culture teaching kids at very young ages. You know, we've pushed handwriting instruction way down into preschool as if they're biologically ready. I wanted to find a way to do it that was fair to the kids and that the teachers would enjoy, and I just wasn't seeing that product out there. But more importantly, I really wanted to make a broad, as broad a difference as I could. You know, I'm in the second half of my life, and we only have so much time on the planet. How can I make a big difference in the lives of as many people as possible? So I wanted to use the the knowledge and wisdom I'd acquired over years of working with kids and watching child development and see if we couldn't channel it into a program, methodology and materials that could help a broader a broader audience.
Lily Jones 7:19
Fantastic. So let's talk a little bit about Squiggle Squad and what you offer at Squiggle Squad.
Holly Britton 7:25
So again, developmentally appropriate. Knowing that little little kids had to start working towards handwriting, I really wanted them to enjoy it. So first and foremost, we put the ideas we married to animal characters. We call the squiggle squad. There are five of them, so that the kids feel comfortable, they feel delighted. They feel safe practicing something that's hard and new. And so we have we have lines, the Lemur bubbles, the bunny curves, the camels slide, the seal and dash, the duck. And they all become friends of the kids. And what makes them different is that they represent a favorite squiggle, more specifically a movement that the kids don't know but the teacher knows is directly related to directionality, needed for English, manuscript handwriting, so lines the lemur, for example, favorite movement is a straight line top to bottom, or a vertical line, top to bottom. So kids practice their motor skills needed for handwriting, separate in isolation, separate from the cognitive things they are learning about letters in print and the sound that they symbolize. So those are really, really big ideas and big asks. And when we ask it of a young kid to do it all together at one time, it becomes frustrating for them, because, as you know, your audience knows we only have so much space in our working memory. That is the space we have in our brain that that is able to manipulate things in short term, and children have even smaller capacity for that. So when we want them to learn, well, we pull everything apart and have them practice in isolation. And then as they become more and more accomplished at that, we can start to layer those, those those asks, so that they can feel able to do what you're asking them to do, and we reduce the risk of frustrating them, both physically and mentally, when we ask them to write letters. So the teachers watching. How are they doing over here, with their motor skills? You know? Can they hold a pencil? How dexterous are they? Do they have a high hand coordination? Do they have the strength? They need. They have the core strength to sit up at a table? Do they have the focus attention that they need to be able to write my hand and then on the other side, we're asking ourselves, do they know their letter? We call them shapes, because at the beginning it's very concrete, this is a letter. This is the letter's name. And then as they get to know that this is the letter A and it says ah, or, you know, however you teach it at a, ah, or this is the letter B, it makes the sound B, or it spells B. So that's a very abstract idea. That whole idea of symbolism, a shape symbolizing a sound that spells a word that in a sentence, very a lot more complex, very abstract. As the two abilities start to marry, which is generally a little bit older, five years old ish, then we put those together, and we start writing letters. And the important part that squiggle squad emphasizes is directionality at first. So we are working towards writing fluency, not just a shape that looks like a letter. We are we are considering letters that will eventually be connected to each other, not necessarily cursive, but I mean associated with each other, forming words and sentences. So there's a lot that happens up the handwriting skill progression, but the very first step is the motor skill, the letter knowledge, and putting it together to write that letter, that one letter, efficiently in order to work towards writing fluency.
Lily Jones 11:51
Yeah, I appreciate your unpacking of all the many things that have to happen to really support kids. And I taught kindergarten, and I think people think about we little kids, right? Like they're just running around or whatever it is, but they're doing so much all the time and holding so much in their brains and trying all these new things. So I appreciate your developmental perspective on teaching handwriting as well. And do squiggle squad resources go for certain age ranges? Or how does that work?
Holly Britton 12:22
Yeah, so we it's it started squarely in kindergarten, but the public schools in the United States have begged for preschool stuff, which is a little complicated, given that their little brains are not ready to do those big things. And the preschool teachers know this, and yet, whoever they are in the academic circles are saying we need to be teaching writing a lot earlier. So again, another reason why I developed squiggle squad, it's just not fair to those kids to try to force biology. You know, it just frustrates them. So so we did push it down to pre k4 and again, the emphasis is on motor skills related to handwriting. Where do we do large motor skill training and small motor skill training, including activities that build the dexterity and hand strength needed to hold a pencil. So then it moves up to kindergarten, first grade. And in first grade, the emphasis changes from letter formation, even if, if they've gotten their letter formation correct, if they haven't, they need to focus on that letter formation. Then on to sitting on a baseline sizing the letters correctly in relationship to each other. So tall shorts are I mean, a tall lowercase are still tall. Short lowercase are still short, and capitals are always tall. So those differences, we start to practice those we start to practice spacing, because now, of course, we're putting letters into words, so spacing of the letters in words and then spanking spacing of words in sentences, all of them sitting on a baseline. So it's you just move up the handwriting skill progression to that. We recommend Squiggle Squad for second grade who has never had explicit instruction of handwriting prior. It's very appropriate for the second grade level.
Lily Jones 14:24
Great. So then thinking about our teachers out there who are teaching handwriting. Do you have any I know there's so much that you could say to them, but any advice you could give them, or anything that maybe they think they might be teaching about handwriting, that they might be able to do a little bit better in a different way.
Holly Britton 14:43
Okay, so this might get a little controversial. For decades, we have undervalued handwriting as a culture, and it has trickled into our education system as such. We have not been teaching teachers, in teaching colleges how to teach handwriting, and I do believe that that is in large part because we don't understand that handwriting is not about a style or being neat. Handwriting is a learning tool, and it is the issue of handwriting is not about messiness. It's about literacy. It's about writing and reading fluency. They're all interconnected, and they need each other. We are not going to master language if we cannot write, and writing by hand presents a kinesthetic connection to language that nothing else does. And we know from research that print, I'm sorry, keyboarding does not do the same thing to map language into the brain as actually tracing through letters and making them by hand. Having said that, because of the de emphasis and the lack of instruction at teachers colleges, teachers have been left to depend on themselves and curriculum to teach them how to go about presenting handwriting to kids, and effectively, what has happened is we've assumed that kids can just pick it up without much instruction. So we give them a workbook, and we say, you know, you go practice your letters, and we're going to go over here and practice our phonics in this small group, which is fine if the kids knew how to practice correctly, but by nature, they don't. So we don't know why this is but kids tend to go bottom to top, naturally and clockwise instead of counterclockwise, naturally. And if you test most kids up in third, fourth and fifth grade, you will see that that is still the case, because they were never corrected and they've never practiced that way for us up in those upper levels, it means we have no fluency, and if your hand doesn't flow, your thoughts can't flow. So there's a lot more focus on how to get it out on paper, to spell it right, to make it legible, etc. Then the content that we as teachers up there are trying to actually impart. So back to your question about what we might be doing wrong. First of all, explicit instruction is necessary, and ongoing coaching is necessary. Don't assume that handwriting can be done in a station and then forgotten about in social studies, in science, even in math, all in those early grades, handwriting is an integrated part of every subject that you teach, as long as you're requiring them to write by hand. So the you know, whatever they practice is what they're going to do all the way up the pipeline. That's how motor skill works. So, so correcting them early. And then there is a saying, Not sure how it got started, that all letters start at the top. And it is my very strong suggestion that you not use that, because realistically, all letters do not start at the top. And kids are very literal, so they really if, if you tell them that a C starts at the top, then they will start at the top and drop the C, and that will result in kind of an arc of a C, instead of a rounded C. And why that matters is because it affects legibility. Later it becomes to where you can't tell the difference between a straight line down I and a lowercase c. So there's something about that push up and around, up and around, that really creates a more open writing that clarifies it when the reader is reading it. And so those are the those are the three things, I think I would say, explicit instruction. Coach regularly and correct them when they need it, and don't tell them to start all letters at the top.
Lily Jones 19:37
Great advice. And I appreciate you thinking about the big picture too that it's not just neat printing, you know that handwriting is a key part of literacy development, and so I appreciate that, especially thinking about the comparison to writing on a keyboard, to actually doing the strokes and writing the letters, especially for young children.
Holly Britton 19:58
Yes. Yes. So there's a big difference out there on that.
Lily Jones 20:04
So thinking about your own experience, going back to starting Squiggle Squad and starting a business, I'm curious about what your experience was with just that part of it. You know, you have the expertise and the passion around handwriting, and then there's this whole other area of skills to develop around starting a business. Can you talk to us about that experience?
Holly Britton 20:25
Oh, my goodness, we need another podcast. Yeah, that so I've learned, of course, as I go, I was fortunate enough to be, I'm married to an entrepreneur who himself started a business many, many years ago in software, so I maybe my very first thing I learned and that I would pass on, is get the support you need, get the practical support you need, get the financial support you Need, and and marry that to your vision. So your our visions can be very grandiose, and we tend to have a if everything went perfect, it would be like this kind of vision, which is great, but we really need our our sort of what can we do today to step toward that vision tomorrow, and yeah, and so I, I think that support is absolutely necessary, whether it's from your family or from friends or even from a network, like a business network that you have locally in your community. You need that backup. You need a sounding board. You need someone who's going to be honest with you about your business and your vision, and you need to have open ears to listen to them, because sometimes the advice is hard, and I'm just talking practically speaking, because whatever your vision is, I'll just tell you, it might be a beautiful vision, but it's going to be hard to reach education is hard. It's hard to get into schools. It's hard to get audience with teachers. It's hard to explain yourself well in in an elevator speech, you know you've got an elevator pitch. Sorry, I I I've learned so much in five years, and I have so much to learn. And I am a teacher, I'm a curriculum developer, I'm a designer, and I'm very comfortable with those things. I am not a marketer, I am not a editor, a video editor, I'm not a YouTube influencer. I These are all things I'm having to learn, having to, you know, do things I don't want to do in order to reach the mission that I want to reach. So so strap in and have a lot of stick to itiveness, but get some support to help you along the way.
Lily Jones 23:01
I think that support piece is really key, you know, not having to figure everything out on our own, that there are people who have figured out how to having YouTube videos or how to market things, or whatever it might be that's not in your skill set, and finding those people who can really help and mentor you so you're not starting from scratch. And then I think that community too, like, Absolutely, I was a kindergarten teacher turned curriculum developer, started educator forever, and had to figure everything out. And luckily, you know, made a lot of great business friends and coaches along the way who can help me and now educator forever, we actually have entrepreneurship programs for educators too, where they get to come together and have a community that can really lift them up and support them, because I think you're completely right that there's going to be a lot of things that we don't want to do or that don't feel comfortable right, and we can learn how to do them in service of our bigger mission.
Holly Britton 23:57
I would be amiss and not miss mentioning my daughter, who was co founder and a a professional graphic designer. So it really all of my all of my kids were actually a big part. And I have a professional editor. I've got an IT guy. I'm in my in my little family. So I did. I am really grateful, and I'm aware of the fact that this, this had to be a team effort. I could not have done this. I cannot do this on my own.
Lily Jones 24:32
So, yeah, sweet to being able to work with your kids in that way.
Holly Britton 24:35
Awesome. Yeah, really awesome.
Lily Jones 24:37
Wonderful. So nice talking with you, Holly, can you tell people where they can connect with you and learn more about Squiggle Squad?
Holly Britton 24:44
Yeah, find us@squigglesquad.com we're on Instagram and Facebook at Squiggle Squad Handwriting, and you can also reach out to me personally at holly@squigglesquad.com,
Lily Jones 24:57
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Holly Britton 24:59
Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai