Why Do We All Learn the Same Letters… But Have Different Handwriting?
Recently, one of my 10-year-old students asked me a question that really made me pause:
“How come we all learn letters the same, but we all have different handwriting?”
Such an insightful observation, I started to answer her, but then stopped as I could see that it was going to take a little longer than we had in the lesson to give her a good answer that she understood. However, I loved this question so much that I thought I might delve into it a bit more and share it here in my blog. The answer tells us a lot about how literacy actually works.
It’s common knowledge that when children learn to read and spell, they are learning about:
letter shapes
letter–sound relationships
spelling patterns and;
how words are stored in memory
This is part of the language system in the brain that connects sight, hearing, sounds, and meaning. (If you would like a handy poster of this, Learning Matters has a great one here.)
But when children learn to write by hand, they are also learning something else entirely:
👉 how to move their muscles to make those letters on the page.
Handwriting Is a Motor Skill
So handwriting is not just about knowing letters, it is also about how your:
brain
eyes
hands
fingers
muscles
memory
all work together to draw a letter. For example, when a student learns the letter a, their brain stores:
✔ what it looks like
✔ what sound(s) it represents
✔ how it fits into words
But they also learn:
✔ where to start
✔ which direction to move
✔ how much pressure to use
✔ when to lift the pencil
Over time, this becomes what is known as a motor plan, which is a stored movement pattern for forming each letter.
Same Letters, Different Movement Patterns
Even though all students are taught the same:
alphabet
formation rules
writing expectations
every child’s:
finger strength
wrist stability
visual–motor coordination
working memory
attention
processing speed
fine motor control
is slightly different. So the goal is the same… but the movement used to reach that goal is different, and that is why everyone’s handwriting ends up looking unique.
Reading, Spelling, and Handwriting Are Related, But Not the Same
In the education world, we often see students who can read accurately; however, their handwriting is still slow, messy, and for some, very effortful. This is because reading and spelling rely on the brain’s language system, and handwriting relies heavily on the brain’s motor system. These systems essentially work together, but they are not identical.
This is a particularly important understanding for many neurodiverse learners, where motor planning can be just as effortful as decoding or spelling.
A Helpful Analogy
I always like to link things back to a sport or movement analogy - I love the analogy of the push-ups and the reading brain (both need to be worked at consistently to get better at them!), and you might think of our different handwriting styles just like learning a dance.
Everyone learns the same steps…but everyone’s body moves a little differently. So even though the dance is the same, everyone’s version looks unique. Understanding this helps us remember that handwriting varies greatly between individuals.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s important to remember that neat handwriting does not always reflect a child’s intelligence, reading ability, or spelling knowledge, because each of these is attributed to different areas of the brain. Everyone’s brain works differently. Even though we all learn the same letters, the movements that we make creating them are different for everyone. Sometimes, it simply reflects how hard a brain is working behind the scenes to coordinate movement.
