Have you ever had students use graph paper to improve their penmanship? I don't mean practicing on graph paper, but using it for everyday assignments as a way to help them write more neatly? Have you ever used it outside of math? And when kids do this, is the goal for them to do one character/square? Or is it more of a visual guide to help them make letters/numbers of similar size? Thanks!
The Spanish teachers use it and it seems to work. My daughter does her writing portion of her Spanish work in her notebook which is all graph paper, and her writing has seem to improved. I have not used it for my own kids, so I am not sure how the Spanish teachers teach the kids to use it.
When I was in grammar school we were required to use graph paper for writing. I liked it and it helped to keep notes neat.
Does graph paper cost more than regular lined paper? That might (or might not) be a concern. I think my eyes and brain would freak out if I had to write on graph paper. Something about all the lines and boxes is kind of overwhelming to me. I can see how it might be useful to some people, though.
Graph paper is not that much more expensive. I could see how it would be harder to find as sometimes I can't find it in regular stores. I prefer the medium size grid and in math I love the one centimeter size grid, it is not too big nor too small and I love it. I've only found the 1 cm grid at teacher's stores though.
We never have a problem finding them here, but maybe that's because they are regularly used by the Spanish teachers. The kids seem to like it just fine. Personally, I think they are really good.
Yes, in Mexico graph paper/notebooks are very popular. Last time I went there I bought a couple becuase there is more selection and sizes. I love graph paper but I may be biased because I'm a math teacher. I also remember that in grammar school we had to use graph notebooks for math. That was a must.
All of our students use grid notebooks for math, but not for any other subject. This is a timely topic for me. One of my students who is new to the school has some pretty severe fine motor issues. I wonder if using grid paper may help him, a bit, with some of the physical organization of his writing. I think I'll give it a try.
Here in Spain they use graph paper for all the notebooks as well. I hate it, personally, but the kids seem to do fine with it. When they first start learning to write, they are supposed to use one square per letter, but as they get older up the squares used get pretty small so I don't know if they are still expected to do that. They also learn writing in cursive right away.
I have some transitional notebook paper that sounds similar, but the little vertical lines don't go all the way up to the line above them. I bought it for some with really messy handwriting, but haven't tried it out yet.
So, would the child need to write one letter in each little square? Or is it just more of a visual guide? I really want to try this for my son and couple of my students, but I want to make sure I'm doing it right!
I think the general idea is for one letter a square, but if the letter extends above or below (like a b or a g) they occupy part of the next square up or down. There are different sizes of graph paper but the one they use here in primary ed has squares that are quite tiny...
