Teachers Are Giving Middle Schoolers Letter-Tracing Assignments

This week, my fifth-grader came home with an interesting homework packet. It was a thick practice book for... tracing her letters. And do you know what? I knew she needed it.

Like many 10-year-olds, my kid missed most of kindergarten because of the pandemic. And even though she did some remote learning and even though we worked with her at home, she’s still behind on some of the most basic things that you’re supposed to learn when you’re five and six. Like the most basic handwriting skills.

This is not just happening at my daughter’s school. Teachers across the country are having to backtrack to the basics, and sometimes that involves printing off worksheets meant for much younger kids.

Over on TikTok, ELA teacher Erica McGuiree (@ericaamcguiree) explains what’s going on with her middle schoolers and handwriting.

“Kids can’t write. My middle-schoolers have a very, very, very hard time physically handwriting anything, just in general. A lot of times it will just be illegible,” she says in her video.

Her solution? Getting back to the basics.

“I printed out three pages of third-grade level handwriting tracing.,” she says, showing the sheets. “Very elementary. There are three different sentences of varying lengths and they have to do it for all three.”

The kids had an adverse reaction to doing incredibly simple work meant for 7 year olds, but the teacher didn’t budge.

“When I gave this to my kids, I got hit back with a lot of discourse from them. Like, ;this is so elementary, this is so easy.’ And I was like, okay, if it’s so easy, consider it an easy A. If it’s so easy, then do it,” she said. “And I want all of your handwriting in all of your assignments that you hand in to me to reflect your work on this. I wouldn’t be giving this to you if you didn’t need it.”

Down in the comments, parents and teachers shared their own thoughts, feelings, and stories.

“Having neat handwriting was always such a flex in school, What happened,” asked one of the most popular comments.

“Take points off for handwriting, too,” another suggested.

“I used to be lazy about writing practice until my teacher failed me for having terrible handwriting. I locked in real quick lol,’ another said, adding to the idea that teachers should be docking for poor writing.

Many parents lamented that schools use so much technology that kids are writing a lot less.

“I don’t blame the kids the curriculum stopped teaching handwriting and uses too much technology,” one person wrote.

“The moment they started giving these kids tablets for notes and assignments - i knew this was going to be affected. i'm so glad you're doing something to help it,” another wrote.

“it rly is the ipads😭 they truly r struggling with motor skills because instead of playing with barbie’s and blocks and painting and coloring, they’re playing with tablets,” said another.

Others reminded everyone that the pandemic did some lasting damage to kids this age.

“2020 stunted everythingggg,” one said.

“The pandemic started when they were 6-9, i hope what you're doing is able to help them,” another wrote.

Whatever caused this, it’s clear that the American education system has a problem on their hands. And maybe tracing some letters will help.