M a education paper-v methods of teaching english

3. 2Ai The Mechanics of Reading 
Single letters rather than letter combinations in words are taught. The most common 

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and useful letters, covering the lower and upper case forms are focused upon. 
Direction: The learner must be provided with models of correct direction writing by 
modelling the letter writing on the board. The alphabet may be written with arrows 
showing the direction it should be written in and formed correctly. 
Height, depth and level: Early writing should be done within parallel lines which 
limit the height of letters and make sure they are level.
for e.g. that letters like d, l, b have arms that are of a similar height to capital letters 
and that letters like p, y, g have tails that are sufficiently long beneath the line. 
Cursive writing: The overriding criterion here is comprehensibility. The learner is 
allowed to choose between cursive and non-cursive.
Typing: It is becoming more and more necessary for learners to learn to type. 
Learners must be given the opportunity to use the keyboard in order to increase their 
typing speed. It is also useful to teach them word processing tools to format their 
written work: different fonts, sizes and spacing, colours and positions. Basic copying 
or simple composition exercises can be made more motivating by allowing learners 
to use these tools to improve the presentation of a text. 
Speed and legibility: When teaching writing, the two main aims are to enable 
learners to reasonably fast and to write legibly. 
Fluent writing tasks aim to improve learners’ ability to compose written text for 
communicative purposes. Though accuracy (grammar, vocabulary, spelling) is 
important, the main focus is on meaningful writing following the conventions of a