P is for…Presentation. Presentation is more important than you think. Your story could be fantastic, but if your teacher can’t read your handwriting, they will never find out how good it is. How can you make your work look more inviting so that people want to read it?
First of all, always use a ruler for drawing straight lines, for drawing margins, for ruling off your last piece of work and for underlining the date and title. It sounds obvious, but lots of children don’t, and wobbly lines look really messy.
In your maths book, use the squares to help you – write one number or symbol in each square. In your writing books, make sure that your letters are correctly sized and that they sit on the line.
Sometimes children (and grown-ups) deliberately make their work messy because they are worried because they find spelling hard. Don’t worry! Make your writing as neat as you can. If you don’t know how to spell a word, stop and take a deep breath. Say the word out loud and write down all the sounds you can hear. Underline (with a ruler) the word and then carry on. It doesn’t matter if nearly every word is underlined. Your teacher will still be able to see what you can do and that will please them.
Improving your presentation is a small thing to do, but it will make your teacher very,very happy.