|
 Teaching
Method Lets Little Fingers Master Handwriting
by Edward L. Kenney, Delaware Online News Journal,
December 2, 2003
For more articles like this
visit
https://www.bridges4kids.org.
Children in the
Colonial School District this year joined hundreds of thousands
of students across the country who are learning a way to write
that could help them earn better test grades.
The program, Handwriting Without Tears, is earning a small but
loyal following here. Proponents say it offers a fun approach to
writing that taps into the senses with teaching tools such as
sponges and wooden shapes to give students an easy grasp of
technique and style.
Linda Poole, executive director of academics with the Colonial
School District, said the program makes writing automatic by
stimulating the senses and giving children a feel for the
letters, so kids think about answering test questions rather
than the mechanics of writing. It also will benefit them as
adults when legible writing skills are necessary for job
applications and other tasks that require the written word.
"When you look at children's responses on tests," Poole said,
"you see some of them are just struggling with the formation of
letters. If you take that impediment away, yes, you help them
with test scores, but you also make them better communicators.
It's giving them something that will be lifelong learning."
There have been no clinical studies on the program, but
anecdotal evidence suggests the system can help children score
better on tests and improve their school work in general, said
Jan Olsen, a Maryland occupational therapist who designed the
program.
Olsen developed Handwriting Without Tears in 1977 for a son who
had so much trouble mastering handwriting that it made him cry.
Her Cabin John, Md., company just outside Washington has been
distributing workbooks since 1990, and the program now reaches
nearly 2 million children throughout the United States and
Canada.
A dozen states have adopted Handwriting Without Tears for use in
their elementary schools, Olsen said.
Colonial became the second Delaware school district to adopt the
program districtwide when it implemented it for its kindergarten
and first-grade students this year. Two years ago, the Smyrna
School District adopted the program for its kindergarten classes
and added first-graders this year.
Some educators would like to see it gain more than just a
foothold in Delaware.
"This is something I believe should be in all the schools," said
Tania Ferrandino, an occupational therapist with the Smyrna
School District. "The children like it and they respond to it."
Individual schools in Delaware have been using the Handwriting
Without Tears program for years, particularly for special needs
students because it uses a simple, hands-on approach.
Susan Bunting, director of instruction for the Indian River
School District said a Handwriting Curriculum Review Committee
took a look at Handwriting Without Tears about a year and a half
ago and there were some strong advocates for it. But the
committee decided not to implement it districtwide.
"We are using it in some places to see if it makes a dramatic
impact," she said. "We are definitely taking a look at it."
A letter a day
By using senses such as touch and hearing, letter writing is
etched into a student's mind, Poole said. Students use a wet
sponge to trace over a letter on a slate, then trace with a
towel to dry it off.
"There's four basic wooden pieces that they learn how to form
all the capital letters with: big line, little line, big curve
and little curve. They learn a letter each day," said Christen
Holdren, an occupational therapist at Colonial's Southern
Elementary School, near Delaware City.
Teachers also use hand puppets and songs as they teach a
left-to-right and top-to-bottom writing approach, she said.
"The children love it," said Kathy Rolland, a first-grade
teacher at Southern Elementary. "They're not struggling so much
with writing, and you can see the recognition in their faces."
Rolland was one of dozens of kindergarten and first-grade
teachers in Colonial's nine elementary schools who attended
training classes in the program this summer.
Second- and third-grade teachers will learn the program next
year, Poole said. It costs the district about $7 per student for
program start-up, which includes workbooks and materials, Poole
said. There are about 1,500 students in Colonial's kindergarten
and first grade classes.
Ferrandino said the Smyrna School District plans to expand the
program to a new grade each year through fourth grade. That way,
kids in the higher grades will not have to learn a new system.
Teachers not taught
Proponents of Handwriting Without Tears said it could
re-establish handwriting standards that have been missing in
schools for many years.
Olsen said she discovered during her son's handwriting problems
that teachers no longer were being trained to teach handwriting.
"You ask four teachers how to make a capital "R" and they'll all
tell you something different - and they'll all be correct,"
Olsen said.
She said the program has been successful because it is
consistent and uses a step-by-step approach, beginning with the
easy things and progressing to the more difficult.
The variety of sensory approaches also helps, Olsen said, and a
similar approach could apply to other curricula.
"Not everybody learns in the same way," she said. "Some people
are visual learners. Others are auditory learners. Others use
tactile learning; they have to hold or touch something in order
to learn it."
Poole said it has been almost painful to watch children learn
handwriting over the years.
"You watch their little fingers and they're all cramped. And
they're hunched over and they're stressed out. I don't know many
teachers who are in elementary education who haven't seen that,"
she said.
She hopes that will change.
"We're seeing a difference," she said of the program's first few
months, "and we're seeing an enthusiasm with the teachers."
For more
information about Handwriting Without Tears, call (301) 263-2700
or visit the Web site at
www.hwtears.com.
back to the top ~
back to Breaking News
~ back to
What's New
|
