The Fluency Challenge

Children are expected to write more now than ever before, and at a younger age. But in many classrooms, the child must invent a way to put the symbols on paper. And, there is little attention paid to the effort until obvious problems arise.

If teachers would measure and track fluency, the need for help could be spotted right away. However, it is not likely that handwriting fluency is even mentioned in the language arts curriculum guide. At some point the child is noticed because he or she is lagging behind classmates in reading, spelling and writing. Others are noticed, usually much sooner, because they can't seem to pay attention long enough to learn.

When daily handwriting exercises include movement as a goal, good things happen. One of the most important things is engagement. The challenge to learn how to control the movement is as attractive as a video game. Children are engaged and focused on meeting the challenge. They learn how to attend and focus as a result, and to stick with it a little longer each day. You can see the effects quickly and it is easy to measure progress.

What is fluency? Fluent movement is smooth. It is movement toward a goal. It can be slow or faster, smooooooth or smooth. It is preplanned in, and guided by, the motor system. In order for that to happen, we have to get control information into the system. That is another powerful attribute of the fluency challenge. When you include "how to move" as a goal, internalization is enhanced. The child who can write letters with smooth rhythm no longer needs to look at a model on the wall to recall or visualize the shape. He or she can bring the letter or word up and out of the brain because "it's in there."

There is a movement-based strategy for teaching handwriting skills that does include fluency as a goal. There are many people out there who have used it effectively. Hopefully, we can get them to talk about the experience here so that you can benefit from it.

If you are struggling to overcome issues like attention deficit, poor reading skills, spelling problems or general learning lags, tell us about the situation. We want to help.