Handwriting Fluency Solves Learning Problems

An Interestng Comparison of Print And Cursive

2011-10-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

I received a message yesterday from my friend and fellow proponent of cursive instruction, Don Potter. It included the link below which lead to the forum on Liz Brown's web site. She has set up an interesting comparison of print and cursive handwriting styles.

The idea is to time yourself as you write two sentences from the Gettysburg address. You write the text once in cursive and once in print, measuring the time it takes each way. Liz has set up a poll to gather responses. Participants are asked to vote twice, once to indicate their preferred handwriting style, and again to report which style was faster with the amount of time measured.

I was quite surprised by the outcome I measured. Don indicated that he was also surprised by his measures. Click here to give it a try.

The Cursive Fluency Project

2011-10-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

The Cursive Fluency Project survey study has begun. Close to ninety teachers have registered to participate and slowly but surely are getting started with the special exercises provided in the Fluency Builder Kit. It is not too late to get involved so please read on.

If you have students in grade four or higher, who are reluctant or unable to use cursive despite having studied the process, you can learn about the project, watch a video demonstrating the exercise procedure, register for the project and download the free materials kit from the project web page.

The 12-week exercise program uses high-frequency words that all intermediate students should already know. You can begin at any time. Data can be submitted for the study until the end of March 2012. We encourage your participation.

If you suspect that cursive should be a better tool for composition than primary-grade printing, this exercise program just might enable fluent use of cursive for your students. It won't cost more than a little time to find out if this program can help. Limited early data indicates the exercise process begins to produce results quickly. The kit explains the one-minute testing process that produces an objective measure of handwriting fluency.

Interested teachers, classroom and homeschool, should visit the Peterson Handwriting web site and use the contact link to request access to the project web page.

Pen World and Deborah Basel Score Again

2011-09-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

The October issue of Pen World is out and brings the second article in the series on handwriting by Deborah Basel. If you have wondered about the value of cursive handwriting and the relevance of instruction, this article will give you some great food for thought. Schools have been eliminating instruction of cursive handwriting for many years. Find out why so many people believe that is a huge mistake.

This issue also features an article by Robert Rose, retired MD and avid promoter of handwriting fluency as a cure for the persistent lack of success with reading instruction that plagues our schools. How many legible letters of the alphabet can your kindergartner write in twenty seconds? Count the letters and multiply by 3 to convert the number to a Letters-Per-Minute Score. Children who were able to write at the rate of 40 LPM, were reading at or above grade level.

Dr. Rose and several groups of teachers have shown several times, this easy-to-measure ability has a strong connection to reading success. Most little ones show interest in learning to write around the age of four. Make your child an "expert" alphabet writer, and rest easy. He or she will learn to read and be successful in the classroom.

The important goal is fluency no matter what the alphabet. If you want to learn how, Google "Learn To Teach Handwriting" and visit Peterson Directed Handwriting on the web.

The Dark Side of Legibility

2011-08-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

Most teachers, at home or in the classroom, have a background in handwriting legibility. When learning they were presented with models to emulate. That has created a focus on product that is actually exploited by publishers.

A publisher uses a 'font" to create the models in the manuals and workbooks. Each tends to use a font that is slightly different from the others. Our "product focus" tends to cause worry about the various font differences. Teachers and parents are attracted to a "font" that seems familiar due to their exposure in grade school. And they worry, particularly when teaching primary children, that even slight variations will cause confusion for the child.

Comments like the following are common.

"The capital M in our reading program has slant strokes that are all the same height. This handwriting program teaches a capital M with short slants. It will be confusing for the children."

However, When Mary or John come to the teacher to report that difference, it is instantly clear that they recognize both variations as the same letter.

The fact is, all of the various fonts are far more similar than they are different. If that were not true, an "outsider font" would not be legible. It is also true that each fluent writer, will produce a distinctive variation of the letters that is recognizable as their handwriting by the teacher, family members and friends.

The dark side of legibility is it's tendency to cause laborious handwriting process that is not functional. It is rooted in a lack of understanding. In the beginning, it is far more important to teach the correct start point, sequence and smooth movement, than to fuss when a model is not replicated precisely. A large range of variations will still be recognizable as a version of the target. Practice will improve control and the outcome will be much improved. Fluency is all about learning how to use smooth, fluent movement. That objective is almost universally ignored.

Children cannot produce perfect copies of a model letter when they are learning to move smoothly and fluently. Too much attention to precise reproduction causes the child to turn away from using the kind of movement we want them to learn. It is important to keep working toward a model, but not at the expense of fluent movement.

Read Pen World Magazine?

2011-08-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

The August volume of Pen World, beautiful as always, offers two very interesting articles about handwriting. One addresses the importance of handwriting from the perspective of graphology. The second article, "Why Handwriting Still Matters" is the first in a series by Deborah Basel. It is powerful and will shed some light on a serious situation in our schools. I can't wait to read the next in the series and urge you to seek it out.

It is obvious that our schools have been steadily reducing priorty for teaching handwriting skills. The evidence is everywhere you see adults using handwriting. It is particularly true in the public schools. Far too many students in our classrooms struggle to put thoughts on paper, if they can at all. But, too many educators are willing to ignore the obvious connections to poor spelling and ineffective compositions.

Do your schools pay any attention to handwriting fluency? It takes only a minute to measure it, but it is rare to find a teacher who does, even occasionally.

Handwriting Practice On Digital Tablet

2010-02-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

Improving handwriting fluency requires practice. Now your students can practice handwriting on your computer using a digital pen tablet.

Peterson Directed Handwriting is introducing a new program for PC computers called, "PDF By Hand." The simple program allows you to open a page of a Peterson Lesson PDF E-book included with the program, and use your pen tablet to write on the pages. The writing is added to the page image on your screen as the pupil writes.

You can of course, save a practice page and also print it if you wish. You can attach the saved page to email and send it electronically. Yes, it is now possible to send a handwritten thank-you note electronically, and exchange personal notes with pen pals as well.

But, you can also practice a page as often as you wish without printing the results. After all, the practice effort should be about improving control of the movements. Until now, the only way you and your student could evaluate improvement, was to examine the practice paper.

PDF By Hand transforms a classroom computer with pen tablet into a handwriting practice station that won't require reams of handwriting practice paper. You can see the results of the practice effort on your screen and hopefully, in applied work each day.

For a live demonstration contact Rand Nelson at Peterson Directed Handwriting. An on-line demo can be arranged by sending an email or by telephone.

Phone: 724.837.4900

Email Rand Nelson

Legibility and Fluency

2009-12-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

It is really quite easy to establish a fluency score for your pupil. That means it is not time consuming to track the score as an indicator of skill development progress.

Handwriting fluency is expressed as a number representing the number of legible letters written per minute. A key word in the last sentence is legible. Directions for a Fluency test will be a topic one day soon, but let's think about the impact of legibility on learning and teaching today.

It's a given that legibility of handwriting is important. That fact brings forth a couple of the most difficult hurdles a student and teacher must overcome.

First, a child is not born with the ability to control movement of any sort, let alone the fluent handwriting kind. And, because the pupil is product oriented, virtually all skills related to fluency really don't matter to the child. Until we teach, he or she is only interested in creating a satisfactory copy of the shape.

From the child's point of view, a crayon-crushing, finger-twisting, sure-fire-writer's-cramp grip on the pencil doesn't matter. Paper holding doesn't matter. Start-point, direction of movement and stroke sequence are not at all important.

Physical process habits that will defeat fluency later on, will be formed quickly unless we recognize and teach the right process skills in the beginning. The process is more important than the product. And, we must know in our heart and soul, that the child really can learn the correct process. We must believe in them because they will be too quick to say, "I can't."

Second, the goal of legibility poses another difficulty. As we work to include fluency as a goal, too much demand for product accuracy will retard development of fluency. We try to guide practice of fluent movement, but a lack of control makes the child resist and revert to careful, visual guidance of the movements. The result is practice of laborious drawing rather than smooth fluency.

Thankfully there is considerable "wiggle room" when it comes to legibility. The movements have to be really out of whack to make a form totally unrecognizable. It means that we can believe in and coach practice of the fluent kind of movement. The initial result may not be as accurate as the student desires, but we can try again and the results will improve. We can keep the goal of fluency with confidence and not let the student settle for less.

There is also a darker side to the legibility factor. But that will be a topic for another day.

The Fluency Challenge

2009-12-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

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.