Category Archives: Older Students & Adults
Paper Placement
A recent blog came my way about children with left-hand dominance being forced to use their right hand. I hope this is not a practice in the United States, but the article reminded me of a related problem. Teachers are … Continue reading
Tips to Fix Your Handwriting
Just posted to YouTube: Tips to Fix Your Handwriting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_F7FqCe6To More videos are in the works that I hope will be helpful.
Why Cursive Doesn’t Work
Advocates of the cursive that joins all lowercase letters within words say it helps fine motor skills. That’s not what I see in recent media images of children practicing their cursive, some even winners of handwriting contests! Students are hunched … Continue reading
We Are Always Learning
I am beginning to grasp a piece of the controversy that is driving manuscript, or cursive, or keyboard instruction in schools. I am a self-taught italic handwriting instructor. I still work with italic because I believe in the success of … Continue reading
More Comment than Review of The Missing Ink by Philip Hensher
The book is certain to have an impact on those who fret over the fate of handwriting. I especially appreciated the last chapter regarding our very human reasons for putting pen to paper. As one who has taught an italic … Continue reading
Surprising E-mail!
I knew my method of instruction has helped people to relax and make handwriting easier, especially for those with arthritic hands, but this e-mail came as an especially happy surprise: “Dear Nan, I received your book Fix It Write about … Continue reading
Cursive in the News
Should we or shouldn’t we teach cursive writing in schools? Here is one of the very few news articles that makes reasonable sense: http://www.philasun.com/news/3604/34/Goodbye-cursive-writing.html The graphics that accompany the article implies a bias that cursive belongs to our past, but … Continue reading
A Waste of Time?
Dictation software has been advancing for awhile. I just read a review of the current version of Dragon. Why are we teaching Keyboarding? It may be useful in the present, but for elementary school students keyboards will likely be obsolete … Continue reading
NeuroScript and Handwriting Methods
The following is a quote from Hans-Leo Teulings, who is researching handwriting and its instruction. Also the word “cursive” is multi interpretable. In Dutch printers’ terms “cursief” means: “slanted font”, what in English is called “Italic font”. So cursive and … Continue reading
Handwriting of our Forefathers
A close look at the handwriting, even of Monroe’s, is closer to italic than what many consider traditional. Notice the r‘s; they are the italic form. Also remember the amount of letter writing from that time, the need to write … Continue reading