Category Archives: research
Hooray for New Zealand!
This far away land got handwriting right! Literacy has become a serious problem. The decision was to implement handwriting instruction for every child. New Zealand did something that I wish would happen here in the USA: they actually searched international … Continue reading
Debunking Pro-Cursive Arguments
Controversy: The dance of the pen versus digital communication is part of the Common Core rant. Substantial research supports the need to teach children handwriting. Most schools teach, have taught, or are/were supposed to teach it. There is a growing … Continue reading
Joyful Learning
This comes from NPR today: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/06/336361277/scientists-say-childs-play-helps-build-a-better-brain Apparently there will be more on the subject this week—from 8/6/2014 As stated herein before, we should leave forming letters and numerals until kids are ready. Their hands and fingers need to develop so … Continue reading
Always Something New to Learn!
I relearned something! I say relearned because several years ago Dr. Rosemary Sassoon, a renowned handwriting expert and author of numerous books on the subject, told me, “Don’t trace.” Sounded good, but how to teach children to write without a … Continue reading
Take Care with Cursive
Recently there was an excellent article in the New York Times: What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades. If you are concerned about handwriting instruction, take care with what they say about cursive. Read, listen and view everything thoughtfully, analytically. The NYT article … Continue reading
The Reason to teach handwriting.
Better, it should be the reason to teach fluent handwriting. Please see this article in the Washington Post. It’s what has always seemed logical to me, but now there is proof. As you read the article note the word, “longhand,” … 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
RESEARCH
Beware research! I know of some handwriting programs that refer to research to substantiate their programs. The problem is twofold. First, I know of research to determine the effect of handwriting instruction on the cognition of young children, the difference … Continue reading