I recently attended a conference on the Handwriting program called "Handwriting without Tears.' The program was created by a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, Jan Olsen, for her son. Over the years, her method and approach attracted a great deal of interest and excitement and eventually, Olsen opened her own company -- publishing teachers' guides, student workbooks, specialized paper and other tools.
The HWOT program is very interesting -- it begins with the assumption that in handwriting as in so much else, there are developmental stages and that teaching writing according to alphabetical order is not necessarily the best approach. Moreover, Olsen has designed her program to be friendly to lefties as well. When faced with kids whom schools and teachers have abandoned as 'hopeless' in the handwriting department, Olsen responds with 'This is not about the child. This is about bad teaching -- and why not since teachers are not generally taught HOW to teach Handwriting?"
And so I learned some very interesting information -- for example, if pencil grip has not be properly learned by third grade, it can't be changed. And WHY is pencil grip important? Simply put, proper grip means less strain. One can write more comfortably for longer periods and faster as well. How then does one create the proper grip (and what is it?) Olsen's books demonstrate two different positons -- the better known one being the tripod grip -- whener thumb, pointer, and middle finger hold the pencil and the last two fingers rest, folded, in the palm. (An OT friend uses this technique to remind kids: Place green dots on the three working fingers, red dots on the resting ones. She says that this has never failed her.) One technique to encourage the proper grip is to break crayons and pencils into small pieces. Small pieces encourage proper grip and discourage the palm grip. Another tool are the three sided pencils -- Ticongeroga makes both primary pencils and adult pencils in this format and crayola has recently introduced markers and crayons that are triangular. The most important part of grip, however, begins back BEFORE one thinks about a child writing -- when children, at about 6 months, begin to self feed. That chase after the cheerio is actually developmentally crucial to the development of fine motor coordination....
So, of course, I came home and broke crayons! Grin. You should've seen my sons' faces. They were horrified. They adapted, however, and set right to work creating all sorts of interesting images.
Olsen is not the only OT to have developed a Handwriting Curriculum, of course. I find hers to be very useful in developing neat printing habits but what about cursive. Well, for children who have learned printing in the HWOT method, the Cursive that is taught should be fairly simple. It is simply linking letters. For others, however, it may be a bit more challenging. That is where 'Loops and Groups' comes in ( See Therapro -- Loops and Groups Cursive Handwriting) This program, also developed by an OT, is aimed at an older audience, 2nd grade and up, and teaches the letter formations by their forms. It looks quite fascinating and would work well for children who are pattern oriented. Indeed, I intend to use this program with my eldest son this fall.
The point of all this? Handwriting does count, regardless of what others may tell you. And developing proper habits now will stand you in good stead in the future. Both of the programs mentioned here were developed by people whose job is to redress problems that children develop in response to bad or non teaching. Both aim at preventing the development of these problems by offering approaches that are friendly to children's learning styles. I, at least, am excited that these products exist and look forward to working with my children... especially since both boys are writers at heart!
