UPPER MERION — You might think that the age of smart phones, tablets and laptops have made the handwritten communication as quaint as a Shakespearean sonnet elegantly crafted with a quill pen.
But more than 30 teachers and parents came to the Crowne Plaza in King of Prussia on Friday to do their part in keeping the art of the sweeping cursive script alive.
Given that these were Pre-K teachers, they weren’t concerned with getting their charges to create the perfect spirals and flourishes.
That will come later.
Through the inventive Readiness Pre-K techniques pioneered by Maryland-based Handwriting Without Tears, the class learned how to use the company’s award-winning curriculum of playful developmental activities to engage kids, who will hopefully put pen to paper with a good measure of confidence one day.
“This is my first experience with the program,” said Lisa MacCarrick, a teacher at Villa Maria Academy in Malvern. “Our school is interested in bringing it to the school next year. Developmentally, it’s really what kids need for them to be able to move into writing. The presenter is fantastic, very enthusiastic.”
To school administrators who doubt the merits of teaching cursive handwriting, frequently taking the stance that “kids are going to be on computers anyway, so they don’t need to write,” HWT presenter Paula Heinricher argues: “We agree 100 percent that we’re in the age of technology. But it’s not computer vs. handwriting; both have a place. Research shows that as much as 60 percent of an elementary school student’s day is spent writing. And if you’re not teaching kids how to write, then what are they putting down on paper?”
Handwriting Without Tears is a family-owned business founded in 1977 by Jan Olsen, an occupational therapist who developed techniques that successfully helped her frustrated son master penmanship in first grade.
Her ideas became the basis for the first therapists’ guide, Handwriting Without Tears, and a company with a product line that now includes workbooks and teachers’ guides for kindergarten through fifth grade.
In addition to the fun-based hands-on materials and assessments, HWT conducts more than 600 workshops every year to train educators throughout the world in the HWT teaching methods.
“When schools look to purchase curriculums to use in their schools, we’re one of the leading handwriting curriculums in the country, and so they look at our materials and see that we teach handwriting in a very multi-sensory fun way that’s very effective, not only to teach, but also for the kids to learn in a very short period of time,” Heinricher explained.
“What makes us very different from anything else that’s out there is that we’re very developmentally based. We look at how the child develops and we’re placing activities at each level along the way that’s meeting them where they are.”
The Pre-K Readiness program gears kids up with a developmental agenda that teaches social and hand skills, and crayon grip with alphabet knowledge, letter and number recognition and formation, plus counting and drawing, shapes, and colors.
Handwriting as an essential mode of communication and self-expression will always be a relevant art and needs to be taught at appropriate levels, Heinricher said.
“I think people are coming back to the understanding of how important cursive is. In Pre-K we’re helping kids understand how to work top to bottom, left to right, not only when we write, but when we read. We help them learn what all the letters are, visually, and how to build the letters with manipulatives that are at their level. At 3 they are not ready for writing. Even though they might know what all the letters are. Their hand and body aren’t ready for writing. And if we push writing too early a lot of bad habits happen and they’re not being taught to write properly.”
The result is that kids may eventually spend an inordinate amount of time working on the mechanics of creating letters and not enough time on the content, she added.
“That becomes a major problem in the second, third or fourth grade” she said. “If these kids don’t know how to write I feel they’re held back in the sense that they’re too involved having to think about the mechanics of writing instead of letting the thoughts flow.”
Linette Lee, a teacher at Zion Lutheran Pre-School in Hummelstown, said Friday’s workshop gave her a better understanding of the program, which her school had already adopted.
“Our school has been using the program, but we needed to be trained to use it. We had the materials but not the knowledge to go with it. But it’s very developmentally appropriate for the 3- and 4-year-olds we’re working with. And it’s also fun for them because they’re learning without realizing they’re learning.”
Follow Gary Puleo on Twitter @Mustangman48.