One of the main advantages of the manuscript is that students meet these letters in books. “Studies show that spending two years studying manuscripts writing letters and helps to write automatically,” White explained.
On the other hand, Cursive can be faster. “You don’t have to take a pencil every time,” White said. She also noted that students who learn to write and recognize cursive are better equipped for reading Historical documents and primary sourcesas the declaration of independence or the constitution. Some students are fighting Cursive, while others find a welcome alternative. “For the bigger children who have never developed legible writings on a manuscript but recognize letters, Cursive may feel like a new start,” she added.
Development of auto
Whether students study manuscript or italics, White stressed the importance of practicing them should no longer think about forming lettersWhich is when automatic is winning. “The handwriting is functional only if it is automatic. This happens when students do every letter in the same way every time, “she said. There are many correct ways to form letters, but the sequence is key.
White compares it to learning to ride a bike. “You don’t think where to put your feet or hands,” she said. “If you were learning to bike, but every day it was a different bicycle and things were in a slightly different place, you would still fall and fascinate your knee.”
Teachers can help students of all ages by demonstrating the formation of letters on a large piece of paper or whiteboard while verbizing the process using words such as curve, sloping, separate, cross and bonding. This multimodal approach helps students see and hear how to make letters. White also encourages students to verbalize the steps themselves as they write to strengthen the relationship between movement and forming letters. “Once the movement is automatic, then they can concentrate on the other pieces,” she said.
Writing words and phrases
Mastering individual letters is important, but White stressed that students should quickly switch to writing words and phrases. “If students only remember how to write individual letters, it does not integrate with spelling and reading skills,” she said.
She recommended that you present a small group of letters and make students practice reading and writing words using them. White recommends that teachers avoid asking students to write words containing letters that have not learned to write. This approach helps students recognize orthographic models – joint groups with letters in English. “If the children prepare each letter as a separate entity each time, they will not receive this benefit,” White said.
Although the handwriting instructions can look slow or outdated, White believes it enables students. She recalled a student named Sasha, who was excited to write her name on a birthday card for her father. When he wrote “S” back, he was not discouraged. Instead, he recovered with confidence. “He put his hand on his mother’s shoulder and said, ‘Mom, don’t worry. I made a mistake. I know how to repair it, “White said.
The episode transcript
Is Gobir: Welcome to MindShift, the subcontract for the future of learning and how we raise our children. I am gobir
Is Gobir: Nowadays, you feel that everyone is looking for the next great innovations in education. Schools accept technology programs one -to -one where each student has a tablet or laptop. New programs promise to solve any training challenge you can think of. But in all this excitement, do we forget the basics?
Is Gobir: When was the last time you thought about writing by hand? If you are a primary school or TC teacher, the answer is probably all the time – maybe even in your dream. But for many of us in a digital world, the handwriting becomes a consequence.
Is Gobir: This is a big mistake, according to Dr. Nancy Kushen White, a teacher and a language therapist. She says the handwriting is not just about writing letters – this is a powerful literacy training tool. And the fact that adults don’t think much about writing by hand does not mean that children do not love it – or take advantage of it.
Is Gobir: Stick to hear more from Nancy about the strategies for teaching handwriting and whether Cursive is on the way, follow!
Is Gobir: Nancy Kushen White has spent decades of trying to figure out how to teach children to read and process a language in a way that sticks. But this journey began with real challenges – it was concluded that she did not even see to come to the beginning.
Nancy Kushen White: My first full year of teaching, I was appointed to San Francisco Primary School and it was a fourth grade common class and had 37 children.
Is Gobir: She immediately realized that some skills were missing.
Nancy Kushen White: There were several children who could read, but that wasn’t the norm. That was the exception and I didn’t know enough to realize even what a serious problem I had on my hands. I just thought well that I had powers in three states. I will do everything I have learned and will take care of this problem.
Nancy Kushen White: I tried everything I was taught. It didn’t take long and didn’t work out very well. And so. This began my desire to find something to work.
Is Gobir: She found that handwriting was an essential part of the language of training. Hand writing strengthens the recognition of letters and maintains memory and recall – especially when taught with reading and spelling.
Nancy Kushen White: All language skills are related. So the handwriting is not in a separate part of the brain from reading or spelling. And obviously the handwriting includes motor skills, but it’s much more than a motor skill. It is very linked to the language
Is Gobir: Usually, students are taught two types of handwriting at school: a manuscript where the letters are different and unrelated and italics, where the letters flow together.
Nancy Kushen White: There is so the benefits of the manuscript, which is the print or the manuscript is more like what they read in the books. So when they learn to write the letters, they learn to write the letters they see in the books they read.
Nancy Kushen White: There are studies that show that students who have learned letters to print manuscripts after learning to write these letters if they see any of these letters in print, whether they write it or not, the part of the brain that is that it is functioning when spelled.
Is Gobir: Cursive, on the other hand, has its advantages.
Nancy Kushen White: The italics can be faster. You don’t have to take a pencil every time.
Nancy Kushen White: I don’t know if this is because of what happened to them when they tried to learn him at school, but there are people who really hate him.
Is Gobir: There is good news for those who have been fighting italics – this is helpful. Some students today can’t read Cursive at all. In fact, there is a joke that adults of a certain generation can use Cursive to write secret messages to each other that children cannot read. But he jokes aside, there are real consequences. While students who cannot read Cursive are still literate, they may struggle to read historical documents such as the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
Is Gobir: It has not been proven that either a manuscript or the italicism is best. The important thing is that students receive so much practice that they do not have to think about forming letters. So, how can teachers guarantee that handwriting can become a second character?
Nancy Kushen White: It will be automatic if they do each letter the same way every time.
Nancy Kushen White: There are many correct ways to form both manuscript and italicized letters. Think about the whole font. But children need to be taught in one way to practice automaticity. Then they don’t have to think about how to do the letter. This is automatically.
Is Gobir: When students write letters in the same way many times, it becomes muscle memory.
Nancy Kushen White: If you are making notes right now, you will think about what I am saying. You may think how to write some words, but you would not think how to form letters because it is automatic. Your brain knows this. It’s like jumping on a bicycle and going. You don’t think where you put your feet or where you put your hands.
Nancy Kushen White: If you learned to bike, but every day it was a different bicycle and things were in a slightly different place? You will still fall and rob your knee, or at least I would be, yes.
Is Gobir: One of the best ways to teach handwriting is by modeling. Nancy talks about what he does while writing a new letter. This makes it multimodal training for students, because they are able to see her make the letter on a large piece of paper or whiteboard and hear her talk about it. Take a more nine case, the italic letter “l”
Nancy Kushen White: It starts on the baseline, twists two spaces, twists slightly back and then tilts down, crossing the midline, almost to the main line and up for connecting stroke, L. And then I can do it again. And then I ask another student in the class, tell me how to do L.
Nancy Kushen White: You want them to use these words to be guided as long as they should have the same words. So bend, slopes, separate, cross, binding stroke, using the same words for all letters.
Nancy Kushen White: But that doesn’t save it. It really connects it to this movement. And then, once the movement is automatic, then they can concentrate on the other pieces.
Is Gobir: But just copying letters again and again is not enough. Students should write words, phrases and sentences.
Nancy Kushen White: I think sometimes when it is taught exactly as a motor skill, it misses this connection because it is a language skill.
Nancy Kushen White: In situations where the student receives teaching only for handwriting and they learn all letters, they can write all letters but do not use it functionally. They don’t write words or phrases. So they have remembered something, but it is not related to something functional. And this is a really important piece. And so most of the research supports teaching it as part of this literacy network.
Nancy Kushen White: In a lesson, learn it slowly in sequence and then make the children read and write the words in these letters. You do not ask them to write something for which they cannot write the letters.
Is Gobir: As students learn to write the letters with the words they write, they begin to recognize common models and structures of the letters.
Is Gobir: Today, children use computers earlier than ever, which means that they can miss the cognitive benefits of handwriting.
Nancy Kushen White: When you write, you just press the keys, you don’t get the type of engine feedback. There is no unique sequence of movements to form each letter when you hit the keyboard key, as when you write.
Is Gobir: Since writing is so embodied, you are able to do memory associations with what you see and hear. Yes, hand writing is more slow, but it’s actually a good thing.
Nancy Kushen White: Since I have to think about what I will write because I do not have time to write everything, I actually have to pay attention to the content. I have to decide which is the most important.
Is Gobir: The handwriting may not sound exciting, but children love it. There is something powerful about learning to write – even if it’s just your own name.
Nancy Kushen White:He had a small first -grader and his name was Sasha. And his mother wrote us a note about half the way, and she said that his father’s birthday had happened and he wrote his name. And he wrote one of the SS back.
