1. Specialized instruction in Written Expression: Handwriting

2. Objectives
Participants will be able to orally explain best practice instructional strategies that support handwriting development and be able to explain the roles of keyboarding and handwriting using academic vocabulary after -Academic review of handwriting research using visuals

3. Handwriting Basics

4. Research
When students automatism correct letter formation early in writing development, their spelling skills are likely ot be stronger
-Beringer and Wolf ,2009;
Graham, 1999;
Graham, Beringer, Abbott, Abott and Whitaker 1997

5. Dysgraphia Boys struggle more that girls
A specific learning disability that affects the production of handwriting
Boys struggle more that girls
Can have normal cognitive skills
Lack of instruction is not dysgraphia

6. Visual-Spatial Processing
Form mental images of observed objects
Observe fine details of fine objects
Make connections between real objects and drawings, photographs and media images
Storage and retrieval of mental images
Communicating descriptions of previously perceived objects
Visualize objects based on verbal descriptions

7. Motor Planning
The process of taking in sensory information about one's environment as well as one's own place in space, movement, force, and so on in order to successfully imagine and complete a motoric task

8. John Olsen in First Grade
HWT Background – HWT was started by Jan Olsen, an occupational therapist.
In her first grade son, John came home crying.
John said that he had the worst handwriting in the room.
Jan called the teacher, who said that it was true. John’s was the worst.
Teacher suggested testing, but a complete evaluation revealed no underlying cause for his difficulty.
Jan asked the teacher to show her how to help John – but the teacher said she didn’t know what to do. She had had no handwriting training at all
When Jan realized that his teacher couldn’t help, she went into “Mother Power Mode” She was determined to help him by using an OT approach - She offered to do a task analysis of printing:
Started with the easy Capitals
Moved to Lowercase
Then to Words & Sentences
Teacher supported this and let Jan try a new approach.
She asked Jan to come every morning for 15 minutes to teach four struggling students.
Results – The success of those 4 children was the start of HWT. 8

9. John Olsen After a Few Weeks
People talked and started sending “handwriting children” to Jan.
While tutoring, Jan developed HWT materials and strategies 9

10. Posture and Pencil Grip

11. Handwriting Principles
Hips against the back of the chair, feet flat on floor, back straight, head high
Clear the desk of books and materials not needed
Forearms on the desk with elbow are off the edge
Handwriting lessons should never be on the floor or standing
Wrist should be straight and whole hand is below the base line
These are critical because it is about providing structure to eliminate the barriers. When children are learning how to write they don’t have fully functioning executive functioning skills so they not capable of organization yet. This must come from the teacher.
Bad habits in handwriting are hard to break. They are easier to break when structure is in place that eliminates distraction.
The hand that does not write holds the paper

12. The Correct Grip Tripod Grip Quadropod Grip 12
Demonstrate, Demonstrate, Demonstrate:
Problem - Children are having pencil grip problems because we don’t model- teach grip.
History – For past 20+ years, teachers haven’t been trained to teach handwriting/grip.
Fact - A pencil is a tool. Tool use is not developmental. Tool use requires instruction.
About a Tripod Grip & a Quadropod Grip
A tripod is held with the thumb, pointer and middle finger. A quadropod is held with the thumb, pointer and middle and ring fingers are holding the pencil;
The ring finger and pinky are tucked into the palm.
The middle finger may rest next to the index finger.
The pencil will rest on the ring finger.
This is a good grip for extra stability – very nice for those who need extra support. (perhaps special needs or low tone –or others - Jan uses it too)
How can we teach pencil grip? …most important…demonstrate
Teach children to pick up a pencil - separately from writing or drawing
Use the Rock, Rap, Tap & Learn CD – Track 9 “Picking Up My Pencil” song
Use the Pencil Pick-Ups pages of workbook (we’ll go over on next slide) 12

13. Writing Tool Size
little hands need little writing tools. Adult pencils are not made for 5 and 6 year olds. Golf pencils, small crayons and

14. Type of Handwriting System

15. Type of handwriting system
The three big systems currently in use in the US include (click) Zaner-Blozer which was invented in the early 20th century for the business world, and (click) D’Nealian and Modern Manuscript which are fairly new additions.
The system doesn’t really matter but there are some benefits of one from another.
If you want to take the approach that handwriting is about sticks and balls and incorporate Handwriting with out Tears then the Zaner-Blozer might be best.
If you like the idea of continuous strokes (especially for kids with poor visual spacetial sense and poor motor skills) then Modern Manuscript and D’Nealian might be best. D’Nealian was invented as a means to bridge between manuscript and cursive but gets criticized because of the “monkey tails”.
I prefer D’Nealian because it adds an aesthetic value to handwriting, making it more Artistic. For today’s purposes we are going to focus on D’Nealian.
Discuss MonART

16. Print to Cursive – Keep it Simple, Keep it Familiar
Handwriting Without Tears
Other Method
2008 Edition 3rd Grade Teacher’s Guide pg. 18
We are teaching an easier, more functional cursive than you probably learned.
The goal is to have it be
Legible
Easy to learn
Connected
Faster than printing 16

17. Scope and Sequence

18. Upper Vs Lower Case Bb
Once again refer to your district curriculum. One prevailing thought is to start only with lower case and building the motor memory ties to the audition and vision to mastery and then teach the upper case. There are many more lower case letters in all written text then upper case. Once the concept is understood then teach the upper case.

19. Capitals with Letter Cards
2008 Edition Kindergarten Teacher Guide pg. 40
LETTER CARD – Audience Participation
Props: Letter D Card and Wood Pieces - Audience places Letter D card in front of them.
Introduce the  (smiley face)
The  is easy to recognize.
The  orients the child to the top – right-side-up
The  orients the child to the left – left-to-right order
Say, English is a top-to-bottom, left-to-right language for reading and writing.
Audience Participation - Have audience:
Take 1 big line, point it to the  and place it on the D’s big line
Take 1 big curve and place it on the D’s big curve
Say: When the big line is on the left side (under the )
The next part will be on the right side
Children are ready for D card if they:
Can match the wood pieces (big line, little line, big curve, little curve)
Can move the wood pieces to place on top of card
Can imitate and follow very simple directions
Tip – Children with Autism often do well with the cards because of their preference for visual learning.
Also…
2008 Edition Kindergarten Teacher Guide pg. 41
Back of Card: Audience – please read detailed instruction 19

20. Let’s Do the Math 20 2008 Edition Kindergarten Teacher Guide pg. 22
Presenter explains by writing examples on flip chart
Capitals start in 1 place – the top ABEF
Capitals are 1 size ALL TALL
Capitals are in 1 position DOG
BUT
Lowercase start in 4 or more places a b e f
Lowercase have 2 sizes TALL DESCENDING small
Lowercase have 3 positions d o g
Do the math!
CAPITALS - 1 x 1 = 1 x 1 = 1
If a child starts at the top – it’ll be right
Lowercase 4 x 2 = 8 x 3 = 24
If a child starts anywhere, he has a 1 in 24 chance of getting it right!
So not only do we believe in capitals first…but we also feel strongly about teaching them in a developmental order based on the previous slide 20

21. Developmental Order of Teaching Capitals
Some Capitals Are Easier than Others:
2-3 year olds
3-4 year olds
4-6 year olds
2008 Edition Kindergarten Teacher Guide pg. 20
Developmental Information about CAPITALS
This chart helps us know which capitals are easy and which are hard
Audience participation:
A – hard
H – easy
Z – hard
T – easy
Children DO NOT have to know how to draw a square or triangle to begin learning letters
They can start with easy letters that use just vertical and horizontal lines
BUT most K children can do all these shapes
The K instruction and Grade 1 and 2 review is based on formation
Pre-K is a slightly different order for developmental reasons (Refer to Pre-K Teacher Guide pg.10 & 66).
Want to change the order?
You can take a letter out of order for a child’s name
“Meagan wants to learn M!” - OK
Some have more than one diagonal stroke
Some can be reversed
Some change direction during the stroke 21

22. Capitol Clock Letters
C G O Q S C G

23. Capitol Begins with a Line
A B D E F H I
J K L M N P R
TUY

24. Capitol Begins with a diagonal line
V W X Z

25. Lower Case Clock Letters
a c d f g o s qu a d

26. Lower Case Begin with lines
b e h j m n p r u y b m

27. 1, 2 or 3 Lines?

28. Handwriting Principles
Teach the labels to the handwriting grid
I prefer more technical terms… top, middle, bottom, under the bottom along with mnemonics
The clock mnemonic might be helpful
Top
Middle
Other programs use cute mneumonic such as clouds, airplanes, flowers and worms. Other uses fish for below the line but the need to learn and hear the vocabulary of top, middle, bottom and under. It is critical they know these terms as you are going to be spending a lot of time in multi-sensory reading connecting the tactile with the hearing and vision. If they don’t master these terms then too much working memory is spent on trying to figure out what you are asking.
Bottom
Under

29. Handwriting Principles10 2 10 2 4 8 8 4
Clock mnemonic –
I like to take an actual clock face and laminate it onto a super enlarged hand writing sheet. The critical times for handwriting are two, four, ten and eight O’clock. I will demonstrate how I use the clock as we focus on the individual letters.

30. The More You Do, The Worse You Get Phenomena!
Do You See the Problem?
The More You Do, The Worse You Get Phenomena!
Look at these papers!
These are from Jan’s collection. When children come for tutoring, she asks to see their handwriting papers. These are typical, and very revealing examples.
gggg – Oh dear – they look like sperm!
They’re going in the right direction, but the tails aren’t
Do you really think this practice is helpful?
Ffff – He copied this f from the model.
He copied this f from the copy of the model.
He copied this f from the copy of the copy of the model. Etc.
By the time he got here, his f was ruined
It happens in cursive too.
BEST PRACTICE – What you practice is what you get!
Children write their best next to the model.
We want children’s best.
We give them a model for every letter.
Note: Giving children a model for every copy is also left-hand friendly!
In some workbooks and worksheets, left-hand can’t see what they’re copying 30

31. HWT Double Lines Take a look at space… Why Double Lines?
2008 Edition 1st Grade Teacher Guide pg. 48
We use just 2 lines – a base line and a mid line.
The bottom (base) line keeps writing straight
The top (mid) line controls the size
Small letters fit inside the lines. – in the middle space
Tall letters extend above the lines. – to the top space
Descending letters go below the lines. – to the bottom space
Why Double Lines?
Because double lines help children develop an innate sense of letter size and placement. Double lines make all lines easy! 31

32. Why Double Lines Work 32 LETTER SIZE AND PLACE ACTIVITY -
Try this for:
Children who mix sizes
Children who do not know small, tall, and descending letters
Use words from the Dolch list* and teach them in 3 groups.
Teach words with small letters e a o n i r s w u c m v x z,  can, come, in, is, me, one, was, so, etc.
Teach words with tall t h l d b f k and small letters.
it, to, at, into, the, that, will, little, etc.
Note: “d” is the only tall letter that does not start up high!
Teach words with descending g j y p q , tall, and small letters.
like: my, play, up, they, yes, get, just, etc.
Introducing these letter placements in an organized fashion will help the child master the skill. Handwriting will be beautiful!
List of the 250 sight words frequently used in K-3rd grade Just Google “Dolch” to find the words. There are other frequently used word lists too.
Our goal is not to keep them on 2 line paper forever – but to get their writing fluid enough so they can write on any style of paper.
We need to teach letter placement in an organized fashion to help the child master the skill. I see so many children who haven’t been taught placement have problems on all kinds of 2 line paper…the key is demonstration…and organized practice! 32

33. the b d reversal issue b d b d

34. Why do we use a qwerty keybaord?
Keyboarding- qwerty
Why do we use a qwerty
keybaord?
To slow down typing- old typewriters would get hammers stuck when typing too fast.

35. Keyboard VS Handwriting
Keyboarding
Handwriting
Designed for adult hands
Designed to slow down typing
Must be taught for efficiency
Best used after 7th grade
Uses motor memory to develop spelling skills (say sound while writing)
PK-6th grade will write more words by hand then type
Beringer and Wolf