in-person lecture: handwriting without tears

stages of learning

1. imitation:

   1. child watches as the teacher writes and then imitates the teacher

2. copying:

   1. child looks at the completed model of a letter, word, or sentence and copies it to match the model

3. independent writing:

   1. child writes unassisted, without a demonstration or a model

multisensory

engage students in a fun, interactive way-dynamic classroom environment

• visual

  • Large step-by-step visual directions to teach letter formation

  • Large arm movements and props so students can see easily and follow along

• tactile

  • Use Wet–Dry–Try activities on a slate or blackboard

  • Finger tracing

  • Building activities that teach letter formation and promote motor skill development.

• auditory

  • Consistent, child-friendly language

  • Music and different voices

• kinesthetic

  • Music and movement to teach letter formation, social skills

  • Develop motor memory through body movement and hands-on activities.

paper type materials

• Gray block paper

• Double lined paper

• Big sheet draw and write pape

letter play materials

• Roll a dough letters

• Stamp and see screen

• Wood pieces

  • Capital letter cards for wood pieces

  • Mat for wood pieces

• Magic C Puppets

backboard products materials

• Slate chalkboard

• Blackboard with double lines

• Little sponge cubes

writing utensil materials

• Flip crayons

• Pencils for little hands

• Little chalk bits

developmental stages in writing

• 2 yr

• 3 yr

• 4 yr

• 5 yr

• 2 yr

  • Arm in the air fisting the crayon - arm writing

  • Helper hand high in the air- imitation of the other hand

  • Random contact with the paper —> scribbles

• 3 yr

  • Hiked up writing arm fisting crayon - arm writing

  • Helper hand down on the paper

  • Copies lines down and across —> circle and cross

• 4 yr

  • Hiked shoulder, more appropriate grasp - arm writing

  • Helper hand down

  • Shapes emerging

• 5 yr

  • Set and ready to learn handwriting

  • Forearm on the table!

    • In order to isolate movement of hand for HANDwriting the forearm must be on the table

get set for school:

pre-K curriculum

• Developmentally appropriate, multisensory approach to readiness skills.

• NOT formal handwriting instruction

  • Structured but informal way of building a foundation of readiness in children

• We don’t throw a ball at a child and say learn to catch; we don’t hand a baby a fork to teach feeding, yet we hand a child a pencil and say write

preparing young children

• through the use of different multi-sensory experiences

• teaches children

• through the use of different multi-sensory experiences

  • Finger play

  • Hands on letter play

  • Mat Man

  • Music

  • Tactile activities

  • Movement

• teaches children

  • Manipulating their fingers

  • Imitation

  • Following directions

  • Handedness and bilateral skills

  • Memory

  • Tactile discrimination

  • Body awareness

  • Drawing pictures of people

  • Body parts

  • Working as a group

hands on letter play:

• wood pieces

• Call them lines (not sticks); we use lines in writing

• Capital letter cards

• On the mat- teaches the motor plan of left to right

hands on letter play:

• roll-a-dough letters

• With or without letter cards

• Other things to do with the tray- shaving cream, sand, putty, golf tee to write letters- teaches graded movement

hands on letter play:

• stamp an see screen

• Developed to help children with sequencing

• Letter recognition

• Directionality

• Writing tool- the tool is small to fit into small hands and encourages the use of a mature grasp; placed in the middle for right/left-handed children

hands on letter play:

• wet-dry-try

• student do NOT start with blank slate

• multi-sensory

• repetition

mat man

• Teaches body awareness

• Helps organize children

• Prepares them to draw a picture of a person

• Teaches body parts and function

• Visual perception -associate parts to whole, figure-ground to find the desired pieces from a collection

• Socialization skills -small group task, following instructions

• Number awareness-counting legs, eyes, wooden pieces

• Shape recognition -building and naming shapes within the picture.

teaching grip

• not a natural skill —> needs to be taught

• crayon song

• air writing

• child is shown how to hold the crayon; they then aim to the star and
  scribble around

  • drop the crayon and do again; repeat multiple times

• it is the grip on the crayon we are focusing on!

• gives opportunity to practice and build motor plan

• create sheets with stamps

• HWT believes in using crayons to teach proper grip to very young children; children will naturally transfer this skill when they begin to use pencils

posture

Table/desk Check

• Feet flat on the floor

• Knees at right angle

• Trunk straight or leaning forward to write

• Arms can rest comfortably on table; lift your shoulders; push them back

handwriting without tears workbooks

• Visually simple

  • HWT left the detail out of the pictures in the workbooks

  • Illustrations promote left-to-right directionality-illustrations go left to right across the page to encourage correct visual tracking and writing direction

  • Black and white

• No grade level on cover

• Accommodate lefties and righties

  • Pages provide models on the left and right so that left- handed children can easily see the model they are copying

• Cross-curriculum connections

workbookds

• Preschool /Get set for school

  • Crayon only workbook- increased sensory feedback

  • Letters at the bottom of the book to help children stop – they want to stay on the page

  • Shapes are taught throughout the book to encourage pre-strokes of letters

• Kindergarten workbook/Letters and Numbers for Me

  • Letter recognition

  • Correct letter and number formation

• First grade workbook/ My Printing Book

  • Lowercase letters with a review of the capital letters

• Second grade workbook/ Printing Power

  • Reviews both capital and lowercase letters

  • copying of sentences, words and paragraphs

• Third grade workbook /Cursive Handwriting

  • Starts with pre cursive writing techniques

  • Upper and lower case letters, words and phrases

• Fourth grade workbook/ Cursive Success

  • full review of the lower case letters and instruction of the capital letters

  • Stories included for copy work

• Fifth grade workbook/Can-DO Cursive

  • cursive writing skills with proper grammar

• Can-DO Print

  • Fifth graders or older students who prefer printing to cursive, but still need practice

  • Quick, thorough review of printing

  • Printing skills are used to write paragraphs, poetry, and thank you notes.

learning the letters:

capitals first

• Capitals are easy

  • All start at top

  • All same height

  • All occupy same vertical space

• Lowercase are hard

  • Start in four different places (a,b,e,f)

  • Not the same size

  • Small, tall, descending

• Kids see capital letters everywhere

  • STOP, EXIT

• frog jump capitals:

  • start at top left corner with big line;

  • first line is on the left, next part on the right- less reversals

  • teaches good habit

  • F, E, D, P, B, R, N, M

• starting corner capitals

  • start at the top left and use left to right formation habits

  • prepares them for u, v, w, x, y, z

  • H, K, L, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

• center starting capitals

  • C,O,G,Q, start with magic C

  • C, O, Q, G, S, A, I, T, J

directions for capitals

lower case letter order

• Taught in 5 groups

• All start at the top except d, e.

• 1) SAME AS CAPITALS AND t

  • c, o, s, v, w, t (made like capital T just crossed lower)

• 2) MAGIC C

  • High frequency letters

  • Familiar with magic c stroke

  • a, d, g

• 3) TRANSITION GROUP

  • u, i, e, l, k, y, j

• 4) DIVER LETTERS

  • Letters dive down, swim up, swim over

  • Avoid b and d confusion by separating them and teaching them by formation

  • p, r, n, m, h, b

• 5) FINAL GROUP

  • Separate g and q confusion

  • x and z are infrequently used

  • f, q, x, z

directions for lowercase

***letter stories

• Help children remember formation

• b- honeybee

  • lets make letter h

  • now lets make another h

  • i have a surprise

  • this is an h for honeybee; turn h into b; h —> b

• e- run the bases

  • batter up to the bat

  • here comes the pitch

  • hit the ball, wait, then run the bases: first, second, third, stop! it’s not a home run!

• f- fire hose squirts

  • f is like water squirting out of a fire hose; it goes up and then falls down

• g- if george falls

  • inside g lives a little man named George

  • (draw a little face in g)

  • he says “ohhhh, if I fall, will you catch me? sure, I will catch you if you fall”

• k- karate k

• m- stinky m

  • if m has a big gap people will throw trash in the gap; don’t make a big gap!

  • (only leave room for an upside-down chocolate kiss)

• q- U-turn

  • the letter q is followed by u

  • think of quiet, quit, quibble, and quant

  • at the bottom of q, stop and make a U-turn.

• Yy

  • if you are nervous about going down the slide- first try the small slide!

  • wow, now I can do the big one!

the hand activity

• Used for teaching correct size and placement of capitals and lowercase letters

  • Make a flat hand for all capitals

  • Make a fisted hand for small letters (a, c , e, I, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z)

  • Point the index finger up for tall letters (b, d, f, h, k, l, t)

  • Point the thumb down for descending letters(g, j, y, p, q

  • Note: Don’t use this activity for children learning sign language because it may create confusion

  • Can also do this for words

mystery letters

• Used for teaching correct letter formation

• The secret is making the first stroke correctly before telling children the name of the letter they’re going to make

  • Ensures that students start the letter correctly and consistently

• For F E D P B R N M

  • Start in the starting corner, Big line down Frog jump to the starting corner, Now make ___

• For C O Q G

  • Start at the top center, make a Magic C, Now make ____

• For S A I T J

  • Start at the top center, Now make ____

HWT double lines

• Just 2 lines – a base line and a mid line- We learn to drive on two lain highway!

  • The bottom (base) line keeps writing straight

  • The top (mid) line controls the size

• Visually Simple

• 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

• 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

line generalization

• Workbooks provide activities for children to experience different types of lined paper

• They begin with the simple double lines, then we teach them to master all lines

learn and check

• Teach children to check their letter, word, and sentence skills

• Check-letters for correct start, all steps, and bumping the lines

• Check words for correct size, placement, and closeness

• Check sentences for correct capitalization, word spacing, and punctuation

• If they discover a mistake, allow them to erase it and re- doredo

assessment

• This is not a test. Can be used mid-year or at the end of the year to track a child’s progress

• Can also use as a before after to collect information

• Name 10 letters

  • HWT researched the most popular letters to begin children's names –this list only shows these letters

special needs:

general tips

• be very consistent with the child

• remove distractions

• give frequent break

special needs:

fine motor activities

• Use the first 15-20 minutes of a session doing fine motor work

• Spend the last 10 minutes of a session forming letter

special needs:

autism

• Be very repetitious- photocopy workbook pages so the child can practice the lesson more than once

• Tangible hands-on materials

• Use the Magic C Bunny to incorporate socialization and interaction

• Use as many multisensory experiences as possible

• Children who do not respond well to verbal cues (language) tend to do well with the HWT program

  • you can demonstrate many of the teaching techniques with few or no verbal cues as the child attends visually to the task

• Teacher demonstration and child imitation are the keys to successful handwriting

special needs:

down syndrome

• Use a modified pencil grasp

• Use several multisensory activities and repetitions

• If the child has low tone, adapt seating in the classroom and at home; you may also want to work on extra fine motor activities to strengthen the hands

special needs:

poor vision

• Use bright colors with a bright contrasting mat (black and white works well)

• Enlarge all workbook pages

• Use a larger slate for capitals and numbers (11×17)

• Double lines can work well for children with poor vision

• You may need to enlarge or thicken lines with a marker until the child is comfortable with the chosen size; providing a texture on the lines will also help the child locate the line position

special needs:

cerebral palsy

• Help with establishing good positioning

  • If the child is in a wheelchair, try using a lap tray during writing time for support and stability of the arms and shoulders

• If the child only has use of one extremity, clamp down paper and other materials using a clipboard clamp screwed into the lap tray

• If the child has problems with muscle tone, try an adapted pencil grip for more control of the pencil

special needs:

asperger syndrome

• repetition

• simple

• cautious of abstract teaching strategies

special needs:

dyslexia

• Typically struggle with organization and using language effectively

• The HWT teaching techniques help the child develop good habits and make letter writing automatic

  • Starting at the top with letter formation; learning a left-to-right flow in the sequence of reading and writing

• Use the Slate and Gray Blocks to correct letter and number reversals

• Introduce Wood Pieces to teach correct formation of all capital letters

• Teach letters in groups of similar strokes, as taught in the workbooks

special needs:

dysgraphia

• Trouble producing written language due to poor motor planning

• Struggle with organizational skills and movements that need to be in an automatic and specific order, such as the formation of letters for writing

• Teach the shapes (parts and pieces) of the letters using the Wood Pieces Set and the smiley face mat

• Use the Slate and Gray Block Paper to correct reversals. The smiley face will become a consistent reminder of the starting corner

• Provide visual models for the child to follow- pictures in the workbooks give additional visual cues

• Teach the letters in the recommended groups of similar strokes