Whatever Happened to...Penmanship?

"Handwriting skills complement other language arts skills," says Jan Olsen, founder of Handwriting Without Tears, a Maryland-based program for teaching penmanship.

"I've seen children who didn't seem to care about letters take a real interest after they 'build' a letter out of wood pieces. It's the phenomena of caring about things that we make ourselves. For some, their ability to write opens up their interest in reading."

Olsen's Handwriting Without Tears program was recently adopted as an approved program in California and South Carolina and is used by several school districts and many families.

Olsen's comments are echoed by Myrna McCulloch, founder and director of The Riggs Institute, a nonprofit publisher, teacher, parent, and tutor training agency based in Oregon. McCulloch understands well the rationale that's keeping handwriting instruction out of the classroom - computer usage trumps learning to write - and she strongly disagrees with it.

"Writing helps make an imprint on the brain," McCulloch explains. "If you meet someone and can't remember their name, what do you do? You write it down and you remember it!"

Of the four learning modalities - visual, auditory, oral, and motor, McCulloch says motor skills are the ones that leave the "strongest imprint" and thus provide reinforcement and entry to the other modalities.

Nonetheless, some teachers might find handwriting instruction akin to teaching children how to "ride a horse" when they'll be "driving automobiles" in the real world.

"Many students bring word processors to classrooms," says Pearl Rock Kane, professor of education at Columbia, Teachers College. "And computers do teach children to store things, to file, to organize."

There's no question - even among handwriting instructors - that children must acquire computer skills. But Olsen argues that being able to print and write bolsters self-esteem as well as fosters a special appreciation for words and language. No computer printout can give children the boost that forming letters with their own hands does. And employers value both writing and computing skills.

"A person who can fill out a job application, take a phone message, address a package, and make a list is better qualified for life and work," Olsen says.

Teaching handwriting might be particularly important to children with special needs. Olsen, a registered occupational therapist, points out that learning handwriting can help prevent or correct number reversals. She has several success stories of children who learned to write despite other learning problems. "Children need to move, see, hear, handle and touch while they're learning for optimum results," she says.

Handwriting methods fall into two major categories - D'Nealian and Zaner-Bloser - and both have their advocates. The D'Nealian method is a modified italic form where letters are shaped without lifting the pencil from the paper, thus making letter reversals virtually impossible. Zaner-Bloser uses vertical, straight letters that more closely resemble book print. Some writing techniques, like those espoused by the Riggs Institute, use a combination of both. Handwriting Without Tears uses vertical, straight lines to teach cursive writing.

Nuances of handwriting instruction techniques are moot points, however, if schools aren't devoting time to any handwriting programs at all. If that's the case, Olsen's advice to parents is simple: do it yourself. Better yet, urge your school to train teachers and provide workbooks for handwriting instruction, an action taken by one of Olsen's clients who ended up on a school board handwriting committee.

Whatever they do, parents should not assume that computer use makes learning handwriting obsolete and unnecessary. Kids need both, says Olsen, to function well in the classroom and beyond.