Brooklyn School Explores Lessons In Legibility
.jpg)
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
An elementary school in Brooklyn is putting students' handwriting to the test in an effort to perfect their penmanship in an ever growing digital world. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.Teachers and parents at P.S. 261 say their school has been plagued by an epidemic of bad handwriting.
"I think it's happening all over the city and probably all over the country because handwriting isn't taught anymore in the schools," said P.S. 261 Occupational Therapist Nadia Rohrs.
Students' poor handwriting was such a problem that the school decided to invest $17,000 of PTA funds in a comprehensive handwriting program. Teachers spent all day Tuesday learning how to use it in their classrooms.
Handwriting lessons used to be a staple of elementary education. But teachers say they no longer find much time to help students craft perfect letters.
As the keyboard increasingly replaces the pencil, practicing the actual mechanics of writing by hand has fallen out of favor.
"Particularly in the early grades, when they are still learning sounds, we often overlook handwriting because there are so many other things to teach," said P.S. 261 teacher Jamie Fidler.
"We had a huge influx of children who were referred to occupational therapy. Where teachers were saying that their fine motor control in their hands and the gross motor control was really poor and it was affecting their handwriting and their overall academic functioning," said P.S. 261 Data Specialist Sara Cookingham.
After a lot of research and discussion, P.S. 261 chose the program Handwriting Without Tears. Starting in pre-K, students will now spend 15 minutes everyday doing handwriting exercises. It's not just writing endless strings of letters on the dotted line, but using blocks, chalk, water and even songs and dances, to learn the right way to write their ABCs.
"We need to make it fun from the very beginning so they'll want to do it when it comes to actual pencil paper tasks," said Diane Eldridge of Handwriting Without Tears.
Although some teachers occasionally looked bored or skeptical during the day-long presentation, most of the educators say that if they can help their students write quicker, neater and more naturally, it will be easier for students to do well on most other school assignments. And as a bonus, they may have a better chance, someday down the line, of being able to decipher their own grocery lists.