[senco-forum] Handwriting help

Handwriting<<<

I agree with John's recommendations.
I would also add: 
Take a look at Briems Martians for a boy this age ... see
http://briem.ismennt.is/4/4.1.4a/4.1.4.1.control.htm    and use it with the
whole class!! 

and would add a word of caution re the use of Dragon Dictate ( which is an
excellent tool) - the caution: Beware of puberty interfering! We introduced
it to my son just as we had got to a reasonable level of training the system
to recognise his voice - his voice broke! the system no longer recognised
his voice:  Back to square one demoralised  and faciong the retraining all
over again .

For further detailed assistance contact the National Handwriting Association
www.nha-handwriting.org.uk 

Kind regards
Julie Bennett

www.key4u.co.uk  
01234 781698

-----Original Message-----
From: John Bergin [mailto:john.e.bergin at ntlworld.com] 
Sent: 04 April 2007 09:38
To: senco forum
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Handwriting help

>>>Handwriting<<<

...Compute....agreed ....Dragon...oh yes ...but....

Handwriting is very personal and criticism is like an attack
on one's personality.. So one must offer what will be willingly accepted as 
help.
It is blindingly obvious that computing is more amenable
to 'support' enhancements .Yet there are a great many folk who want to use 
their own handwriting. & there is still the stigma
of "being on the computer" that is in the literature .....I forget
the reference but not the phrase.

The physiotherapist or Occupational Therapist will have sets
of physical exercises and suggestions re posture, muscle strain-cum-tone, 
pen grip etc; and suggestions re the various pens
and junk  that may help. Talking to them helps re that kind of basics.

Tension will be evident as will frustration so privacy is needed
when re-introducing HW. But it is not a "lesson" per se in terms
of length needed.....what is needed is 10/15 minutes per day
....daily.....consistently.....no excuses. (My weekly checks are longer as 
I'm
an inveterate chatterer who just loves to talk! But then it is one of
my monitoring devices...when they chat back as they write then I know 
automacity is near. Well, that's my excuse anyway.)

Lesley, You say Teodorescu Scheme....... you using "Write from the Start" or

"Speed Up"? Or both? You aiming to teach loops
out of his ears as per the Teodorescu or non loop or loop
descenders, etc, or "he don't care what so just get him writin" routine?

1) The Teoderescu/Addy SU pre-writing exercises are fun if he should/could 
do them. What does the physio or OT suggest?
I taught a double jointed Y 10 and refused to do any of the
stuff that could posibly 'pop' anything. That's an OT job.
I did do piano fingers and tense/untense fist gripping and wrist shaking
re getting rid of rigid hand holding. You know...the old
death grip as concentration gets going.

2) Kath Balcombe's "The Handwriting Files" (Thanks to Elaine re the tip on 
this scheme) and Pippa Chudley's
"The MSL Handwriting Rescue Scheme" fit nicely together as
print offs or p-copies of letters and combine well with Teodorescu
/Addy patterns. Chris Jarman has some advice and downloadable fonts and 
review of schemes.... sorry, yeah, recommends italic.....great easy style 
(....mixed up with horror stories of mad art teachers unfortunately
but if this dyspraxic can.....)
www.quiljar.btinternet.co.uk/sih/html
Sadly Tom Gourdie is no longer wth us and his books are long out of print. 
He says patterns in his books.

3) Patterns, letter element patterns, letter patterns......the key to 
handwriting. Sand tray, big chalk board, big white board, newspaper or big 
sugar paper , on A4 at the end.

4) mam-mbm-mcm-mdm-mem- &tc. The ancient letter speed pattern for practice.

5) "Play, scribble, practice," wrote Arrighi over 500 years ago
....still holds good for today.

My daughter has to take betimes in the year 400mg pills of
ibruprophen and get osteopath massage at exam time because she chose to 
handwrite and not go total computer writing. I sure wish she
would have let me have a go at teaching some tips and hints...ah me,
one's own never do listen or become willing, do they?

Good luck to the young man......
John
(Oh, I've never found the 'perfect pen' yet and I've tried for over 40 
years!)