[senco-forum] Handwriting

Wow! that brings back memories Brendan.  And we had to sit up properly why
we were doing it, no noses three inches from the paper and kids seem to do
these days.

Always remember one poor left handed lad, being forced to right with right
hand.

Mind you know, 50 years on, I have lost all my handwriting skills - truly,
it's because I use a keyboard all day, I now cannot handwrite a letter.

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of
kngbrndn at aol.com
Sent: 06 March 2007 10:43
To: SEN at tringham.net; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Handwriting

When I was at school in the 50's -- we used to spend an hour lesson a day on
handwriting practice. We all had to conform to a very ridgid set of rules.
Our teachers were not gifted inspirers of wisdom and knowledge -- but they
could all write on the blackboard in chalk with perfect model cursive
script.

Older folk will remember the specially lined paper -- so that the height of
the t's were below the height of the looped letters, and all high letters
were of regular height. Also the up slope of the loop had to be a very
precise straight-up angle and all loops perfectly executed and similarly
formed -- and even the dot of the i had to be of precisely the same height
as the t. The roundness of the a's and b's, etc., had to be perfectly
regular -- everyone was supposed to produce perfectly cloned copper-plate
script -- so that no one's writing was distinguishable from one another.

Problem was (despite the impossibility of this to many youngsters) we had
very poor quality paper in our copybooks, and we wrote with school-made
powdered watered-down ink, with pens who's nibs were ruined from being used
as darts. So it was like writing on blotting paper with a couple of tightly
crossed pieces of scratchy fine-wire. Ink-wells used to be plugged with
blotting paper by wags, just to make the writing task a complete nightmare.
The blotting paper transfered in little blobs onto the page smearing all
attempts at writing into an illegible set of smears.

We were just getting around to buying our own biro's -- but these were
banned as an abomination and a 'devils-tool' to encourage sloppy (though
speedy and legible!) writing.

Some rich kids were allowed to use very expensive and prized gold tipped
nibbed fountain pens, filled with parent supplied Watermans (or Stevens)
fountain pen ink. So these half dozen produced the fine copper plate style
of the teacher -- in parent supplied excercise books with quality writing
paper, purchased from Smiths. 

It was their work that was pinned on the wall for the inspection of HMI, the
visiting priest and the rich kids influential parents. Our efforts were
usually in the bin (page roughly torn out) at the end of each lesson.

The teachers did encourage our best efforts -- but this was by hitting us
sharply over the knuckles with a rule, as we struggled to write, if they
considered we were not conforming with the blackboard copper-plate script we
were copying out. This numbed our writing fingers and made any dexterity and
nimbleness in respect of dexterous wrting impossible

A nightmare and a waste of time -- as we all developed our own styles in our
private ball point writing to each other -- and as soon as we left school.
We loved developing our own style of sloping tiny writing (frowned upon from
up on high) and rebelling against the teacher tyranny just for the sake of
rebelling.

Bring back the good old days (I say) of hours of handwriting practice,
endless pages of timed dictation, spelling tests and the cane for any lack
of ability to achieve the teachers impossibly set tasks.
Brendan King 

-----Original Message-----
From: SEN at tringham.net
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Sent: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 8.19AM
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Handwriting

Handwriting is not really addressed by the NC other than to say that it
should be cursive by Year 4.

Teachers are now rated at NO. 1 for poor handwriting pushing doctors to the
NO 2 spot, and unlikely to be making handwriting a priority ( and where in
the timetable exactly(!)

It is not just legibility that is at issue but also speed.  Does child x
only produce 1/2 a page because he is a poor descriptive writer or because
he has poor procioceptor feedback, motor difficulties or dysgraphia?
Without testing writing speed for the whole class periodically how can you
know.

Recent Y4 whole class speed test found that many were writing in the bottom
20% speed wise and were not necessarily the children that might have been
expected to have 'problems'.  It is an area that has been overlooked for too
long.

The collection of primarily Primary writing speed tests that I have found
are still up for grabs.  Secondary speed test available online at PATOSS.

Sharon Tringham

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