- Happy Handwriting and Cheerful Cursive are lesser known gems in the treasure of handwriting curriculum. Not only do these comb-bound volumes cover all the handwriting skills your child needs to be taught, but they can be photocopied to use with your entire family.
- Having back-and-forth conversations with your children can help foster one of the most important skills for a happier and more successful life.
- Handwriting Help Teach To Be Happy Wishes
- Handwriting Help Teach To Be Happy Birthday Card
- Handwriting Help Teach To Be Happy Birthday
1. The brain engages differently when we write something by hand as opposed to typing it on a keyboard or by touching a screen. Studies show that writing improves memory; students retain learning better when working with new ideas through handwriting instead of typing.
The teacher will tell the students to take out their Happy Notebooks. The teacher will tell the students they have 10 minutes to write entries into their notebooks and to come up with at least 10 happy thoughts. The teacher will also write in their own Happy Notebook.
2. Engaging the body in writing by hand helps make writing a more holistic activity. There is something uniquely physical and multidimensional about putting pen to paper to form words and sentences.
3. Learning the alphabet by interacting with each letter in many different physical ways helps students imprint and retain the letters and the letter sounds for easier recall when learning to read. Learning letters on a screen engages at most two physical channels: the eyes and the fingertips. It is not possible to tell one letter from another by the shape of the keys. Learning letters through writing them involves numerous tactile experiences, engaging the fine-motor muscles of the fingers and hand, and larger muscles of the arm and body, as well as the eyes.
4. Many writers attest to the value of a handwritten first draft and the subsequent process of reading through and interacting with their writing by annotating, correcting, editing, and reshaping it as a whole. Typing on a screen tempts us instead to edit as we go, fragmenting and dissecting, and potentially interfering with the organic flow of ideas.
5. Even in this digital age, many accomplished people consider it critical to their success to keep a small notebook and pen handy so that they can jot down ideas in the moment and refer back to them later.
6. Many historical documents were written by hand and are now indecipherable to any who are unable to read cursive. The ability to read handwriting is gained through learning to write in one’s own handwriting. Being able to decipher both cursive and print is an important part of language literacy.
7. Handwriting can help us slow down and fully engage with our thoughts. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I type as fast as I think”? This is certainly an asset when transcribing the spoken word, but thoughts need to breathe (as do writers), and writing by hand conveniently holds such a space for thoughts to fully form before being set down in sentences.
8. With a pen in hand, there are instantly accessible creative and artistic opportunities that are not possible to weave into the experience of typing on a keyboard.
9. Handwriting is unique to each individual writer, unlike typeface. One’s handwriting style, and especially one’s signature, is a public and permanent statement. Learning to write well can help make that statement strong, beautiful, and – perhaps most importantly – legible.
10. Handwritten notes to friends and loved ones are intimate and personal in a way that email and typewritten text cannot fully convey. Nothing but handwriting can fully represent the mood and personality of the writer. A handwritten love note is a creative gift to cherish!
Handwriting Help Teach To Be Happy Wishes
11. Proficient writing has a soothing flow and rhythm. While technology and culture is goading us to work faster and more intensely, tasks such as writing can help us find healthy balance in our work, our learning, and our play.
12. Being able to write effortlessly enables the mind to focus more fully on a topic. Struggling with handwriting takes valuable brain energy away from any writing task, but when that skill is mastered, it makes all the difference. Skilled, fluid handwriting is an asset to learning!
Sources and resources
What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades, by Maria Konnikova (New York Times, June 2, 2014).
The Importance of Teaching Handwriting,by Louise Spear-Swerling.
Why is Handwriting Still Important in the Digital Age? (Pen Heaven).
Behind Every Successful Person is a Notebook Full of Ideas (Pen Heaven).
How Handwriting Trains the Brain: Forming Letters Is Key to Learning, Memory, Ideasby Gwendolyn Bounds. (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 5, 2010).
The Importance of Handwriting Instruction: Handwriting instruction is crucial for a child’s education, by J. Richard Gentry Ph.D. (Psychology Today, January 09, 2014.)
Master penman Jake Weidmann
Keep Learning…
Unfortunately, many schools have eliminated teaching one of the most critical elements of education: handwriting. Although children are expected to write legibly, many have never been taught how. Without a solid writing foundation, many kids begin to form bad writing habits and then struggle with handwriting throughout the rest of their formal education. Stop these bad habits from forming and help your child build a strong writing foundation with these handwriting tips for kids!
#1 Get the right grasp
Many kids are at a disadvantage with writing even before their pencil hits the paper because they are using an immature grasp for their age. Pencil grasps follow a typical developmental progression and by around age 3.5, children should be using a “tripod grasp” or holding the pencil with 3 fingers, similar to the grasps of older children and adults. Check out this article, Teaching Kids Pencil Grasp for easy ways to get your child’s grasp to where it should be.
#2 Start with Lines
Each letter in the alphabet is made up of some combination of vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or curved lines, so if your child can draw these lines, then he has the capability to make each letter. There is a typical developmental progression for drawing lines, so make sure you follow this sequence when introducing lines:
#3 Move to Shapes
After your child learns how to draw each line, help them to practice placement and connecting lines together by drawing shapes. The basic shapes (cross, circle, square, and diamond) contain all of the line types needed to make each letter. Follow this sequence of shape drawing:
#4- Don’t learn letters in ABC order
One of the most common mistakes is teaching handwriting in ABC order. As mentioned above, children’s handwriting follows a natural pattern of development (vertical lines, horizontal lines, circular lines, and diagonal lines). So, it makes sense to teach the letters that contain horizontal and vertical lines first, then move to those with circles, and lastly those letters containing diagonals. Here’s the order of which letters to teach in accordance to developmental patterns:
Handwriting Help Teach To Be Happy Birthday Card
#5- Use Dots for Correct Starting Points
Letters are meant to be formed in a top-down direction which means each letter needs to start at the top. If letters aren’t formed properly and they start at the bottom, there’s a greater tendency that the letter will be reversed (written backwards) or written illegibly. So, get your child in the habit of good letter formation by placing dots at the top of where each letter should begin.#6- Don’t just write letters, MAKE letters!
As with anything we learn, we retain information better when it’s presented in a hands-on way. Reinforce learning by making letters out of fun materials like Play Doh, Twizzlers, pipe cleaners, or popsicle sticks! After you build the letter several times, have the child trace it and then write it.
Handwriting Help Teach To Be Happy Birthday
Whether your child is just beginning to learn how to write or has been writing for years, its never to late to try these tips for writing improvement!