Bailey's Buddy

An article in the Des Moines Register talks about Penmanship. When I was looking for illustrations for this mini-rant I discovered this from the Ames Historical Society.

It says in part:

Austin N. Palmer also wanted to be a fine penman. He worked at a variety of jobs to pay his tuition at a penmanship school in New Hampshire. He became a traveling teacher and in 1879, at the age of 22, he moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Palmer spent two years working for a land company and an insurance company hand writing their documents, as was the practice in those days. His work experience taught him that people needed to be able to write quickly, legibly and without getting tired. He developed what became known as the Palmer Method of handwriting to meet those needs. (my bold)

Quickly, legibly and without getting tired - Wow, what a concept.

When I first started teaching there was not much emphasis on handwriting. Later that changed. The fourth grade teachers in my building decided that if they were going to spend time teaching cursive the rest of us should reinforce it. I, therefore took some time to discover a little bit about how to teach penmanship. Unfortunately by the time the students got to my classroom there were a lot of bad habits to be addressed. For one thing the students did not know how to hold the pen or which muscles to use while writing. The pen should be held as the man in the picture is holding his pen and it is the same if you are left or right handed.

The worst thing a left handed person can do is try to hid his or her left-handedness. After all "left handed people are right minded."

The advice under the picture says:

1. Sit in an upright and easy position. Keep both feet on the floor.
2. Hold the pen firmly, but not so tightly as to cramp the fingers.
3. Place the hand on the paper.

The other thing to do is to use the large muscles of the arm and not the small muscles of the hand to write with.

It is easy to spot the people who are doing it wrong. Their pens "bonce" up and down as they write. The ones who use the large muscles hold their pens in the same relationship to the hand and consequently do not "bounce"

I had a student who did not have the most legible penmanship who wrote to me as an adult wanting to improve his writing. I sent him a penmanship book and some instruction about how to hold his pen and which muscles to use. He was motivated and today his penmanship is
beautiful and easy to read.

How NOT to hold the pen

Penmanship can and should be taught. The Register article says:

"Studies show troubles with grade-school handwriting can lead to problems later with spelling, grammar and punctuation."

A former Ames principal is quoted:

"I think schools feel pressure to cover more and more things, and I think the handwriting ... maybe it's something they've let slip a little bit," said Kevin Fangman, who oversees the state education department's preschool through 12th-grade division.
...
"When the actual production of the writing is slow and hard, you're focusing more on that than what you're trying to say," Fangman said.

We taught penmanship as part of our Language Arts Curriculum. (I used to get my students very upset with me by requiring that work be turned in in cursive. It was mandatory and when a student turned in a paper with manuscript rather than cursive and had to do it over they soon learned to "follow the rules." )

Good penmanship should be a requirement of the curriculum.

The article also says:

• Iowa Department of Education officials are pushing for a mandatory state writing test.

I am not sure these are the same thing. Writing tests do not rate penmanship. Writing tests rate a students ability to write. The ability to communicate thoughts on paper in a clear concise and (sometimes) beautiful way. Putting it down quickly, legibly and without getting tired
is another thing altogether. A mandatory state ____________test seems to be the panacea for all of educations ills. Ever since "No Child Left Behind" we seem to feel the need to "test" everything these days.

I would be more inclined to "monitor" things. Get principals into the classrooms to see what is going on. Make sure that the curriculum is being taught. Be sure that the teachers are trained and emphasize the importance of covering everything. Monitor and train the teachers. Make sure that they have time to teach everything. A writing test should show the ability write. A rubric is used to evaluate the ability to write. Whether or not you can read the penmanship is the "test" of good penmanship.

Thanks for stopping by. ARTYAL.