Hi! My name is Miriam Gewirtz and I am a school-based OT working in elementary and middle schools. I have a lot of great ideas and tips I’ve come across over the years, and I look forward to sharing them with you each week.
Did you know that 90% of elementary school teachers say they feel unprepared to teach handwriting? This should ring true to OTs working in schools. If schools provide any handwriting instruction past kindergarten, it stops by the time students are in third grade. This means that OTs are the ones in our schools who have the expertise and know-how to teach students to write legibly, and this has become one of the main school-based goals that occupational therapists address.
Handwriting legibility and speed of writing is an important skill for students. Students are expected to fill out worksheets, tests, and take notes, usually by hand. If handwriting is a source of frustration or difficulty, the actual learning in school becomes even more challenging for students. In fact, some students have so much trouble with handwriting that they are told to type instead, to avoid the distraction that handwriting is for them (and their teachers who must decipher it!)
Interestingly enough, research shows that the actual act of writing helps in the learning process. This is because the activity of writing activates specific pathways in the brain. (Let’s talk more on this in a future post about writing vs. typing for students with handwriting difficulties.)
First, though, let’s spend some time talking about handwriting basics – the things that work in kids who write legibly and create the underlying deficiencies that lead to poor handwriting in others. Some topics I will address will be about how handwriting difficulties can be attributed to poor fine motor skills, poor visual perceptual skills, or poor visual motor skills.
Stay tuned for more each week!
-Miriam