Hospital to host kids handwriting camp

A camp for youngsters who have not yet had handwriting instruction, who may have fine motor delays, or who just need a refresher, is planned this summer at Goodall-Witcher Hospital in Clifton.

Hosted by the hospital's Rehabilitation Services Department, the second annual camp is designed for ages three to eight. Sessions will focus on correct letter formation, eliminating letter reversals, and correct sizing of letters. Activities will also target fine motor skills, hand strength and dominance, and holding the pencil correctly to make writing easier.

 

The camp will be conducted by an Occupational Therapist who uses a multi-sensory approach, making handwriting fun for the students.

The timing of the camp is due to the summer vacation from school, when some students experience a lapse in handwriting skills, said Jessica Steward, Certified Occupational Therapist Assistant. Steward will help Vargas facilitate the local camp.

The camp will be held each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (times to be announced, based on the total number of registrants) starting July 26 and running through Aug. 20. The cost for the course, including workbooks, is $350, and payment is due by July 7.

 

Pre-registration is underway and runs through Monday, June 14, via phone, e-mail, or fax. However, everyone participating in the camp must attend a mandatory registration session on Wednesday, July 7 in order for the facilitators to collect handwriting samples.

To register, e-mail dwise@gwhf.org.

 

Indiana Wants To Keep Cursive Handwriting

Earlier this year the Indiana Department of Education decided to remove cursive handwriting from the state's curriculum, but now some lawmakers want to make it mandatory instead. Two lawmakers said they plan to submit bills when they reconvene in 2012. The education department's directive doesn't ban the teaching of cursive handwriting in class, and many teachers say they're still using it. NWI Times writes: "We haven't totally dropped the concept," (Jim Rice, superintendent of River Forest Community School Corp.) said. "Teachers touch on cursive writing. We're not buying the handbooks like we used to, but we are still emphasizing the techniques. We also are not directly teaching keyboarding. But as teachers are showing students how to use computers, we are working on keyboarding skills." Is cursive really necessary in the digital age? We remember cursive as the hardest subject to tackle in elementary school, and we learned more than we cared to know about the letter C on our report cards. Aside from learning the shame of crummy penmanship, apparently we were also developing motor skills "being able to write easily allows children in later elementary grades to focus on the content of their narratives." We keep wondering one thing, though: If an entire generation grows up without learning cursive, how will they sign their name? Granted most people make a half-assed scribbled attempt at a signature as it is, but surely the digital age will still require a fair amount of paperwork.

Cursive writing in Rhode Island

Cursive handwriting instruction continues to be a subject of great controversy across the nation and in Rhode Island school districts. Rhode Island has adopted the Common Core Standards which appears to focus on proficiency in the actual writing process more than the method that the student utilizes when writing. The focus in the common core standards for the upper elementary grades is keyboarding. Technology is taking a front seat in education and keyboarding fits with that. The Providence Journal reported that cursive is making quite a comeback in Sowams school in Barrington. Barrington is using a program called "Handwriting Without Tears". This program utilizes a hands-on approach to teach cursive writing. Some tools utilized are play-doh, sand and shaving cream. This is not the cursive parents may recall of their childhood. ursive instruction remains a hot topic among educators, parents and administrators. While it is a means to write, to many it is much more than that. In the past few years occupational therapists have been telling parents of children that struggle with handwriting, they only need to sign their name and read it. Some educators state that it is much more than just a way to write, it helps with fluency and ties into reading skills. Cursive handwriting has become such an important issue that there is an educational summit scheduled in Washington, D.C. for January 2012. The summit is entitled "Handwriting in the 21st Century?" Educators and University researchers from across the nation will gather for this summit. Zaner-Bloser in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) will host this all-day summit. While there continues to be controversy regarding cursive writing instruction, many Rhode Island school districts continue to teach this skill in 3rd grade. They designate approximately 30 minutes per week for cursive instruction. As education reform continues to be in the forefront, teaching cursive may have to take a backseat to math or reading instruction.

Cursive and world today

Think back to the last time you hand-wrote a letter rather than a text or an e-mail. If you can’t remember the last time, you’re not alone.

As the country uses typed communication over the handwritten word more and more, schools are questioning if it's worthwhile to keep teaching cursive writing – including District 833.

In recent months a national debate has developed over whether or not to continue teaching cursive writing in the classroom.

“It’s something that’s become one of those hot potato items,” said District 833 Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Assessment Rick Spicuzza. “We’re examining it.”




Within District 833, cursive is taught in third grade after students learn printing.

However, some critics have said the time spent teaching cursive could be better spent on reading, math or science subjects, Spicuzza said.

“We’re trying to identify what ways we can still teach students cursive and not have it consume so much of the school day,” he said. “We are looking to improve our curriculum and maximize our instructional minutes.”

A standard cursive lesson in the elementary schools consists of learning the strokes and spacing of cursive while doing exercises out of a workbook.

The pros and cons of cursive

Spicuzza said he feels that cursive still has a place in today’s society, which is why District 833 has decided to continue teaching it for the time being.

“I think students need to have an awareness of cursive,” he said. “They need to be able to read it because that’s part of the expectations to be well rounded.”




District 833 Literacy Coordinator Donita Stepan said she sees the advantages to maintain cursive as well since research shows it greatly contributes to brain development and motor movement.

However, more and more people are questioning cursive’s usefulness.

Once a student completes third grade, cursive often falls by the wayside since it is up to the student whether or not to continue using it.

This is a dramatic shift from how it used to be, Spicuzza said. Students were expected to write in nothing but cursive once they reached a certain age.

“There is a shift in our society where cursive is rarely expected,” he said. “So, when you think about teaching something that is no longer asked of students, does it still have a place?”



Spicuzza and Stepan said cursive has started to disappear because today’s society lives in a digital world.

For example, when students reach middle school, they are increasingly required to hand in typed assignments, rather than handwritten.

“At some point in time, calligraphy was taught in schools too, but that’s no longer the case,” Spicuzza said. “We live in a digital world and things are changing.”

Spicuzza and Stepan said they can’t see cursive being eliminated from District 833 classrooms in the near future.

“There’s still a lot of cursive out there,” Stepan said. “It’s too early to get rid of it – we’re just not ready to let it go yet.”

Even though cursive will remain in the classroom for the time being, Spicuzza said District 833 will continue to look at it and evaluate whether or not to keep it.

“There isn’t going to be an immediate shift,” he said. “But, we’re not naïve enough to say that we shouldn’t be looking at it.”

Doctors, pharmacists and prescriptions - Bad handwriting can kill

While more experienced pharmacists seem to have no problem reading doctors, prescriptions, new pharmacists often struggle to read the names of medications.

Mohammed Ali holds a handwritten prescription, which looks more like a scrawl, and goes from one pharmacy to another on Doctors Street in Erbil, looking for one that has the drugs he needs. He reads English, but he can't read what the prescription says. He was unable to find the drugs he needed and is convinced the pharmacists couldn't read the prescription.




Ali is worried because he couldn't get the drugs his doctor prescribed. He wonders if the pharmacists, unable to read what his doctor had written, simply avoided admitting they couldn't read the name of the medication and simply say, "we don't have that drug."

Pharmacist Aso Loqman has been in his profession for years, and read the prescription easily. He said new pharmacists have a harder time reading doctors, writing.

Dr. Ari Salahaddin, a chest surgery specialist, said according to a poll conducted 10 years ago in the U.S., doctors, handwriting is hard to read. "Physicians should not scribble and write carelessly. Sometimes they [physicians] write just a letter "A" and no one knows what the letter means. But there are some standard medical abbreviations and experienced pharmacists know them," said Salahaddin.




A pharmacist at Lanwe pharmacy, Salar Fatah, said doctors should not write the prescriptions so carelessly. "The names of the medicines have to be written fully and carefully," said Fatah. He thinks few physicians have good handwriting. "It has become a puzzle why physician, handwriting is so hard to be read," he said.

Dentist Mustafa Rassul believes there is a reason behind doctors, poor handwriting: "Medical students cannot write all their notes in full during classes, so they have to rely on writing short notes." He said prescriptions in Europe are typed so patients and pharmacists can read what is written.

Naz Abdulqadir, a pharmacist, is new to the profession. She says when she has difficulty reading a prescription, she consults her colleagues. If she is alone and can't understand the items on the prescription, she sends the patient back to the physician to ask him to write the prescription more legibly. She suggests physicians type their prescriptions so patients can be certain about what they are given.




Salahaddin believes pharmacists and physicians understand each other. He says physicians do not have much time to spend writing prescriptions and instead prefer to spend more time asking patients questions.

Dr. Ashna Hatam, another physician, says there have been times when she has had difficulty understanding the prescriptions, as she hasn't been able to read the handwriting. She says physicians should write the chemical names of the drugs rather than the brand names. That way, she says, there will be fewer mistakes.

Handwriting of Charles Dickens

Back in June, Amazon named Alison Espach's debut novel The Adults one of its "Best Books of 2011...So Far." She was understandably happy, until the 'so far' part kicked in near the end of the year, and she found herself crowded out by bigger names and bigger books. To her credit, she's not treating this like some sort of betrayal on Amazon's part. So far means so far. But she does bring up one policy Amazon might want to reconsider: the removal of "the gold badge...inscribed Best Book of 2011, and then in small print, 'So Far" from Espach's author page after she was moved off the list. Those things encourage buyers, and let people know, "Hey, we also liked this as well." It may have been in a different time and different place, but there's no harm in standing by the good ones. [Salon]

A manuscript facsimile of Great Expectations is available to purchase for the first time. Buyers should steel themselves, however, for the terrible handwriting of author Charles Dickens. Dr. Caroline Murphy, the publisher of the facsimile, says that's part of the charm. "We tend to forget how easy it is with computers," Murray notes you just do it and delete it. The actual visual sense of how something is composed will be lost to us in the future, but here it is very tangible." She continues: "What I find interesting is first how terrible his handwriting was, and second what an awful lot of changes there are. He obviously went back and revised and scribbled things out quite frequently ... The fact he did have changes of mind, that he scribbled things out, makes him seem more human." This will likely be true, for the readers who don't suffer migraines after five paragraphs. [The Guardian]






Oren Teicher, the CEO of the American Booksellers Association, has written an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos complaining about the company's Price Check app, which lets users go into a bricks-and-mortar star, scan an item's bar code, and then see if Amazon offers it for a lower price. As part of a special promotion tomorrow, Amazon will shave 5% off the price of items looked up on Price Check, with savings capped at $5. The tactic has Teicher fuming. ""We could call your $5 bounty to app-users a cheesy marketing move and leave it at that," he writes. "In fact, it is the latest in a series of steps to expand your market at the expense of cities and towns nationwide, stripping them of their unique character and the financial wherewithal to pay for essential needs like schools, fire and police departments, and libraries." That's followed by an oblique reference to Amazon's new push for an online sales tax, capped off with the Dirty Harry Callahan approved parting line: "See you on main street." [ABA via Publishers Weekly]

Cambridge University Library houses the bulk of Isaac Newton's papers, which the school is just now starting to digitize and make available online. It's an ambitious project (the five notebooks currently online total 1,750 scanned pages), but you don't have to remember any calculus to derive pleasure from reading 350-year-old first drafts and methodically worked-out equations and diagrams on pieces of scrap paper. These are just the notes he took while doing his geometry and mathematics readings as an undergrad. Look at all the words! Words don't belong in math homework.

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