Is the art of handwriting about to be written off?, asks Sylivia Thompson
EILISH CONWAY has happy memories of the clowns and puppets who entertained the children at the national handwriting competition award ceremony earlier this year.
The five-year-old girl from Co Clare was one of this year's winners of the annual competition run by the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) and sponsored by the Educational Building Society (EBS).
"She is the youngest of five children and I always noticed how handwriting came very easily to her," says her mother, Mary Conway. "She writes with a great flow and has no trouble holding the pencil. In fact, she had this from a young age and was never awkward about holding the pencil."
Now in its 16th year, the EBS/INTO handwriting competition seems almost quaint in this age of text messages, laptops and the increasing use of white-boards by teachers themselves in schools.
Are children less inclined to focus on handwriting in this technological age?
No, not at all, according to Declan Kelleher, primary school principal and current president of the INTO. "Handwriting is still a very significant skill that is taught in primary schools," he says.
"It is clearly embedded in the primary school curriculum but what has changed is that we put more emphasis on the process of writing [with pupils writing first and second drafts for essays] and the content of what is written, rather than the method or quality of the handwriting."
So, how can parents help their children value handwriting when they see less use of it in the world around them? "It's important that parents encourage children to master printing and cursive writing but it's also important that parents don't knock children for sloppy handwriting," says Kelleher.
"We must remember that many geniuses had handwriting which was difficult to decipher," he says.
As a school principal, he is keen to stress that in spite of the arrival of computers (many of which need to be upgraded, he adds), handwriting has a fundamental status in the primary school curriculum.
Parents can be supportive of their children's progress in handwriting, both by keeping an eye on neatness of homework and attending come-and-see days in schools where children's work is on display.
"In all schools, you'll still see children's work on the walls with pictures and handwritten parts underneath. Handwriting is highly individualised, and representative of each child's personality, and children take great pride in their handwriting," he adds.
Scribbling and using plasticine for making letters are key pre-writing skills for young children. Parents can help young children prepare for handwriting by giving them opportunities to draw, to finger-paint or to trace out shapes in sand or flour.
Many of these pre-writing skills are incorporated into playschool and Montessori school activities.
Once in school, teachers will emphasise how good pencil grip is a key aspect of confident handwriting. And most schools encourage children in junior infants to use three-sided pencils which aid their grip.
There are also special rubber grips available for children who have difficulty holding the pencil in the optimum position for writing.
The move from printing to cursive (joined-up) writing generally happens between second and fourth class. And, here again, Kelleher stresses, it's important to encourage children's fluency with words and expression as much as, if not more than, their handwriting.
On a related note, Declan Kelleher says that he does have concerns about the popularity of texting. "What I've noticed is that if you walk through any other European city or town, you don't see the same amount of people texting as you do here. I am concerned about how it might influence spelling, but I haven't seen any research on it yet," he says.
"The bigger problem is that we've almost become mechanised and even children spend a lot of time reacting to screens of different sorts. We need to re-emphasise the value of books for the imagination and the value of one-to-one interaction between parents and their children," he adds.
On a more general level, Kelleher believes that parents' role in their children's education needs to be further developed. He says now that the new primary school curriculum has been fully implemented in all schools, it's an opportune time for schools to offer parents information sessions on the different subjects.
"Some schools already do this, but I think it would be a good idea to upskill teachers to give evening seminars to groups of parents from a few schools in an area on different aspects of the curriculum. This will need resources of course, but as a kind of in-service for parents, it will be a form of empowerment. I think parents across Ireland are ready for that input from teachers and it will help increase positivity towards education in general."
• Details for the 2009 Handwriting Competition will be released to all primary schools throughout the country in January. Contact your local school for details, or call 01-665 9521