Practice makes Perfect

Spencer Murphy grimaces as he grips his Mickey Mouse pencil, concentrating every atom in his 10-year-old brain and body on making perfect cursive letters appear on his lined paper.

“Ba ba ba,” he writes, paying special attention to where the “b” stops and links up with the “a.” “Be be be,” he copies in careful script.

Murphy, who has had to relearn many skills after being injured in a car crash in 2001, is a student in the handwriting remediation class at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane.

“I’ve noticed a real big change,” Murphy says. “When I do this every day, I naturally become ahead of (my class).”

Handwriting can be a major stumbling block for kids with learning disabilities or other developmental delays, therapists say. But creating legible letters on paper is something that many other kids — and adults — struggle with as well.

Jan Olsen, an occupational therapist, still remembers the day her first-grade son came home in tears, telling her he had the worst handwriting in his class.

Olsen’s son is now 35, a father and a teacher. But the incident inspired her to find a way to teach kids to have good penmanship, without the tears.

Handwriting Without Tears was born, and it’s now one of the most widely used handwriting curricula in the country.

“Being able to present yourself well with your own handwriting is as important for school success as being well-groomed for a job,” says Olsen, whose company is based in Maryland.

And don’t think that just because computers are almost everywhere these days, there’s no need for good penmanship. We still have to fill out job applications, complete forms at the doctors’ office, write out a grocery list or mail a birthday card.

Earlier this year, the SAT added a handwritten essay portion to its widely used college-entrance exam.

So far, 1.4 million high schoolers have completed the SAT essay, and all have been readable, says Caren Scoropanos, spokeswoman for The College Board, which oversees the test.

“It stresses the point that students are paying attention,” Scoropanos says. “They know all the essays are read by people and not computers.”

Plus, there’s a certain pride in being able to communicate with handwritten words, Olsen says.

“People love to make a mark,” she says. “To make a mark and have it be personal is very much a human thing.”

For some kids bedeviled by penmanship, the problem lies in poor fine-motor skills. Improving those skills is a major focus of the handwriting classes at St. Luke’s.

After the kids finished their worksheet last week, they played a game together. In the game, called Time’s Up, players must fit small plastic shapes into the appropriate holes before the timer goes off and they all pop out. Manipulating those pieces builds dexterity, which improves handwriting, says therapist Heidi Anderson, who leads the class.

Not surprisingly, almost all of the handwriting class participants are boys.

“Boys tend not to do a whole lot of fine motor,” Anderson says.

The kids practice writing letters and play hangman. They play catch and build hand strength with clay.

Anderson uses special paper with raised lines and other paper divided into three sections – sky, grass and dirt – to help kids better visualize where the letters go.

“These guys right now are working on legibility,” she says. “Then speed and efficiency.”

At home, parents can start handwriting work early, years before a child will write her first sentence, Olsen says.

Encourage fine-motor development in infants by getting them to pick up those Cheerios and feed themselves, she says.

Then, she says, they’ll be able to learn how to use a spoon and fork and they’ll be prepared to grip their crayons to color.

As they get older, steer them away from the video games and work on puzzles or play with Legos, says Mary Haymond, a teacher at Spokane’s Willard Elementary School.

“All those help with that fine-motor development,” Haymond says. “The more kids use those muscles, the better.”

Haymond, who has been teaching for more than two decades, says she’s seen fine-motor skills drop as computer games have become increasingly popular.

“They’re hooked into computers more at home, with more video games, which I don’t think develops fine-motor muscles at all.”

Haymond’s students don’t do the handwriting drills that their parents or grandparents might remember. Rather, they practice their skills in a more natural way, such as writing stories or letters.

At St. Luke’s, Anderson goes over the children’s‘ papers with a pink pencil.

“Pretty good,” she says. “Just a couple of ‘i’s‘ that didn’t get dotted.”

Spencer Murphy, who was in kindergarten when he was injured in the car crash, suffered tremors after the accident, says his dad, Del Murphy.

He had to relearn how to walk. He couldn’t remember the alphabet.

These days, the articulate fourth-grader doesn’t just walk; he runs. The shaking has stopped, and his handwriting has gotten much better, his dad says.

“Now, it’s almost as good as mine,” Del Murphy says.