list of
my favorite handwriting-resource people Mrs. Nan Jay
Barchowsky, 410/272-0836, Fax:
410-297-9767, c/o Swansbury, Inc. P.O. Box Box 117, Aberdeen, MD
21001-0117 USA (e-mail -
swansbury@erols.com)
This handwriting-teacher's book/CD-ROM combination for children, teens,
and adults - BFH,
A MANUAL FOR FLUENT HANDWRITING - appeared July 1997. Order it
from Amazon.com's
online bookstore or from her site at
http://www.BFHhandwriting.com. From Nan's site you can also
order her BEGINNERS'
HANDWRITING, designed for younger children and others who can benefit
from large-scale fluent models and motoric exercises for handwriting
development. The large-scale, large motor, "arm's length" exercises in
BEGINNERS' HANDWRITING develop a good foundation for later handwriting
progress in any style.
Nan developed her teaching method during more than 20
years of experience working in elementary school classrooms and also
tutoring/remediating older learners. Observing the motor skills of
young children enabled Nan to formulate methods that allow children to write at
maximum speed with maximum legibility. Notes Nan, "If children learn to write with the most efficient
movement possible for the human hand, little classroom time need go to
penmanship in years when so many other activities demand attention.
Handwriting can be individual, and a joy!"
To see and hear Nan
Barchowsky at work, go to http://www.npr.org/atc and
enter "Barchowsky" in the search-window. This will take you to the National Public Radio ALL THINGS
CONSIDERED report on her work, complete with soundfile and
photo-gallery links plus other informational links for handwriting help
and handwriting news.
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Dr.
June E. Baskin, Ph.D., 717/326-9731 ,502
Main Street, Williamsport, PA 17701-7610 USA
This educator created a handwriting program which, parents and teachers
agreed, produced more legible, attractive, and speedy writing than the
school district had heretofore considered normal or possible. Yet,
incredibly, the district discontinued the program in 1993 (after 23
years of success) because of the usual drive to lower standards and "be
like everybody else."
Briefly: those parents and community members who could not themselves
write legibly by hand felt offended and disturbed that their children's
handwriting was now superior to their own: some even denounced this
fact as "elitist" and "un-American."
Copies of the Williamsport textbooks (a complete series from
kindergarten through Grade 8) prepared by Dr. Baskin's colleague (the
late Lois McClelland) still exist in Dr. Baskin's possession, as well
as in the ERIC
microfiche files which most university libraries and research
libraries have access to. The ERIC collection
lists these under the name "Functional Handwriting", but the books
provide fun as well as function.
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Ms.
Gemma Black, telephone 6 /25877528,
(Mobile: 015 488296) (e-mail - bblack@pcug.org.au)
(FAX available) 6 Waugh Close, Evatt, ACT, Australia 2617
This professional calligrapher has contacts in the school system of
Canberra, Australia. She can put interested people in contact with
teachers & resources relating to the italic-handwriting program
that Canberra schools have used as their standard penmanship curriculum
since the early 1980s.
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Mr. Gunnlaugur S. E. Briem, (e-mail - briem@ismennt.is)
In 1984, Briem became involved with the introduction of italic
handwriting in his native Iceland - he has also co-authored the
internationally published (UK/USA) text for adults, Teach
Yourself Better Handwriting. In addition, Gunnlaugur has
regularly worked with Chuck Lehman (see
below) as handwriting-contest judge. While knowing the indispensability
of computers today (he has designed computer-font versions of his
handwriting alphabets), he knows equally well that computers will not
and cannot replace handwriting if we wish to maintain the discipline of
literacy.
Briem has an Internet site, at
http://briem.net - the many fun and useful things on this site
include ... ... twenty (yes, 20!) complete pages of
instruction/examples/practice for teaching/improving handwriting, at
http://briem.net/4/4.1.1a/4.1.1.1.quick.htm - these pages take a child
or adult every step of the way from a beginner's scribble to a
well-developed, mature, and simple handwriting style. Other interesting/useful items (in
various places on the site)
include: -
A downloadable PDF file of his lecture (with audio) on Handwriting
Repair
-
a glossary of writing-/letter-related terms & definitions
-
a discussion of handwriting as movement (includes a look at
teaching-/movement-techniques for handwriting) - trace-and-copy practice-exercises for
lower-/upper-case letters & numerals - good info on pen-hold, writers' cramp,
& left-handedness - some "motivational" stuff near the end
(simple pictures/doodles which incorporate important
handwriting-strokes & -rhythms) top
Dr.
Betty Duvall, 503/792-4153 , 935 Mesquite
Lane, Gerais, OR 97026 USA
Betty Duvall has done much research on handwriting, available by
searching her name through the ERIC
education resource files. Her research has documented the
effectiveness of Italic handwriting programs for all age groups, and
the high recognizability/readability of Italic letter forms at all
stages of development including kindergarten/beginning reader stages.
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Mrs. Jeannie Eller, 602/465-0437, The Reading Ranch, P.O. Box 4944
Cave Creek, AZ 65331 USA
Mrs. Eller has made handwriting the Italic way a full and integral part
of her teach-yourself literacy course, Action Reading, which
she designed to help her son who was diagnosed as "totally dyslexic;
will never learn to read or write" at age 5. (He has now grown up. This
"totally dyslexic boy" now reads perfectly, and has fully legible,
rapid handwriting.)
When Jeannie
Eller taught in a public school, she got into trouble with the
administration because her special-education students were "achieving
too fast" and "writing too well" - this fact meant that they would
leave behind special-education classes "too fast" (causing the school
to lose "too much" in Federal funds.) top
Mrs. Barbara Getty & Mrs. Inga Dubay
, c/o Alba Scholz (marketing) 800/547-8887,
extension 4891, Portland State University Continuing Education Press,
PO Box 1394, Portland, OR 97207-1394
Elementary-school
teachers Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay developed the Getty-Dubay
Italic Handwriting Program, which a growing number of
homeschools and private academies now use ... as do some 50% of the
Portland (Oregon) area schools and a few high-standards public schools
nationwide. Barbara and Inga developed Getty-Dubay
Italic Handwriting as a result of their frustration with the
handwriting status quo, their knowledge of how to teach handwriting in
the classroom (garnered from decades of experience) & the facts on
our handwriting: how it has evolved - then devolved - over time.
Unlike most large-conglomerate handwriting-program providers, Getty-Dubay
has remained highly responsive to end users, from their
beginnings over 20 years ago till today. Streamlined and efficient, the
program consistently "ties in" handwriting training with development in
skills, academics, and cultural knowledge: re-inforcing each through
the passages chosen for handwriting practice in its texts. Students
completing the course will also learn how our handwriting developed
from its earliest origins through today.
Getty-Dubay
also provides handwriting-help for adults - not only to
interested teachers and parents, but also to MDs. This teaching team
regularly presents handwriting workshops to physicians and hospital
staff members. In fact, their work has
appeared on CNN Cable Network News!
To read an illustrated verbatim transcript of CNN's report on how the Getty-Dubay
team "cured" the ailing handwritings of MDs at an Oregon branch of Kaiser-Permanente, do
a search for +handwriting +Kaiser +Permanente +Getty +Dubay at the CNN web-site.
Getty-Dubay
provides various instructional items for adults and children: including
a video, charts, and more. Contact Alba Scholz for further information. (Yes, they take
credit-cards.)
Follow these links for a look at some of the Getty-Dubay
team's work:
The
Getty-Dubay Handwriting Series (children - young teens)
Write Now
(teens - adults)
Italic
Letters (adults interested in calligraphy as well as handwriting)
In addition, Barbara and Inga teach better penmanship to anyone who
asks - giving free workshops each year (on the weekend nearest John
Hancock's birthday in late January), as well as a low-cost course
(always booked to capacity!) through Portland
State University's continuing-education department. All of this
they have accomplished despite local educrats' moans that the public
can no longer need or demand anything as passé - so they say -
as penmanship!
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Mr. Christopher Jarman,
quilljar@btinternet.com
or http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/quilljar/handw.htm Christopher Jarman has attained eminence
as one of England's (and the world's) pre-eminent
consultants/curriculum designers in the area of simpler handwriting. I
highly recommend two of his recent works: The Parents' Guide to Better
Handwriting (a quick
guide-and-troubleshooter booklet for parents, including some basic
worksheets - order from NAPE
(the National Association for Primary Education) at
nationaloffice@nape.org.uk and The Development of Handwriting
Skills (a comprehensive
handwriting-program/handwriting-resource book with many "teaching
tips," activities, and discussion of handwriting's history and the
pro's and cons of its various styles) - for details on how to order,
visit Christopher
Jarman's web-site. The same web-site also provides a couple of FREE handwriting-fonts to
download (in PC/Wintel, Macintosh, or Acorn versions) and use in
creating your own handwriting-worksheets and practice-materials, and
also provides much useful basic info on our handwriting and what
helps/harms it. The site's useful goodies include a list of "Twelve
Rules for Good Handwriting" which apply to any handwriting
style. Christopher also did
much of the work for a wonderful teach-yourself-better handwriting kit
called the SIH Schools Pack (you can order this from the Society
for Italic Handwriting (SIH), to which Christopher and I
belong, as part of SIH's Good
Handwriting Initiative. For further information on the kit and
how to order it (yes, they take credit-cards), contact the Society's
treasurer, Gordon Wratten, at gordon@wratteng.freeserve.co.uk - Mr.
Wratten can also tell you how to join the Society. You will also probably enjoy the home-page (handwriting & more) of Chris's site, as well as his other web-site at http://www.argosphere.net/art. top
Mr.
Charles "Chuck" Lehman, 503/224-2770, 4116
SW Tualatin, Portland, OR 97201-1576 - scribe@hevanet.com
Chuck Lehman, director emeritus of the Annual American Handwriting
Competition (which later became the World Handwriting Contest)
has conducted many research studies on handwriting, both alone and with
associates. His research and teaching experience have probably made him
the expert on the history of handwriting
instruction in our civilization. Chuck's experience includes several
decades of consultation/teaching on handwriting to individuals &
school systems - for 20 years, he superintended the Tigard (Oregon)
School District (now Tigard-Tualatin School District). During
his time as superintendent, handwriting in the district's schools
improved substantially as Chuck performed important controlled
experiments to determine the best teaching of this skill. Chuck also assisted the research of the Getty/Dubay team during early stages in their
development of the Italic Handwriting
Program. top
Mr. Art Maier, 573/642-8658, 509 East 9th Street, Fulton, MO 65251
This internationally published
penmanship expert (he runs a regular column on how to improve one's
handwriting in Pen
World International, a journal for fountain-pen users and
collectors). for several decades taught handwriting, literacy, and
high-school subjects to young men in a Missouri correctional institute.
He has gained prominence nationally and internationally as the world's
"handwriting storyteller," sharing the history of penmanship styles old
and new and encouraging further progress for all in every area and
variation of scribal skill.
Ironically, Art's own
original failure in the area of handwriting led him to strive for his
present eminence therein. As a newly-qualified high-school teacher 30
years ago, he learned that he would teach in the correctional system -
fearing that the inmates might mock his then-execrable writing, he ran
(not walked) to the nearest large library, checked out the first book
on penmanship he could find (Alfred
Fairbank's HANDWRITING MANUAL ), and (in his own words) has
"never looked back since!"
Art Maier's
success astounds even more when we consider that he has suffered for
nearly all his life from deformed, partly paralyzed hands.
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Mohan Ray, Institute of Healthy
Handwriting, # 2327 Sector-22-C, Chandigarh 160022, India
Mohan
(pronounced "mo-HAHN") has a Master's Degree in Education (from Punjabi
University, Putiala, India) and 18 years of teaching experience in
various fields, In addition, he has achieved skill in the field of
handwriting teaching and practice, founding the Institute of Healthy
Handwriting in Chandigarh (India) where he teaches Italic and
other styles of handwriting, with an emphasis on movement as the key to
all styles of writing. Mohan's
experience and observations, in his years of teaching handwriting in
Chandigarh and elsewhere, have led him to regard the skill of
handwriting as a most powerful tool - in fact, as the strongest means
of self-empowerment. In India and throughout the world, he advances the
cause of better handwriting by conducting workshops, seminars, and
lectures, and through various publications including his web-site. Through
handwriting and through his other fields of training and interest, Mohan Ray works
with individuals and groups that wish to advance their life and - as he
says - to "redesign their future." His skill as a handwriting
instructor has enabled him to help doctors, healthcare workers,
lawyers, other professionals, parents, teachers, students, and - in
general - anyone who wishes to build a "healthy handwriting"
characterized by legibility combined with speed.
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Handwriting
classes for college stud
Mrs. Jacqueline (Jaki) Svaren, 503/775-4082, 11182 SE Tyler Road, Portland, OR 97266
- svaren@teleport.com
Mrs. Svaren has
observed the decline in educational standards (including handwriting
standards) over a long and busy life as a calligrapher, a mom and a
teacher. She blames the current decline in handwriting (as in much
else) on laxness of standards: a careless assumption that "one's own
way" or "the [apparently] easy way" is as good as the right way - also
on the fact that most parents and teachers today have themselves never
learned how to write properly by hand themselves. Therefore, they have
NO chance of teaching their children how to do it!
However, Jaki reminds us that - deep down - parents/teachers/the
general public still do recognize the value in better handwriting; they
ignore or mock it ONLY because improper education has convinced them
that neither they, nor their children, will ever attain it.
"The handwritten word," she says, "is still the only proof parents have
that their children actually learned anything in school that day."
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Dr. Hans-Leo Teulings, phone: 480/ 350-9200. Neuroscript,
Tempe, AZ E-mail: hlteulings@neuroscriptsoftware.com
Though
not a handwriting instructor, this final person on my list is a
professional ergonomist who has given his life to the study of
efficiency in handwriting movements. Also, he keeps a close look on how
handwriting is taught around the world (many curricula abroad, as he
has found, simply work a lot better than what is accepted in the USA -
one he finds well worth study is the italic-based "Tuil Script Method"
official these last 20 years in the Dutch city of Tuil: ask him for
current contact information for its originator.) These qualifications
make him of great value to any committee on handwriting
instruction/improvement.
Kate Gladstone -
The Handwriting Repairwoman
Kate Gladstone
NEW ADDRESS
6-B Weis Road
Albany, NY 12208 1942 USA
telephone: 1 518 482 6763
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