It is presently arguable that the need for handwriting skills is worthless because the current era digital involving technological skills where keyboarding should be the topic to be discussed. It is true that we are in the digital era, but handwriting is very important in the intermediate grades and primary grades. It is true that the students require strong keyboarding and technical skills, but handwriting creates brain connections and has benefits, which cannot be replaced easily. Handwriting is the key factor in the foundations studies of the children, especially in the intermediate grades (Santangelo & Graham, 2015). Handwriting should be incorporated as one of the syllabuses in the intermediate and primary grades.
Handwriting fosters creativity by allowing the students to be creative and imaginative while being instructed by their in class. Writing creative jokes and stories is fun for the kids or children in the intermediate and primary grades. When the children are in the intermediate stage, they do not enjoy writing words on their own, but they enjoy and love writing words together with their teachers because they have fun. Children think that it is so fun drawing a picture, coming up with a joke, and the teacher writes down the joke. It is important to model handwriting while teaching the children in the intermediate and primary grades. Teaching handwriting enhances critical thinking skills because when the student is writing, he/she will be using critical thinking skills (Jordan et al., 2016). Before writing, the student pass through some stages like gathering information, analyzing, observing, reflecting, and then writing down in sentences. Such a process is complex learning skills, and the student or kid should be taught handwriting in class.
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Handwriting builds self-confidence because as the child writes, he/she will have self-confidence. Through the building of self-confidence, the child will excel or succeed in school he/she will express himself/herself through writing. Handwriting helps in creating bets readers, which is a development beginning from the intermediate grades. The child begins to learn how to read when he/she is in intermediate grades and without handwriting; it will be difficult to create better readers. Writing and reading cannot be separated, as they go hand in hand leading to the creation of better readers (Santangelo & Graham, 2016). Frequent practice of writing will help the child to learn story structure, spelling, sentence structure, and vocabulary words, which will amount to building a strong reader. Learning handwriting sets or prepares children for success. Since handwriting is taught at an earlier age, it helps children to be more successful in school and even later in life.
Students at the intermediate grades will not use the same handwriting model used by the students at an advanced stage. Since the children in the intermediate grades are in the developing process, the best handwriting model to use is “Simple View of Writing”. A simple view of writing has been illustrated as a triangle where handwriting and spelling (transcription) are positioned at the base of the triangle while text generation is at the vertex of the triangle. Working memory is the main factor, which affects the whole writing process, and it is represented inside the triangle to show its importance to the others placed at the base and vertex of the triangle (Jordan et al., 2016). According to the model, early stages of writing development involving transcription processes are spelling and handwriting and foundations are the basis where the student can translate the ideas into written text. The executive functions of simple view of writing are regulated by the peers, parents, and teachers during the beginning processes of learning how to compose or write sentences. As the students grow and mature, he/she will have developed and will be self-regulated leading to the transition of executive functions to more significant roles in the writing process.
References
Jordan, G., Michaud, F., & Kaiser, M. L. (2016). The effectiveness of an intensive handwriting program for first-grade students using the application Letter School: A pilot study. Journal of Occupational Therapy, Schools, & Early Intervention , 9 (2), 176-184.
Santangelo, T., & Graham, S. (2015). How Writing Instruction, Interventions, and Assessment Can Improve Student Outcomes. Middle School Matters Program No. 5. George W. Bush Institute, Education Reform Initiative .
Santangelo, T., & Graham, S. (2016). A comprehensive meta-analysis of handwriting instruction. Educational Psychology Review , 28 (2), 225-265.
