The Ugly Part of Learning

As a child I loved to read, disliked math, and hated handwriting. As I watch my daughter learn to write I suddenly understand why it was such a trial for me. It’s an ugly process.

As I looked over the writing project above recently I realized that the problem with handwriting is that it visually presents the roughness and uncertainty of what’s going on inside the student’s head.

Imagine if there was a way to visually represent the process of learning to read! I would guess that it wouldn’t paint a very pretty picture in the beginning. That’s probably part of why I loved reading so much. My mom used a good phonics program to teach me and there was absolutely no record of my mistakes. Soon I was reading beautifully and there was no record of my struggle to reach that point.

As much as this process sometimes frustrates Eliana, in reality the fact that I can even understand what she’s written in the picture above is a wonderful step in the right direction.

So for now my job is to keep encouraging my young writer to keep her ideal work in mind as she continues to practice. No matter how ugly the actual work looks in the beginning, there is a beauty in learning to work toward a goal each day. And that beauty will become obvious on paper sometime in the future.

On a practical note here’s our approach to teaching Eliana handwriting:

1. We are using teaching cursive first using the New American Cursive writing program (available at memoriapress.com). Eliana found the idea of writing cursive appealing. So I researched it a bit and learned that some people have found that teaching cursive first results in more beautiful cursive and print handwriting later. Cursive handwriting is also especially valuable for brain development– although print handwriting and typing are also thought to help develop other parts of the brain.

2. I’m letting her use every kind of writing instrument under the sun. She’s not quite five-years-old so learning to write still falls under the category of “purely optional learning.” My real goal is to simply capture her current abilities and interests and turn that into hard skills she will have to learn at some point.

3. Practicing handwriting is a way she’s allowed to earn extra privileges. This is something I do because it worked for my mom. She believed in offering incentives for academic work. As an adult I find that I’m unusually interested in learning new things– so I guess Mom’s method must work.