Dr.

Santiago del Castillo

Municipal School

Educational project
“Letramania
”

Responsible teachers: Ana Herrera –

Sandra Zabala

Year 2012
 "The human being is not capable of learning to read

and write alone, you need a mediator who

is the teacher" (Vigosky).

Foundation

Cursive was once the cornerstone of teaching in schools. In cursive writing, the fact
that the letters are linked to each other by strokes allows thought to flow
harmoniously from the mind to the sheet of paper. By linking the letters with the line,
the writer links the thoughts, translating them into words. For its part, writing in print,
an alternative that has been imposed in our current schools, implies splitting what is
thought in letters, dismantling it, canceling the time of the phrase, interrupting its
rhythm and its breathing.

“Although it is already clear that computers are an appendix of our being, it must be
noted that they favor binary thinking, while handwriting is rich, diverse, individual, and
differentiates us from each other. Children should be educated from childhood to
understand that writing responds to their inner voice and represents an essential
exercise. It is illogical to assume that the current trend will be reversed, but at least the
writing systems should coexist, precisely because of the quality that writing has of
being a language of the soul that makes people unique. Its abandonment makes the
message cold, almost stark, in opposition to cursive writing, which is a vehicle and
source of emotions by revealing personality and state of mind. Possibly this is what
young people fear, and choose to hide in the homogenization made possible by
resorting to print.

Because, as Umberto Eco, who actively intervenes in this debate, highlights, cursive
writing requires composing the sentence mentally before writing it, a requirement that
the computer does not suggest. In any case, the resistance offered by pen and paper
imposes a reflective slowness. Many writers, accustomed to typing on a keyboard,
would sometimes wish to make incisions on a clay tablet again, like the Sumerians, in
order to be able to think calmly. Eco proposes that, just as in the era of the airplane,
sailing ships continue to be manned, it would be auspicious for children to learn
calligraphy, to educate themselves in what is beautiful and to facilitate their
psychomotor development .1 .

Calligraphy is a rapidly disappearing human skill, because it is rarely taught in schools

anymore. When a pen is used, it is generally used to write in print. Stefano Bartezzaghi
and María Novella de Luca, Italian journalists interested in the subject, wonder if

1
Handwritten, by Guillermo Jaim Echeverry. Source La Nacion Magazine
concern about the decline of cursive writing responds to nostalgia or constitutes a
cultural emergency. Many experts are inclined to the last alternative. In England, the
fountain pen is used again for students to learn writing. In France it is also considered
that this skill should not be dispensed with, but there the problem is that not even the
teachers have mastered it. Although the adult world is not yet prepared to receive the
new intelligence of children as a result of technology, the loss of the skill of cursive
writing explains learning disorders that teachers notice and affect school performance.

As in so many other aspects of today's society, the centrality of time arises here. A
recent article in Time magazine, titled Mourning the Death of Handwriting, points out
that this is a lost art, since, although children learn it with pleasure because they
consider it a rite of passage, “our objective is to express thought as quickly as possible.
We have abandoned beauty for speed, craftsmanship for efficiency. And, yes - admits
its author, Claire Suddath -, perhaps we are a little lazier. Cursive writing seems
condemned to follow the path of Latin: within a while, we will not be able to read it.”
Opening a timid window to individuality, we still sign by hand. For not too long.

Recipients: 1st year “A” and “B” students.

Achievement Expectations:

Stimulate all our students, with special emphasis on those belonging to the
First Cycle, in the management of correct cursive writing, ensuring that they
acquire their own identity and well-defined traits in their personality; as well as
adequate legibility of your writings.

Specific objectives:

Encourage each word to be visually perceived as a whole.

Improves writing speed.
Give writing a personalized quality that reflects individual differences in a
nuanced and fine way.

Cursive writing is a succession of ascending and descending features of different

lengths that are joined together in various ways: a) at an angle (typical of boys) b)
rounded or garland (common in girls).

Although their learning is based on a model, each student imposes their own style on
it. Its features change according to its growth and maturation.

The teacher's mission is to ensure, on the one hand, that the students' handwriting
does not lose legibility, and on the other, to preserve, in each of them, their personal
style.

Printing writing should be taken as the automatic and passive acquisition and
adaptation of a conventional model. These neutral signs are far from reflecting the
distinctive features of the student. And therefore it should not be considered as
personal writing but rather for alternative or occasional use.
The strength of writing lies in the vitality of its strokes. Hence, graphological studies
allow us to know, through it, the character, sex, tastes and even the physical and
mental health of the person.

It is common, on the other hand, for both teachers and professors to recognize our
students by their handwriting. Cursive writing is much more emotional and eloquent of
a man's life than print.

Another factor that also contributes to the depersonalization of writing is

excessive use of the computer from an early age. It has been proven that many five-
and six-year-old children begin to write their first words by mechanically pressing the
keys on the machine and not strengthening motor skills with the use of a pencil.

We believe that, in this globalized and technocratic society, both parents and teachers
must contribute to our children acquiring their own identity, with well-defined traits.
Ensuring that they learn and strengthen the use of correct cursive writing as part of
their free expression is already a good start.2

For all of the above, we understand that it is important to teach with cursive writing,
highlighting among several advantages the following:

Promotes maturational aspects of the personality

It allows the child to write more quickly because they do not have to lift the
pencil with each letter.
It allows each word to be perceived as a whole because of its links
It forces spaces between words.

The use of cursive letters makes writing more fluid and freely expresses ideas without
interruption; there is a continuity. The cursive letter is the one that best suits the
functioning of our nervous system because it is a continuous motor response. It allows
flexibility of motor movements and is also more easily remembered.

Any motor response that is not interrupted at specific moments is retained in longer-
term memory (such as walking or riding a bicycle).

Why are school textbooks all written in print? It does not have second readings, it is
colder, it does not imply feelings like cursive writing, therefore it helps us not to divert
our concentration on what we are reading. He is repeating what he sees but he is not
assimilating either the phrase or its context; At that moment the child is copying. He
has not assimilated the content and therefore his learning is not significant.

The natural neurophysiological component of starting, continuing and stopping is what

follows. With cursive we start when we start the word and stop when we finish it. With

2
Susana B. González , susyg@[Link] , DNI11650085, Professor of
Secondary and Higher Education in Literature, Teacher at the Secondary and
Tertiary Level of the Province. Coordinator of Administrative Writing Workshops for
company personnel in the state and private sphere.
the letter SCRIP we start and stop at each letter, which makes the process at least 3
times more difficult. The letter SCRIP sometimes creates something called apparent
dyslexia, especially in children who have a very small deficiency or disorganization.
With the letter SCRIP it is more difficult to mark the separation of words if all the
letters are separated.

The linked model provides this continuous movement, which facilitates learning, since
each letter is linked to the next in each word. Luis Bravo and others (1981) indicate
certain characteristics of this type of letter that allows for greater speed, quality and
retention. These are:

- The letters, when linked together, facilitate ease and flexibility of movement, favoring
continuity and dynamism in writing.

- It allows each word to be perceived as a whole, thus avoiding separate writing letter
by letter.

- It gives handwritten writing a personalized quality of registration and expression.

- This type of font is the one that the child should use, since it is characteristic of our
writing. This model gives the child speed in tracing and integrates it, early, into final
writing.

- It has the advantage of helping the child acquire new motor patterns once learning is
automated.

In summary, learning to write is highly complex due to the number of skills it requires
in its execution. This indicates that there is the possibility that children will face many
difficulties in the acquisition process, which is why we must return to the inclination
towards the use of cursive handwriting, since the linking of the strokes is easier and
facilitates movement once automated. something that does not happen with the
“script” type letter. It allows for greater speed of execution and greater identification
of the word as a whole, both in reading and writing, therefore, it avoids subsequent
specific difficulties that can often culminate in pedagogical disorders.

Promoting the learning of cursive writing is a task that favors maturational aspects of
the personality.

Activities:
You will work on a booklet of activities selected and organized in an increasing degree
of complexity, starting with a few strokes; to progressively introduce students to the
correct tracing of the letters of the alphabet.

The aforementioned ACTIVITY BOOKLET is attached.

Other possible activities to take into account:

You will be motivated to do a dynamic and fun exercise:

Work will also be done on pre-marked pages, where two dotted guide lines of a lighter
color have been added to the conventional line, to avoid confusion.

The body of the letter will rest on the conventional line and its height will reach the
upper dotted guide line. The downward strokes will find their stop at the lower dotted
guide line.

Some observations that we will take into account:

Before starting we will check the height of the table and the position of the
chair, the position of the hand and the correct holding of the pencil.
The work sessions will be short, no more than 20 minutes.
We will be patient, since each child has his or her time and rhythm.
We will value the achievements obtained day by day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

AJURIAGUERRA, J: The writing of the child, Barcelona, Laia, 1983.

CUETOS, F: Psychology of writing, Madrid, Spanish School, 1991.

MARRODÁN G, MªJ: The letters dance, Madrid, ICCE, 2006.

MOLINA GS: Psycho-Pedagogy of Reading, Madrid, 1991.

TEBEROSKY, A: Learning to write, Barcelona ICE-Horsori, 1993.

TRONCOSSO, MV and DEL CERRO,M: Down syndrome: Reading and writing, Barcelona,

Masson,1999.
VARIOUS, A: Graphomotor skills at the rhythm of cues. The magic door, J. Andalusia
2001

VARIOUS, A: I write with Alex. Guided writing booklets. Everest

VARIOUS, A: I start reading. Reading primer .Anaya.

VARIOUS, A: My method of reading Spanish. Bruno.

VYGOTSKI, LS: Thought and Language, Paidós, Buenos Aires, 1995.