Workshop Aims To Make Learning Proper Penmanship Fun

A special workshop, Handwriting Without Tears, designed to teach children penmanship and cursive will be in Bergen County Sunday and Monday.

A readiness and writing workshop uses music and playful activities to help young children get introduced to writing well. Puppets and tricks will be used to help children. 8 a.m. to noon

Cursive instruction will be given Monday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This workshop for kindergarten through fifth-graders will show teachers and educators ways to teach proper handwriting. Children will be taught proper letter formation.

State Assemblyman Ron Dancer (District 12) and Senator Brian Stack (District 33) are sponsoring a bill requiring public schools to teach cursive.

"Teachers underscore its importance for brain development, signatures and the fact that high schoolers who wrote in cursive on the SAT essay have scored slightly higher than those who printed," said Christine Cuccia, a spokeswoman for Handwriting Without Tears. "In fact, a UCLA/Princeton study found college students remember lectures better when they've taken handwritten notes rather than typed ones."

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