Fall 2009 Class Schedule

We will be offering After-school Printing Club, After-school Cursive Club, and Preschool Handwriting Class beginning September 2009.  There will be two 5-week consecutive sessions.

Session A:  September 28 to October 30

Session B: November 2 to December 11*

*There will be no class the week of Thanksgiving.

After-school Printing Club will begin on October 1, 2009.  This class will emphasize pencil grasp development, letter formation using the award winning Handwriting Without Tears ® curriculum and multi-sensory strategies. This class is for beginner printers and for students who have difficulty with sequencing letters, writing within handwriting spaces, and/or with letter formation.  This is a 90 minute a day class. 

Time of class: TBA; depending upon students schedule. 

Date of week: Thursday

Cost: $125 per session;  includes the camp cost, initial assessment, and workbook/material  fees.

After-school Cursive Club will begin on September 29, 2009: This class teaches cursive letters formation using Mary Benbow, MS, OTR/L’s Loops and Other Groups: A Kinesthetic Writing System. Letters are taught in groups that share common movement patterns. Easy-to-remember motor and memory cues help the children visualize and verbalize while they experience the "feel" of the letter.  This is a 90 minute class.

Time of class: TBA; depending upon students schedule. 

Date of week: Tuesday

Cost: $125 per session;  includes the camp cost, initial assessment, and workbook/material fees.

Preschool Handwriting Class will begin on September 30, 2009.  Based on the Handwriting Without Tears ® Get Set for School ™ Program,  this class will focus on developing fundamental skills necessary for kindergarten: language proficiency, social skills, fine and gross motor control, color and shape awareness, letter and number recognition and counting.  Multisensory products and music will be integrated into the curriculum to facilitate learning.   For more information about the award-winning Get Set for School Program, click here: www.hwtears.com

Time of class: 10 AM to 12 PM 

Date of week: Wednesday

Cost: $100 per session;  includes the camp cost and workbook/material fees

A Success Story

The above photos are handwriting samples from one of my private clients seen this summer. He is a 13-year old boy who is entering the 8th grade this fall. He learned cursive in the third grade but has not used it since. I saw him for six 45 to 60-minute sessions in his home. We re-learned the lower case cursive letters and a few upper case letters within 6 sessions. On the fifth session, he remarked how much he appreciated my help and how his pain when he writes has improved. He also noted improved strength and "endurance" while writing.

We will be offering After-school Printing Club, After-school Cursive Club, and Handwriting Without Tears Preschool Program Classes beginning September 2009. Please keep posted for more details. 

Follow-up from Summer Handwriting Camp

The inaugural WriteNow Summer Handwriting Camp is now over!  We had  very successful cursive camp full of fine motor, gross motor, and sensorimotor activities.   A kinesthetic approach (Mary Benbow's Loops and Groups) was used to teach the campers the formation of lower case letters in cursive.  No matter what their learning style was, all participants benefitted from this approach.  By grouping the letters into 4 fundamental forms, this approach truly engaged the children.  As one of my 8-year old campers said, "Cursive camp is fun!"  Here are some scenes from the week:

All three campers came in with no experience with cursive skills.  We began the week with various gross motor obstacle course activities, such as crab-walking, clothespin exercises, frog jumps, and jumping jacks.  Gross motor activities were used prior to handwriting to enhance the camper's attention.  The Handwriting Without Tears "Wet-Dry-Try" Method was used to build the child's automatic learning of each letter.  They also enjoyed forming the letters in a variety of media, such as shaving cream, sand, and sidewalk chalk.   

Here are some testimonies from the campers and their parents:

"That was the most greatest fun camp I ever had!  So creative." (7-year old boy)

"It was great and I loved the feedback.  This was a great, unique opportunity. Thanks." (Parent of camper)

"I am so impressed with WriteNow.  [My son] had never wrote in cursive before coming here. He thoroughly enjoyed it and we are so thrilled with his progress.  He wrote his own name [in cursive]!" (Parent of camper)