New technology is helping teachers model handwriting in a more natural way

Teaching handwriting to an entire class of students at the same time has always been a compromise. A teacher has always had to stand at a white board to show a class how to form letters, words, and sentences. Usually a whiteboard marker is used; modern technology has sometimes replaced a whiteboard marker with a digital pen that uses an interactive white board (IWB) or, more recently, an interactive projector.

But that’s far from ideal. The problems with these models include:

When standing at a board, there are usually students who cannot see what is being written. This is just the nature of a classroom with desks. Having students sit on the floor in front of the whiteboard may reduce this problem, but then there is then no room and no flat surface for a student to place a book in order to duplicate the writing skills being taught.

Teaching writing also involves teaching how to hold a pen. However, holding a pen to write on a vertical white board is different to holding a pen normally to write on paper on a desk. Thus, it is difficult for the teacher to model the correct grip.

A whiteboard marker (or pen for an IWB) is considerably larger than a traditional pen. It is sometimes a different shape and thickness. Thus, it is difficult to hold the pen the same way a child should hold the pen which makes it almost impossible to model the correct grip.

Use of an IWB may also produce other problems (unless the school provides one of the newer ultra-short throw projectors). These include: Shadows cast by the person standing at the board affecting part of the image. Light from the projector shining in the eyes of the person standing at the board.



The entire process is a compromise.

All of these problems can be eliminated by the use of the appropriate technology.

Next page: How to solve the problem with a projector and a tablet