Hello! I was a little nervous about giving a presentation on the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum to the Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers within the school district. However, it went really well! Many of these teachers have helped me tremendously throughout my fieldwork rotation. We have collaborated together regarding specific students who receive occupational therapy services. We have also sat in on many individualized education plan (IEP) meetings together. They were extremely warm, welcoming, and full of questions! It was awesome to see everyone so interested and engages in the HWT curriculum. I knew prior to the presentation that the officially adopted handwriting curriculum for the school district was HWT; however, the teachers had only been provided with the workbooks and were never supplied with any of the multi-sensory or developmentally appropriate manipulatives that make HWT so fun and effective! They had a lot of questions about how to get their hands on many of the HWT products including the chalk boards, roll-a dough, stamp-and-see letters, wooden pieces, laminated letters cards, and so much more. Many of them were not familiar with the Wet-Dry-Try method so I demonstrated that for them as well. I spoke a lot about the neuro-developmental reasoning behind the layout and teaching order of HWT. We discussed remediation plans and strategies for several highly debated topics such as reversals and the use of the double lined paper. Some people had strong opinions on these matters; many disagreed. However, we did discuss many key points and everyone's opinions were heard. It seemed that all were receptive to the strategies of the HWT curriculum and that they had simply been seeking some consistent guidelines by which to abide.
When planning for this presentation, I implemented powerpoints from the HWT advocacy website, which is available for those who wish to spread the word about HWT! I used the foundational elements of their pre-designed powerpoint and then tailored it by focusing specifically on K-1st grade. I also added information on topics of high interest within the district and implemented interactive activities within the presentation. I embedded videos and audio recording when applicable. Everyone thanked me after the presentation and seemed to be grateful for the discussions and information presented. Several of the teachers came up to me afterwards and requested a secondary informal discussion over lunch within the following week. I happy obliged and was able to suggest different remediation techniques using the HWT materials. I also introduced The Print Tool Assessment to them during this time. The teachers seemed just as excited about the thought of a more uniform handwriting assessment. One of the teachers went so far as to take The Print Tool to the vice principle and request that the district purchase these for the teachers. I was so excited to see them interested in using the HWT assessment! As it is not standardized, teaches and therapists alike are encouraged to use it with any student. I think it would be very beneficial for teachers and therapist to utilize the same handwriting assessment, as this would help to show consistency and may increase efficacy of communication between staff members when speaking about various handwriting components. Overall, I am so glad I had the opportunity to give this presentation on HWT! :-) I learned so much from the teachers!
The unedited powerpoints can be found on the HWT website: http://www.hwtears.com/advocate/hwt
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