list of my favorite handwriting-resource people

HEY!!! ... do YOU want your name listed here?

and I'll consider it!

Mrs. Nan Jay Barchowsky, 410/272-0836, Fax: 410-297-9767, c/o Swansbury, Inc. P.O. Box Box 117, Aberdeen, MD 21001-0117 USA (e-mail - swansbury@erols.com)

Nan Died on January 5, 20016
This handwriting-teacher's book/CD-ROM combination for children, teens, and adults - BFH, A MANUAL FOR FLUENT HANDWRITING - appeared July 1997. Order it from Amazon.com's online bookstore or from her site at http://www.BFHhandwriting.com. From Nan's site you can also order her BEGINNERS' HANDWRITING, designed for younger children and others who can benefit from large-scale fluent models and motoric exercises for handwriting development. The large-scale, large motor, "arm's length" exercises in BEGINNERS' HANDWRITING develop a good foundation for later handwriting progress in any style.

Nan has also developed an iPad app Leters Make Words that was available at the iTunes App Store.

Nan developed her teaching method during more than 20 years of experience working in elementary school classrooms and also tutoring/remediating older learners. Observing the motor skills of young children enabled Nan to formulate methods that allow children to write at maximum speed with maximum legibility.

Notes Nan, "If children learn to write with the most efficient movement possible for the human hand, little classroom time need go to penmanship in years when so many other activities demand attention. Handwriting can be individual, and a joy!"

To see and hear Nan Barchowsky at work, go to http://www.npr.org/atc and enter "Barchowsky" in the search-window. This will take you to the National Public Radio ALL THINGS CONSIDERED report on her work, complete with soundfile and photo-gallery links plus other informational links for handwriting help and handwriting news.

Nan has a two YouTube videos Tips to Fix Handwriting and A Brief History of Handwriting

Her method of handwriting instruction is used at the Harford Day School in Bel Air, Maryland.

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Dr. June E. Baskin, Ph.D., 717/326-9731 ,502 Main Street, Williamsport, PA 17701-7610 USA

This educator created a handwriting program which, parents and teachers agreed, produced more legible, attractive, and speedy writing than the school district had heretofore considered normal or possible. Yet, incredibly, the district discontinued the program in 1993 (after 23 years of success) because of the usual drive to lower standards and "be like everybody else."
Briefly: those parents and community members who could not themselves write legibly by hand felt offended and disturbed that their children's handwriting was now superior to their own: some even denounced this fact as "elitist" and "un-American."
Copies of the Williamsport textbooks (a complete series from kindergarten through Grade 8) prepared by Dr. Baskin's colleague (the late Lois McClelland) still exist in Dr. Baskin's possession, as well as in the ERIC microfiche files which most university libraries and research libraries have access to. The ERIC collection lists these under the name "Functional Handwriting", but the books provide fun as well as function.

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Ms. Gemma Black, telephone 6 /25877528, (Mobile: 015 488296) (e-mail - bblack@pcug.org.au) (FAX available) 6 Waugh Close, Evatt, ACT, Australia 2617

This professional calligrapher has contacts in the school system of Canberra, Australia. She can put interested people in contact with teachers & resources relating to the italic-handwriting program that Canberra schools have used as their standard penmanship curriculum since the early 1980s.

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Mr. Gunnlaugur S. E. Briem, (e-mail - briem@ismennt.is)

In 1984, Briem became involved with the introduction of italic handwriting in his native Iceland - he has also co-authored the internationally published (UK/USA) text for adults, Teach Yourself Better Handwriting. In addition, Gunnlaugur has regularly worked with Chuck Lehman (see below) as handwriting-contest judge. While knowing the indispensability of computers today (he has designed computer-font versions of his handwriting alphabets), he knows equally well that computers will not and cannot replace handwriting if we wish to maintain the discipline of literacy.

Briem has an Internet site, at http://briem.net - the many fun and useful things on this site include ...

... twenty (yes, 20!) complete pages of instruction/examples/practice for teaching/improving handwriting, at http://briem.net/4/4.1.1a/4.1.1.1.quick.htm - these pages take a child or adult every step of the way from a beginner's scribble to a well-developed, mature, and simple handwriting style.

Other interesting/useful items (in various places on the site) include:

- A downloadable PDF file of his lecture (with audio) on Handwriting Repair

- a glossary of writing-/letter-related terms & definitions

- a discussion of handwriting as movement (includes a look at teaching-/movement-techniques for handwriting)

- trace-and-copy practice-exercises for lower-/upper-case letters & numerals

- good info on pen-hold, writers' cramp, & left-handedness

- some "motivational" stuff near the end (simple pictures/doodles which incorporate important handwriting-strokes & -rhythms)

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Dr. Betty Duvall, 503/792-4153 , 935 Mesquite Lane, Gerais, OR 97026 USA

<Betty Duvall has done much research on handwriting, available by searching her name through the ERIC education resource files. Her research has documented the effectiveness of Italic handwriting programs for all age groups, and the high recognizably/readability of Italic letter forms at all stages of development including kindergarten/beginning reader stages.

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Mrs. Jeannie Eller, 602/465-0437, The Reading Ranch, P.O. Box 4944 Cave Creek, AZ 65331 USA

Mrs. Eller has made handwriting the Italic way a full and integral part of her teach-yourself literacy course, Action Reading, which she designed to help her son who was diagnosed as "totally dyslexic; will never learn to read or write" at age 5. (He has now grown up. This "totally dyslexic boy" now reads perfectly, and has fully legible, rapid handwriting.)

When Jeannie Eller taught in a public school, she got into trouble with the administration because her special-education students were "achieving too fast" and "writing too well" - this fact meant that they would leave behind special-education classes "too fast" (causing the school to lose "too much" in Federal funds.)

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Mrs. Barbara Getty Mrs. Inga Dubay  Getty-Dubay Productions, Portland, OR USA
             Distributor: Allport Editions,  1.800.777.2844, Portland, OR USA


Elementary-school teachers Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay developed the Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Program, which a growing number of homeschools and private academies now use ... as do some 50% of the Portland (Oregon) area schools and a few high-standards public schools nationwide. Barbara and Inga developed Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting as a result of their frustration with the handwriting status quo, their knowledge of how to teach handwriting in the classroom (garnered from decades of experience) & the facts on our handwriting: how it has evolved - then devolved - over time.

Unlike most large-conglomerate handwriting-program providers, Getty-Dubay has remained highly responsive to end users, from their beginnings over 20 years ago till today. Streamlined and efficient, the program consistently "ties in" handwriting training with development in skills, academics, and cultural knowledge: re-inforcing each through the passages chosen for handwriting practice in its texts. Students completing the course will also learn how our handwriting developed from its earliest origins through today.
Getty-Dubay also provides handwriting-help for adults - not only to interested teachers and parents, but also to MDs. This teaching team regularly presents handwriting workshops to physicians and hospital staff members.

In fact, their work has appeared on CNN Cable Network News,  and Wall Street Journal

To read an illustrated verbatim transcript of CNN's report on how the Getty-Dubay team "cured" the ailing handwritings of MDs at an Oregon branch of Kaiser-Permanente, do a search for +handwriting +Kaiser +Permanente +Getty +Dubay at the CNN web-site.

Getty-Dubay provides various instructional items for adults and children: including a video, charts, and more.
Follow these links for a look at some of the Getty-Dubay team's work:

The Getty-Dubay Handwriting Series (children - young teens)

Write Now (teens - adults)


Italic Letters (adults interested in calligraphy as well as handwriting)


In addition, Barbara and Inga teach better penmanship to anyone who asks - giving free workshops each year (on the weekend nearest John Hancock's birthday in late January), as well as a low-cost course (always booked to capacity!) . All of this they have accomplished despite local educators' moans that the public can no longer need or demand anything as passé - so they say - as penmanship!

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Jonathan Dubay, the son of Inga Dubay, is now the publisher of Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Program and added Letter of the Day as a feature to its web site. He also has developed  the Getty-Dubay App  for iPad and Android Tablets based on the book Write Now.

Mr. Christopher Jarman, quilljar@btinternet.com 

Christopher Jarman has attained eminence as one of England's (and the world's) pre-eminent consultants/curriculum designers in the area of simpler handwriting. I highly recommend two of his recent works:

The Parents' Guide to Better Handwriting (a quick guide-and-troubleshooter booklet for parents, including some basic worksheets - order from NAPE (the National Association for Primary Education) at nationaloffice@nape.org.uk

and

The Development of Handwriting Skills (a comprehensive handwriting-program/handwriting-resource book with many "teaching tips," activities, and discussion of handwriting's history and the pro's and cons of its various styles) - for details on how to order, visit Christopher Jarman's web-site.

The same web-site also provides a couple of FREE handwriting-fonts to download (in PC/Wintel, Macintosh, or Acorn versions) and use in creating your own handwriting-worksheets and practice-materials, and also provides much useful basic info on our handwriting and what helps/harms it. The site's useful goodies include a list of "Twelve Rules for Good Handwriting" which apply to any handwriting style.

Christopher also did much of the work for a wonderful teach-yourself-better handwriting kit called the SIH Schools Pack

(you can order this from the Society for Italic Handwriting (SIH), to which Christopher and I belong, as part of SIH's Good Handwriting Initiative.

For further information on the kit and how to order it (yes, they take credit-cards), contact the Society's treasurer, Gordon Wratten, at gordon@wratteng.freeserve.co.uk - Mr. Wratten can also tell you how to join the Society.

You will also probably enjoy the home-page (handwriting & more) of Chris's site, as well as his other web-site at http://www.argosphere.net/art.

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Mr. Charles "Chuck" Lehman, 503/224-2770, 4116 SW Tualatin, Portland, OR 97201-1576 - scribe@hevanet.com

Chuck Lehman, director emeritus of the Annual American Handwriting Competition (which later became the World Handwriting Contest) has conducted many research studies on handwriting, both alone and with associates. His research and teaching experience have probably made him the expert on the history of handwriting instruction in our civilization. Chuck's experience includes several decades of consultation/teaching on handwriting to individuals & school systems - for 20 years, he superintended the Tigard (Oregon) School District (now Tigard-Tualatin School District). During his time as superintendent, handwriting in the district's schools improved substantially as Chuck performed important controlled experiments to determine the best teaching of this skill. Chuck also assisted the research of the Getty/Dubay team during early stages in their development of the Italic Handwriting Program.

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 Mohan Ray, Institute of Healthy Handwriting, # 2327 Sector-22-C, Chandigarh 160022, India
  Mohan (pronounced "mo-HAHN") has a Master's Degree in Education (from Punjabi University, Putiala, India) and 18 years of teaching experience in various fields, In addition, he has achieved skill in the field of handwriting teaching and practice, founding the Institute of Healthy Handwriting in Chandigarh (India) where he teaches Italic and other styles of handwriting, with an emphasis on movement as the key to all styles of writing. Mohan's experience and observations, in his years of teaching handwriting in Chandigarh and elsewhere, have led him to regard the skill of handwriting as a most powerful tool - in fact, as the strongest means of self-empowerment. In India and throughout the world, he advances the cause of better handwriting by conducting workshops, seminars, and lectures, and through various publications including his web-site. Through handwriting and through his other fields of training and interest, Mohan Ray works with individuals and groups that wish to advance their life and - as he says - to "redesign their future." His skill as a handwriting instructor has enabled him to help doctors, healthcare workers, lawyers, other professionals, parents, teachers, students, and - in general - anyone who wishes to build a "healthy handwriting" characterized by legibility combined with speed.

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Handwriting classes for college stud

Mrs. Jacqueline (Jaki) Svaren, 503/775-4082, 11182 SE Tyler Road, Portland, OR 97266 - svaren@teleport.com

Mrs. Svaren has observed the decline in educational standards (including handwriting standards) over a long and busy life as a calligrapher, a mom and a teacher. She blames the current decline in handwriting (as in much else) on laxness of standards: a careless assumption that "one's own way" or "the [apparently] easy way" is as good as the right way - also on the fact that most parents and teachers today have themselves never learned how to write properly by hand themselves. Therefore, they have NO chance of teaching their children how to do it!
However, Jaki reminds us that - deep down - parents/teachers/the general public still do recognize the value in better handwriting; they ignore or mock it ONLY because improper education has convinced them that neither they, nor their children, will ever attain it.
"The handwritten word," she says, "is still the only proof parents have that their children actually learned anything in school that day."

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 Dr. Hans-Leo Teulings, phone: 480/ 350-9200. Neuroscript, Tempe, AZ E-mail: hlteulings@neuroscriptsoftware.com

Though not a handwriting instructor, this final person on my list is a professional ergonomist who has given his life to the study of efficiency in handwriting movements. Also, he keeps a close look on how handwriting is taught around the world (many curricula abroad, as he has found, simply work a lot better than what is accepted in the USA - one he finds well worth study is the italic-based "Tuil Script Method" official these last 20 years in the Dutch city of Tuil: ask him for current contact information for its originator.) These qualifications make him of great value to any committee on handwriting instruction/improvement.

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Kate Gladstone

The Handwriting Repairwoman

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