Where To Start: Arm Movement Or Letter Shapes

[Mickey]

 

And since we're on hand motions and learning, here's a really wonderful video on how they teach handwriting in France: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sur18zxdzbautxe/Professional%20Development%20%7C%20France%20-%20Teaching%20Handwriting.mp4

 

Enjoy.

 

Doug

 

Cheese, wine, and handwriting: who knew? I like that the French (at least the instructor in this video) are trying to teach gestural writing, embedding and linking basic movements before tackling specific skills. The decomposition of letters into strokes is also a plus: separate the embedding of letter architectures from the acquisition of the fine motor skills required to copy perfectly the exemplars. I would think the approach builds the same sort of bootstrapping habits that Suzuki (violin method) does. Pretty sensible.

[SuperNib44]

That labored part happened to be part of the video that asked a hypothetical, "what if you had to think about how to write every letter when you wrote?" kind of question. So yeah, it would be too labored. I took that out, and took the footage of the scribe writing big Gothic because as you point out that's lettering and not writing. I left the rest in and it gives a good look at a variety of hand motion, at least back in 1947. I don't think basic hand motions have changed much though.

 

"26 old letters" excerpts:

 

And since we're on hand motions and learning, here's a really wonderful video on how they teach handwriting in France: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sur18zxdzbautxe/Professional%20Development%20%7C%20France%20-%20Teaching%20Handwriting.mp4

 

Enjoy.

 

Doug

Interesting to watch their hands and arms. Most of them do not use too much arm movement it seems. I noticed that I normally write with arm movement, but it is hard to notice.