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What does the "ball and stick" method of handwriting mean? ZB?


mathnerd
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I have been hearing "ball and stick" method of handwriting for a while. What does this mean? And is it specific to the "font" or style used by one company - Zaner Bloser? Or is it a method of writing? I am trying to remediate handwriting and want to choose ZB. We tried HWT when DS was 4 and gave up because he was not ready to hold a pencil, let alone write anything and we frequently ended up in tears. So we switched to Kumon workbooks for a while.

Now at 5 years old, he can write but with poor letter formation, letter reversals etc. His motor skills seem to have developed and he is able to write 1-2 pages of copywork. I want to start on ZB but the words "ball and stick" show up a lot in my searches. And one website states that ZB stopped using ball and stick method a while ago. I am confused. Thanks for your help.

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I think ZB had two different programs for a while - one ball and stick and one continuous stroke. It may all be continuous now. I'm not sure. I've never used ZB.

 

Ball and stick is where you use multiple strokes to create a letter. For example, the letter 'b' would be made by drawing a line, then drawing a circle. These are done in two separate strokes. HWT and other programs would instead have you draw the line, leave your pencil on the paper, track back up and around to form the circle - one stroke. The letter 'd' in ball and stick would be made by drawing a circle, lifting the pencil, and drawing the line. In a continuous stroke, you make a letter 'c', then keep going straight up and back down - one stroke.

 

My oldest was confused by ball and stick in K because the b was taught as a "bat, then a ball" and the d as a "ball, then a bat". That didn't help him at all. There was nothing there to help him remember that order! That led to LOTS of letter reversals. I remediated his handwriting with HWT, which taught that 'd' starts with a "magic c", and that helped him a lot. He still has b/d reversals (he'll be 9 in June), but they're much more rare, and he usually notices them. I do expect a K'er to still have reversals. That is nothing surprising. My current K'er uses Pentime and has been taught continuous stroke (technically Pentime uses ball and stick style, but *I* teach it as a continuous stroke ;) ). He reverses some letters in an age appropriate manner. I'm not concerned about it. I just show him the correct way and we move along.

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I think "ball and stick" was a term invented by one publisher to denigrate the approach of the competition.

 

Yes, that's exactly right. Scott Foresman, publisher of D'Nelian, coined the term to make its own penmanship seem so much better than Zaner Bloser or Palmer (Palmer is another traditional penmanship style, or "hand").

 

It's not unlike the way that K12 coined the term "brick and mortar" to refer to campus-based schools as opposed to computer/Internet-based learning (although not as negative a term).

 

Zaner Bloser and Palmer are traditional manuscript (and cursive) hands.

 

As far as reversals and whatnot, Spalding and its spin-offs teach a very traditional hand (does LOE begin with cursive? IDK.), and they give specific, directional instructions on letter formation, which tend to keep dc from making those errors.

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Yes, that's exactly right. Scott Foresman, publisher of D'Nelian, coined the term to make its own penmanship seem so much better than Zaner Bloser or Palmer (Palmer is another traditional penmanship style, or "hand").

 

It's not unlike the way that K12 coined the term "brick and mortar" to refer to campus-based schools as opposed to computer/Internet-based learning (although not as negative a term).

 

Zaner Bloser and Palmer are traditional manuscript (and cursive) hands.

 

As far as reversals and whatnot, Spalding and its spin-offs teach a very traditional hand (does LOE begin with cursive? IDK.), and they give specific, directional instructions on letter formation, which tend to keep dc from making those errors.

 

 

I should have known I had that information from you, Ellie. Not to hijack, but, Ellie, do you feel strongly about waiting on cursive? My dd6 is doing well with Spalding and the print instruction really helped her a lot. But she is chomping at the bit to do cursive now. Any reason to wait?

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I should have known I had that information from you, Ellie. Not to hijack, but, Ellie, do you feel strongly about waiting on cursive? My dd6 is doing well with Spalding and the print instruction really helped her a lot. But she is chomping at the bit to do cursive now. Any reason to wait?

 

No, I have no opinion on cursive first or manuscript first. :-) But Spalding says once the dc know their manuscript letters well, to go ahead and teach "connected writing," Spalding's version of cursive. I believe Spalding says to wait until the dc are 7ish, but I see no reason not to teach it now...or to teach it now, either. :-)

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Spalding says to wait until a student is spelling in syllables, rather than individual phonograms. I think cursive is suggested to begin with spelling list O, but I'm not sure. I tried quickly skimming my 4th edition manual, but can't find the reference.

 

I may sometimes use "ball and stick" incorrectly. I know it was started as a derogatory description, but I don't think of it that way.

 

I don't like to teach cursive-first with Spalding or any similar programs. If I'm doing cursive-first, I use How to Tutor/Alpha-Phonics.

 

Spalding handwriting was designed for the program and works well with it. Cursive-first works best with a phonics curriculum that had tables of words with the same syllable repeated over and over, rather than an Ayers list based curriculum.

 

I teach ZB uppercase manuscript first from the Simply Charlotte Mason Delightful Handwriting, while teaching the letter names. Then I teach Spalding lowercase cursive while teaching Alpha-Phonics. Last I teach Spalding lowercase manuscript when I get around to it, so students can neatly communicate with peers that cannot read cursive, but not for their own academic needs. I don't teach uppercase cursive.

 

The Spalding cursive hand is vertical, just like their manuscript. ZB cursive is slanted, even though their manuscript is vertical. Simply Charlotte Mason Delightful Handwriting includes D'nelian uppercase manuscript which is slanted and will work well with ZB cursive is someone decides not to teach uppercase cursive.

 

Here is a student sample of what I teach for handwriting. Using 3 lines of regular college ruled notebook paper.

 

3edd9415.jpg

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Spalding says to wait until a student is spelling in syllables, rather than individual phonograms. I think cursive is suggested to begin with spelling list O, but I'm not sure. I tried quickly skimming my 4th edition manual, but can't find the reference.

 

 

 

Page 85:

 

The letters of connected (i.e., cursive) writing should be taught only after manuscript writing with the phonogram sounds has been perfected and no longer requires any special attention. This can be Christmas in the second grade. Children want to learn cursive writing. A promise to teach it as soon as they perfect the basic manuscript writing is an incentive to a real effort to improve.
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So in a digression question, if you had a student going to a Spalding school, but didn't really feel comfortable teaching Spalding handwriting, what do you do? I would love it if there were a Spalding handwriting workbook, but...

 

We had used both Kumon and HWOT prior to my older son's K year (which starts this August), but for #2 I'm wondering if I should even get those workbooks. Hmmm.

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So in a digression question, if you had a student going to a Spalding school, but didn't really feel comfortable teaching Spalding handwriting, what do you do? I would love it if there were a Spalding handwriting workbook, but...

 

We had used both Kumon and HWOT prior to my older son's K year (which starts this August), but for #2 I'm wondering if I should even get those workbooks. Hmmm.

 

The cursive? The left-handed version of this Carson Dellosa workbook is a vertical hand similar to Spalding.

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