{"id":16018,"date":"2019-10-01T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/?p=16018"},"modified":"2021-07-02T07:26:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T11:26:38","slug":"letter-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/letter-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"History and The Lost Art of Letter Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Back in my elementary school years, I remember practicing my handwriting and hoping for a good grade. But Mrs. Canon always gave me a C in handwriting<\/em> which all these years (I thought) kept me off the honor roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"History<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Looking back at my report cards, I see it wasn't the only subject keeping me from the honor roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"History<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

My youngest daughter is motivated to improve her handwriting as she has a friend who has beautiful, almost perfect, handwriting. In her quest to write, she bought a quill pen and borrowed some of my Chinese ink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With practice, her handwriting has improved. We used Handwriting Without Tears<\/a> as a teaching tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Handwriting vs. Keyboarding<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Neither of my boys has good handwriting, and to be honest, they don't care. “Keyboarding skills are where it's at now, mom<\/em>,” is what they tell me. Their keyboarding skills make up for their lack in the handwriting department. Straight A's.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But research has shown time and again that there is a link between academic performance and handwriting<\/strong>. Maybe it's the fact that writing something down on paper improves our brains' ability to remember it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students form fine motor skills when they write, and it engages their attention which helps develop better-focusing abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studies show, handwriting skills improve reading<\/a> skills. “The effects of handwriting experience<\/a> on functional brain development in pre-literate children is important for the early recruitment in letter processing of brain regions known to underlie successful reading.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“After a long period of neglect in education, attention to teaching handwriting<\/a> in the primary grades may finally be returning. This attention can benefit many youngsters, including those with learning disabilities.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWriting encourages children to be active deciders,\u201d says Jan Z Olsen<\/a>. \u201cThey consciously have to ask themselves, \u2018What is important enough for me to write down?\u2019 \u2018What do I want to remember later?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One thing I know is that a handwritten note or card from my husband<\/strong> or one of my children will get filed away in a keepsake box<\/a>. The emails and texts they send me will not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking about this made me start to feel sad. The realization that the most romantic, love-filled words my husband shared with me has been this year, via text. Handwritten notes are unique and can be tucked away to read over and over.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept the letters my family sent to me while stationed in Germany<\/strong>. My mom gave me the letters that I wrote to her. Recently, my history-loving son was in awe of the letters postmarked from my life in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"History<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

These handwritten letters were part of my connection to history during that time of the reunification<\/strong>. East and West Germany were reunited officially on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My letters also fascinated him<\/strong> as I detailed our drills during Desert Shield and Desert Storm<\/strong>. And later, news that the Air Force Base would be closed permanently. The letters describe how the German people felt at this time. History. My history.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Tweet “Handwritten notes are unique and can be tucked away to read over and over.”]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without handwritten letters<\/strong>, how much detail would I remember to share with my children? Yes, much of the history will be chronicled online, but not how we felt about it personally<\/strong>. The details of my German friends, our relationships, would have been lost without pen and paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is so much more connection to my place in time when I look back at these handwritten letters.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in my elementary school years, I remember practicing my handwriting and hoping for a good grade. But Mrs. Canon always gave me a C in handwriting which all these years (I thought) kept me off the honor roll. Looking back at my report cards, I see it wasn’t the only subject keeping me from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"mai_trending":14,"mai_views":78,"mai_views_updated":1769428166,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[621,1108],"tags":[],"class_list":{"2":"type-post","7":"category-homeschool","8":"category-lifestyle","9":"entry"},"modified_by":"Rebecca Huff","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24825,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16018\/revisions\/24825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}