Handwriting Experts.

A spark of interest is lit.

A few of the kids that I help with English happened to have been in the same class at the local village school. In fact, they've been together since Kindergarten days and tend to know each other jolly well.

This year they've gone their separate ways depending on which school their parents have chosen for them. The first few years of the English language ( or as they call it, the torture ) is the same in most schools and thus I have study aids that I use for all of them. Sometimes they write in the book itself and sometimes not.

Vocabulary test involve a lot of writing on their part as I make them write an unknown verb at least three times. Moans galore I tell you and in the beginning I tended to fall for that old excuse of:

" I know the verb and don't need to write it down. "

No more!

Scrap paper to write on is often not there so I have an exercise block that I take along. Whilst looking for an unused page the kids often see each other's handwriting and of course instantly want to know how so and so is doing...

Not wanting to divulge anyone's business I have to side step many a youthful demand of:

" Is he / she better than me? / Does he / she have to learn the same stuff? / How can you read that handwriting ? "

The last one is a bit rich indeed, as the only reason they mention it, is the fact that they can't copy the answers from the study aids. Don't worry, I do make them use either a humble pencil
( which is so old fashioned they don't like to use it ) or a space age pen. To my mind at least, as it writes like a ball point pen yet it can be rubbed out like a pencil. Rather expensive yet, to keep up with the Jones' I splashed out and bought three of these pens.

The only problem is that it takes double the time to rub out the answers from the study aids and often the feint outline is visible...luckily for me only of the unreadable handwriting.

Biggi