A handwriting curriculum for preschool through fourth grade will be implemented at the Mid-Prairie School District next fall.

Curriculum and Professional Learning Leader Kristan Hunter and second grade teacher Kerri Bell spoke to the school board Monday requesting $57,424 for a seven-year cycle of the curriculum for 32 classrooms. Hunter said when elementary teachers completed a survey last fall 100% of them said handwriting was something that needed to be addressed. Hunter said the purpose of handwriting instruction is automaticity and legibility, and that handwriting should be a backburner skill, instead of one that kids stumble through. Hunter mentions the research she and a 10-person committee studied on fine motor skills, “From something that’s been typed out to something that’s been written studies have shown that students who are writing those notes, they are outperforming the students who are doing it digitally because of the way that the hand works and stimulates the brain and the memory. Again, we said fine motor development until the age of 10, you know when we think about that if we’re never using the fine motor and we’re never developing those muscles that’s going to impact the arts. If you think of ones that would play instruments, if you think of ones that are going to mold and paint, that’s going to not just impact what we’re doing in the classroom, that’s in other territories of their life.”

The board voted unanimously to implement the curriculum beginning in the 2018-2019 school year. Board President Jeremy Pickard remarked he would at some point like to know from the administration where the funding is coming from and if anything would be given up for this program.