Winning by Writing Right

Head bent intently over his manuscript, Andre Cataluna is a study in concentration as he works his pen to form letters with firm strokes and rounded loops in a well-developed cursive style.

Andre might inhabit a 19th century painting documenting the craft of a forgotten age. But he is, in fact, a very modern seventh-grader from Carson who was named Monday the national handwriting champion, beating more than 144,000 elementary and middle school students across the country.

Andre, 13, received his award at a ceremony Monday at St. Philomena School in Carson, which he attends.

“I was surprised but I kind of wasn’t excited because I didn’t really mind if I won or not, it just kind of happened,” Andre said with the nonchalance of a pro. “My family was excited, then the whole class got T-shirts, so they were excited too.”

As grand champion of the 15th annual Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest, Andre received more than $1,500 in prizes, including a computerized pen. Besides T-shirts, his class received handwriting software and his teacher won a trip for two to Boston, home of John Hancock. Contestants’ writing was judged on overall legibility, including shape, slant, spacing and size.

Andre previously was named a national handwriting champion in his grade level and a California contest winner.

He and other students like him represent a conundrum in American education: They love writing in script, even as many forces push formal penmanship out of schools and daily life.

The emphasis on standardized testing and such basic skills as math and reading has diminished classroom time spent on penmanship. At the same time, the dominance of computers has focused attention on the use of keyboards for e-mailing, text messaging and other forms of communication.

But there is also strong evidence that links good handwriting with improved grammar, composition and reading. More practically, many state and national tests, including the SAT, require handwritten essays, and legibility of papers vastly eases the job of reading and scoring.

And there are kids like Andre, who believes that handwriting is a reflection of his character and personality:

“If you’re neat in life, your handwriting is going to be neat,” he said after a recent class. “If you’re sloppy in life, your handwriting will be too.”

By all accounts, Andre has always been a bit of a perfectionist and partial to neatness.

“Since Day 1, he was very meticulous and everything had to be just so,” said his grandmother, Marie Bermudez. “He collects watches, and they’re lined up just so, ever since he was young.”

But Andre points to his mother, Maria Cataluna, as the catalyst of his award-winning writing.

“When I was little,” he said, “if the handwriting on my school papers was sloppy, she’d tear it up and make me do it again.”

When it comes to technique, he says, look to the instrument.

“To me, the pen matters the most,” Andre said. “Especially the weight and whether the ink is thinner or thicker. Thinner ink makes my writing flow better.”

But the elegant stylist who likes to draw cartoons and one day wants to play professional volleyball admitted being seduced by the dark side: “I like using computers,” he said.

That is the trend for much of Andre’s generation: Schools often teach students to use a keyboard in third grade, the same time they teach cursive writing. Some schools have dropped penmanship as a class or insist on instruction that can be accomplished in 10 or 15 minutes a day.

“I’m not sure if cursive handwriting will remain relevant,” said Gary Richardson, Andre’s seventh-grade teacher. “It may well become a lost art, and we may want to put it into the category of Latin or Greek.”

The drop-off in penmanship started decades ago, educators and others said.

“There was a time when the three Rs also meant penmanship,” said Richard Northup, vice president of Zaner-Bloser Educational Publishers, which sponsors the annual handwriting contest. “But that faded when a new kind of teaching came in after Sputnik, with a new focus on math and science. Penmanship was pushed into a corner because teachers didn’t have the time to spend an hour a day practicing loops. And then personal computers came along.”

But Northup, a former high school English teacher, points out that putting pen to paper is a technology itself, one that doesn’t depend on electricity or complicated components.

Many teachers say children actually love writing in cursive when they get the chance.

“The second-graders look at it as something special that happens in the third grade, and they can’t wait,” said Pennie Barnes, whose students at Glenoaks Elementary School in Glendale receive about 30 minutes of handwriting instruction each day.

Alex Kei Lee, 9, a third-grader at the school, was recently named a state champion in her grade level by Zaner-Bloser. Alex said she knew she would like to write when, in preschool, she began tracing her name from right to left in reverse image on foggy windows. She especially loves to write capital Ss, Ls and E’s because she can loop to her heart’s content. She writes so much, she said, that she sometimes got calluses on her tiny fingers until she started using rubbery cushions on the pencils.

The appeal of cursive is simple, Alex said.

“It looks like a whole ‘nother language,” she said.