A good handwriting among students as they race for merit scores seems to be finding its way to oblivion. This has seen a number of handwriting institutes in Coimbatore painstakingly correcting these children

K Chellappan, the owner of the 20-year-old Green Garden Handwriting Institute at Venkatapuram told The Covai Post, “I was an English teacher and headmaster at a corporation school in RS Puram for 32 years. There girls wrote illegibly, so I used to teach handwriting before beginning classes. It improved their confidence and studiousness. After retirement this became my career. I designed a module after studying many handwriting books.

“We teach cursive handwriting and our motto is to join letters correctly so time is saved by not lifting pen or pencil to break words. We also teach correct spacing between words, left and right columns, the correct slant, sitting posture, choice of pen and pencils and correct way to hold a point nib.”

He adds, “Do you know there are 17 different ways to cross the letter T and each can reflect your character? I have published handwriting books from LKG to Class VIII in Tamil and English. It is graded in a scientific way so that one leads to another seamlessly.”

Currently, Green Garden has a two-hour evening class for school children and weekend classes for adults, besides summer classes. They have conducted workshops in nearly 20 Coimbatore schools, besides having franchises in Salem, Karur, Namakkal, Tiruchi, Tirupur, Chennai and Dindigul.

“Even adults come. A textile merchant, signing in capital letters, came and now writes beautifully. So, interest for learning and right methodology will work wonders. It is disturbing to see parents concentrating only on abacus and brain stimulation courses. Whatever children learn can be tested only in handwriting; parents and schools don’t understand that,” regrets Chellappan.

L Ramesh, owner of the six-year-old Excel Academy of Handwriting at Kuniamuthur told The Covai Post, “We teach English cursive handwriting and copperplate. We start from five-year-olds to 18 years, even 60-year-olds have come to learn here. I feel that without good handwriting, a student’s attitude cannot be formed. It changes their overall academic performance, builds confidence. Otherwise students with bad handwriting will hide books despite good academic scores.

“Our course period lasts from 15 to 30 days or even two months. The main idea is to copy and write on four line, single line and unlined books. We teach only an hour each day so students don’t get tired.”

Excel Academy has conducted handwriting workshops for nearly all schools in Coimbatore.

Chellappan plans to upload animated videos on handwriting soon to help working parents.