With the rise of technology in schools, skills like neat cursive handwriting can fall by the wayside.

That was something that was starting to disappear in the Oak Harbor School District, with no formal handwriting curriculum being followed much anymore, according to Oak Harbor Elementary Principal Dorothy Day.

But starting at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, the Oak Harbor School District is using a handwriting program called Handwriting without Tears, which helps students from preschool through fifth grade learn how to properly form the letters of the alphabet, as well as how to write in cursive.

“The kindergartners are getting taught just how to print,” Day said. “The older kids, the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders are learning cursive.”

For the younger students, there are activities to help them learn how to properly create letters. Those activities includes songs that describe how to form letters and dances to go along with them.

(Below: Amelia Dorow, a preschooler at Hand-in-Hand Early Learning Center, practices how to form the letter “A” with clay.)

“The kids love it, and the teachers are really liking it,” Day said. “They’re learning how to write paragraphs and sentences, but if they can’t form the letters correctly, then it makes it really difficult for them.”

Kathy Ridle, a teacher at the Hand-in-Hand Early Learning Center, helped choose Handwriting without Tears as the new curriculum.

Ridle said the program was developed by occupational therapists, and the levels were “developmentally appropriate for beginning writers.”

Ridle said handwriting curriculums like this are very important for students.

“As children get older, they need to be able to write efficiently, and if they don’t learn correct letter formation at an early age … it slows them down writing and they don’t write as neatly,” Ridle said.

“This just helps them be more efficient at writing and helps them be more successful.”