Video:D'nealian Style Vs. Zaner Bloser Stylewith Rebecca Blomker
Zaner Bloser and D'nealian handwriting styles are different but both are important in developing a child's handwriting technique. Learn the characteristics of Zaner Bloser and D'nealian style handwriting.See Transcript
Transcript:D'nealian Style Vs. Zaner Bloser Style
Hi my name is Rebecca Blomker, I was an AP teacher for five years before choosing to stay home and educate my three boys. Today we are going to be talking about the differences between the Zaner Bloser and the D’nealian handwriting style for About.com.
Difference Between D’nealian Handwriting Style and Zaner Bloser
The basic difference between the Zaner Bloser and the D’nealian style is that the D’Nealian style is slanted form of writing it is very fluid and you make very few strokes with the pen. For example in the word wake in the D’nealian style you only have four strokes, one for each letter. In the Zaner Bloser method it is what you call the ball and the stick method. It is very simple and has vertical, horizontal lines and circles, but you are picking up your pen, making one stroke, making the next you are ending up with more strokes per word. In this word, wake, you have 11 strokes.Now, the Zaner Bloser writing style is the oldest style that we have.
It was developed in the 1800s by Charles Zaner who at that time developed a college for penmanship in order to teach a simple form of writing and Elmer Bloser bought into that college and the two of them developed the Zaner Bloser writing method and sold it to the general public. Now the D’nealian writing style was developed later in the 1960’s by a man named Thurber, Neil Thurber. His purpose in creating it was to skip teaching children two types of handwriting, to skip basic handwriting and go directly into a form of cursive, where you have a smooth flow but yet individual letters of cursive handwriting.
Zaner Bloser Helps Children Develop Handwriting
The pros of the Zaner Bloser writing style are that it is very developmentally appropriate for children, with the very simple strokes, the vertical lines, the circles at the age of three they can do it easily and when they walk into to kindergarten it is an easy transition for them to make. Also it is very easy to recognize the Zaner Bloser writing style we see it all around us in culture when we are driving down the road, on road signs, that writing is very simple straight forward simple ball and stick type of writing because it is easy to recognize, so children as they are learning how to read see the Zaner Bloser style all around them.
D’nealian Style Handwriting Transitions into Cursive
The D’nealian writing style is harder for children to write because of the slanting motion, developmentally, gross motor skills are not as developed to do those slanting motions, so it is a little bit harder for them to do. Now the Pros for the D’nealian style is that it is only one type of writing that you have to learn and you can skip the first handwriting which is straight up and down and then go to cursive.Thank you for watching and for more information on the differences between the Zaner Bloser and the D’nealian writing styles, please check us out at About.com.