Good penmanship begins with the right tools

MANILA, Philippines - Selecting pencils that a beginner can easily grip and work with is more important than most parents think, according to Cristina Caraig, marketing manger of Amalgamated Specialties Corporation (Amspec), exclusive makers of T-Pencil and Crayola in the Philippines.

For many beginners, the T-Pencil with large-sized hexagonal barrels are ideal. Others find the Jumbo model with round barrel in black — the standard pencil for kinder students in the ’50s up to the ’60s — easier to work with. Still other pupils are more comfortable with the T-Pencil with triangular barrel. The same model works well for left-handed youngsters.

Each child has his own preference, point out studies by Amspec, which has been making pencils for 50 years. It used to manufacture other pencil brands until it decided to develop its own label.  “The key is to help a child experiment — beginning perhaps with the hexagonal models with larger barrels,” says Caraig.

She notes that the best time to prepare a child to write is as young as 18 months or old enough to grip a crayon. The best precursor to a good pencil is a good crayon — one that is easy for little hands to grasp and at the same time will not easily snap. More important, a crayon should be non-toxic to avoid harming youngsters who tend to put things in their mouth.

Crayola’s My First Crayons were designed especially for toddlers and meet all of the above requirements. They are also deliberately not labeled so that kids don’t have to struggle peeling them off after long hours of scribbling. Like all Crayola products, they meet the European Union’s consumer safety, health and environmental requirements. They are also registered with the Philippine Food and Drug Administration and have been deemed safe by the USA Arts and Crafts Materials Institute.

“Drawing and writing are complex tasks for growing children to master,” says Caraig. Both activities require grasping an implement, holding the paper so it stays in place, and applying just the required pressure. A crayon that glides easily on paper facilitates mastery of this skill. In lieu of a crayon, markers made intentionally for pudgy hands like Crayola’s stubby Pip-Squeaks help a child hone the skill. With the right coaching, scribbling metamorphoses to writing with a pencil.



Crayons and pencils that are easy for a toddler to use also build his confidence. “A two-or-three-year-old, says Caraig, “automatically attributes the efficiency of his writing implements to his own abilities — and vice versa. When a crayon does not register well on paper or when a pencil’s lead snaps easily, he automatically thinks it is because he has done a bad job.”

source: philstar.com

Bayo and the importance of good writing

This was first posted on Facebook in reaction to the Bayo ad campaign that scandalized the Internet last week. I thought I’d share it here as well.

If there's anything that the Bayo brouhaha has taught us, it's that GOOD WRITING IS IMPORTANT.

Working in media, it is oftentimes taken for granted that most Filipinos, no matter the tax bracket, would rather look at pretty pictures than read words.

The complaints over an ad that many people interpreted as faintly racist proved that Filipinos do read, and that their thoughts count.

The ad's main fault isn't that it was offensive (it was trying to sell clothes, not perpetuaute an ideology) but that it suffers from bad writing.

Many people, all of them non-writers, think that writing is an easy task. That as long as you passed language class and can string words together to form coherent thought, you can write anything, from novels to advertising copy. Writers will tell you that this is not so. Writing is hard work. It may look like a lot of sitting at a desk and staring out windows and putting the words you learned in spelling class to good use, but it's more than that. There is effort and tears and if you get a paper cut, blood. And yet, especially now, writing is something many of people take for granted.

And here is the self-serving part of this post, a sentiment that I am sure all professional writers have felt at some point in their lives: Writers have labored for far too long under inadequate circumstances. We are paid very little for what we do, and our craft is, more often than not, considered as filler instead of meat.

If there's anything the Bayo fiasco has taught us, it's that good writing is important. And if you want good writing, you have to hire good writers. Not some random relative, not some person who will do it for cheap. Find out what makes good writing, hire good writers, and PAY THEM WHAT THEY ARE WORTH.

Most writers are terribly underpaid, and their craft is often taken for granted because the common way of thinking is "if my first grade son can write an essay, why do I need to pay an adult to do it?"

It's about time we reexamine the way we think about writing and writers. Because as we have seen, words do have the power to break a campaign, no matter how nice the accompanying photo is. Although when you think about it, bad writing got Bayo major Internet buzz, so that might be a good thing for them. I just don't know how it translates to sales.

source: gmanetwork.com