Sing, Dance, Draw — All to Learn How to Write!

Learning Without Tears Workshop Review

By: Dana Pais OTD, OTR/L

When you sign up for a continuing education course, you never really know what you’re in for. Sure, the course brochure shares the description and objectives for the day, but what about the instructor’s teaching style? What about the learning activities? Is it going to be all lecture and difficult to sit for 8 hours for 2 consecutive days?

I recently attended two Learning Without Tears (LWT) workshops in Chicago: Pre-K Readiness & Writing and K-5 Handwriting. Both were fantastic! The instructor, Diane Eldridge, was very engaging and fun. She had a good sense of humor and engaging teaching style that is needed when the participants are not used to sitting in a class for 2 days–especially given that the LWT courses are geared towards educators and therapists who spend all day on the move. Diane taught with an appropriate balance of seriousness and lightheartedness. She made sure we had the background information and knowledge needed to utilize the program, while also giving us time to practice and opportunities to collaborate with colleagues.

At the beginning of each workshop, participants are given a large tote bag of materials that are needed to execute the LWT program. There’s lots of fun goodies: activity sets, workbooks, crayons, magnetic stamps, slate chalkboard, songs and more. An occupational therapist’s dream! During the workshops, participants learn how to use all the components to implement the LWT curriculum in an organized manner. The workshops are structured to teach the program using the program materials, which to me is the best hands on way to learn.

Overall, I highly recommend the Learning Without Tears workshops. I fully believe in LWT’s multi-sensory method for teaching handwriting and had a great experience at the workshops. It made me excited to learn about handwriting even though I already know how to write!