St. Edward the Confessor School produces its second national penmanship champ

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

In typical COVID-19 style, the trophy arrived a bit late.

A couple of weeks before the Christmas break, St. Edward the Confessor third grader Truc Dao Le received her long-awaited prize – and a hefty cash award of $500 – for being named Grand National Champion in the second-grade division of the 2020 handwriting contest sponsored by the education company Zaner-Bloser.

To get there, Truc Dao had to excel in a contest that attracted some 80,000 students nationwide.

“I had to write ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,’ because it has all (26) letters of the alphabet,” said Truc Dao, explaining the required submission sentence for her grade level.

Truc Dao’s second grade teacher, Jodie Cavignac, wasn’t surprised by her former student’s national accolade, having observed her work ethic firsthand in the classroom.

“She always puts great effort into everything she turns in, whether it’s graded or just something she has to do in her folder for herself,” Cavignac said. “I think that’s what helped her win the contest. She’s used to putting in that great effort.”

Far from becoming a lost art, penmanship is alive and well at St. Edward the Confessor School. Primary grades have a set handwriting period every school day and middle schoolers must devote at least one weekly period to manual writing.

“We write all day long,” Cavignac said, noting that cursive writing is introduced at the Metairie school in November of the second-grade year, after teachers have done a thorough review of their students’ print writing.

But here’s more proof of the school’s dedication: St. Edward the Confessor has produced yet another Grand National Champion in the eight years it has competed in the national handwriting contest: Brooke Morgan, now a Mount Carmel Academy sophomore, earned the distinction as a first grader, back in 2012.

In addition to the two Grand National Champions, St. Edward also claims two national grade-level semifinalists: Benjamin Vu and Gabrielle Gremillion, who were named national kindergarten semifinalists by Zaner-Bloser in 2014 and 2017, respectively.

Contestants in grades K-2 are asked to submit manuscript (print) entries, while those in grades 3-8 must offer a sample of their cursive (script) writing.

Judges select winners based on what Zaner-Bloser calls the four “keys to legibility”: the shape, size, spacing and slant of the writer’s lettering. 

Participating schools hold their own handwriting competitions and select grade-level winners in the early stages of the competition.

Those grade-level winners advance to state level, where judges select a public and private grade-level winner for every state. From there, the judges select 18 public and private national grade-level semifinalists. Finally, nine “Grand National Champions” are chosen from each grade level.

In the eight years it has been entering the contest, St. Edward has claimed state semifinalists in nearly every grade each year.

“It has been scientifically proven that writing stimulates and strengthens the part of the brain responsible for language development,” said Aimee Gardner, St. Edward the Confessor’s assistant principal, curriculum coordinator and one of the school’s third-grade teachers.

“Handwriting is tied into reading comprehension, spelling and oral language,” Gardner added. “Studies have also proven that children and adults retain more information when they write (information) manually, compared to typing, and that cursive is better for (retention) than printing.

Although Truc Dao’s favorite subject is phonics and she is enjoying getting into multiplication and division as a third grader, she admits her true passion since age 2 has been dance. Her week is filled with lessons in hip-hop, modern dance, jazz, gymnastics, tap and ballet.

Truc Dao also stays busy as the youngest of eight children, all of whom are either graduates of or currently attending St. Edward the Confessor.

But leave it to Truc Dao’s mother to make sure her youngest child’s achievement as a national handwriting champion doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of a large family.

Said Truc Dao: “My mom put my trophy in the doorway!”

In addition to Truc Dao’s national distinction, St. Edward also produced five state semifinalists in their respective grade levels in the 2020 handwriting contest: Eva Haworth, Katelyn Albaral, Noelle Youngblood, Madison Adams and Gabriella Romero.

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