Sunshine Scripting Systems specializes in research-based handwriting and phonics programs designed to improve fine motor skills and brain development in children.

After my retirement in the field of design, I spent six years as a volunteer tutoring kindergarten and 1st graders. Horrified at the lack of attention to handwriting education in today’s classrooms, I set about to design a more efficient way to both teach and learn this essential fine motor skill. Handwriting is a complex activity which contributes significantly to brain development and is directly related to both math and reading competence.

Dr. Jacqueline Sund

Welcome to Sunshine Scripting Systems

Handwriting has been the corner stone of literacy for thousands of years.  But, beginning about fifty years ago, education theorists embraced a new concept of early learning and advanced the theory known as ‘emergent-writing’.   Under this paradigm, young children were left to their own interpretation of how a letter was to be formed.  The teacher remained a passive observer of the activity and refrained from any direct instruction in the process.   

Add to this attack on formal handwriting instruction was the rush, in recent times, to embrace keyboarding technology in the earliest grades as a replacement for traditional handwriting instruction.   

What difference does it make, you might ask.  The answer is as simple as it is profound.  For years, university researchers have reported that handwriting stimulates the brain as no other classroom activity.  The other pillars of education – reading and math – are supported and enhanced when handwriting skills are in place.  

Many education professionals have chosen to ignore these critical assessments.  One need only look at the decline in literacy over the past fifty years to see the dire effect this has had on literacy scores in the United States.  While more money is being poured into our schools, literacy rates have not improved. Many educators complain there is not enough time to teach handwriting as Common Core requirements must be met on schedule.  We believe it is time to reassess priorities in early learning and look back, historically, to when the traditional three Rs were the foundation of learning. 

Sunshine Scripting Systems is dedicated to that paradigm.  The model is based on original research and field tested resulting in the development of an innovative manuscript method that embeds handwriting in motor memory in simple stages.  In the review and analysis of other contemporary handwriting curricula, we found that not only was there no research in each specific model, but that the research they did quote was not specifically tied to their models at all, but, rather, research on generic aspects of handwriting. 

We are dedicated to the mission of reviving handwriting as one of the historic pillars of education. 

Dr. Jackie and Bon