Mariah Ousley

Ousley’s innovative idea, “Closing the Gap,” focuses on improving students’ learning around letters, handwriting skills, writing their name and basic sentences with confidence. With the resources from the Voya Unsung Heroes grant, Ousley hopes to close literacy gaps at Prairie Queen Elementary School with her literacy-focused project that includes adopting the Handwriting Without Tears (HWOT) literacy program. HWOT is a research-based handwriting curriculum designed by a licensed occupational therapist as an effective supplemental resource to help students gain fine and gross motor use while assisting them in refining their penmanship skills. With HWOT, classroom teachers will be able to add handwriting into a segment of their daily reading and ELA (English language arts) blocks so that each student benefits from the supplementation of handwriting alongside learning foundational reading skills.