Tammy S. Reigles, OTR University of Wisconsin–La Crosse Manitowoc Learning Community

 The purpose of this study was to determine the effect teaching handwriting using consistent terminology would have on the ability of kindergarten students to form lowercase letters correctly with proper alignment and spacing

 Occupational therapist in a rural district  Overall last 12 years, most referrals come from handwriting problems  Frustrating that I’m supposed to just fix student problems  Lack of consistency among teachers within the district  Poor handwriting was the primary reason for referral to occupational therapy in the school system (Clark-Wentz, 1997).

 Handwriting is a complex skill, ( Feder & Majnemer 2007)  Handwriting NEEDS to be taught (Clark-Wentz, 1997)  Handwriting should be taught involving all different kinds of learners, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (Clark-Wentz, 1997)  Students are judged by what they write as well as content (Graham, Harris, & Fink, 2000a)

 Handwriting needs to be taught it can not be assumed that children will be able to form letters or copy them (Clark-Wentz, 1997)  85% of fine motor time in 2 nd, 4 th, and 6 th grade was spent on writing activities (McHale & Cermak, 1992)  In a recent study, approximately one in every two teachers surveyed spent 10 minutes or less teaching handwriting per day. (Graham et al. (2007)

 According to Larsen and Hammill “Because many teachers fail to spend an appropriate amount of time in the early grades on handwriting instruction, some students fail to grasp the skills necessary to write well” (as cited in Clark-Wentz, 1997, p. 31).

 Handwriting is an important developmental skill, (Feder & Majnemer, 2007)  Computers may be tools of the future, penmanship still an important skill (May 2008)  Primary tool of communication and knowledge assessment in the classroom (Olsen, 2009)  Means of communication, personal note, telephone message, writing checks (Feder & Majnemer, 2007)

 Zaner-Bloser©  D’Nealian©  Handwriting without Tears®  Kinesthetic approach to handwriting by Mary Benbow

 At this time, it was difficult to find research completed solely on using common terminology when teaching handwriting skills

 What is the success rate of student’s forming lower case letters correctly with appropriate alignment, and spacing when taught with common terminology?  How can common terminology lessons remain consistent?  What terms do children use when forming letters? 

 Experimental group and control group for comparison  Taught letters to experimental group using big line, little line, big curve, little curve consistently  Used multisensory approach-chalkboards, water, blowing upon, shaving cream  Then paper and pencil

 EXPERIMENTAL GROUP: 16 students in the classroom  12 Caucasian students,  3 Hmong students, and  1 Hispanic student.  Of the 3 Hmong students, 2 were not fluent in speaking English while 1 was proficient in the English language. 9 male and 7 female students. The students that received special education services received services for a mixture of cognitive and behavioral needs, speech and language delays, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. CONTROL GROUP: 13 students in the classroom 10 Caucasian students, 1 Native America student, 1 African American student, and 1 Hispanic student All the students were proficient in English 6 male and 7 female students The students that received special education services received services for a mixture of cognitive and behavioral needs, speech and language delays, occupational therapy, and physical therapy.

 Learned letters capital and lowercase letters together  Zaner-Bloser© method

 Taught capital letters first semester  Taught lowercase letters second semester  Used common terms: big line, little line, big curve, and little curve for every letter  Similar to Handwriting without Tears®

 Field notes were used to record the words students used to form individual letters during practice time were documented  Writing samples from each student were collected from the actual practice workbooks for each letter  Writing samples through copies of their workbook pages for homework  A third party teacher observed and documented what terminology the kindergarten classroom teacher and this researcher utilized  short interviews were conducted following the conclusion of the research with the kindergarten teacher from the experimental classroom  short interviews were conducted following the conclusion of the research with the students

Big line Little line Big Curve Little Curve

A typical review lesson using the Constructivist theory. I am have given the students the capital ‘D’ using our lines and curves, and they need to tell me how to form the lowercase ‘d’

 Using consistent terminology to teach handwriting is 76% successful for students to form lowercase letters of the alphabet  All students that completed the post assessment, which was 14 of the 16 in the study demonstrated an improvement in the number of letters they could form correctly by the end of the research study.  The average gain of letters for the class was 19 letters. The improvement range of letters was between 4 and 24 letters.  72% with differing terminology from the control group

Post Assessment writing sample

 Teachers used were consistent in using terminology for handwriting  In four out of the five letters the wordings were consistently the same verbage used by the researcher

 When asked to state how to form specific letters being practiced, the students were overall 76% consistent with restating the individual letter that was being taught or practiced that day precisely as the teacher taught it. According to the fieldnotes, the students were 100% successful at restating how to form letters k, p, and b. The students had the most difficult time reporting how to form letters r and m with 33% or less using the exact terms taught by the teachers.  Of the 10 students interviewed, 4 students were able to state how to form the letters and state the formation correctly of the five letters requested of them 

Sample of fieldnotes. Checking for student use of terms for forming the letter ‘n’

 the students’ home environments influenced data collection  the teaching method and post-assessment of the control group  2 students with very limited English speaking skills in the experimental classroom, which affected the overall score

 Additional time should be spent on having more classrooms try using the same common terminology for handwriting from year to year.  Finding a first grade teacher to continue the use of these common terms when teaching handwriting  Discovering if students’ handwriting becomes more legible on school-wide written assessment are the grounds for continued action research