Assignment 10

Assessing and Teaching Handwriting and Written Expression

Teaching Handwriting Skills

Handwriting Readiness -

Readiness is a term that describes foundation skills present before the child learns a new task. Writing readiness as having the needed characteristics to "profit satisfactorily from the instruction given in the teaching of handwriting at different stages through elementary school. Writing readiness skills have been further specified by several authors. Six prerequisites for handwriting are:

small muscle development
eye-hand coordination
utensil or tool manipulation
basic stroke formation
alphabet letter recognition
orientation to written language.

Cognitive readiness could affect handwriting performance. Several authors have suggested that a certain level of cognitive/language ability needs to exist before handwriting performance is optimal. Exner and Henderson (1995) stated that cognitive skills including attention, memory, perception, and language affect the learning of motor skills, but that the role of cognition diminishes once the skill is learned and skill refinement is in progress. Chu (1997) recommended evaluation of the cognitive components of attention, memory, language comprehension, and reasoning when a child has handwriting difficulties. Sandler et al. (1992) found that three of the four patterns of writing disorders identified in 9- to15-year-olds had links to either cognitive or visual-perceptual function. These included expressive language, rapid naming, picture naming, attention, and memory. While many authors recognize that cognition/language plays an important role in handwriting, the question of what constitutes critical cognitive readiness is not clearly answered.

Manuscript Writing -

At one time, manuscript (print) writing was typically taught in first grade, whereas cursive was introduced later, usually in third grade. Historically, some authorities argued for the superiority of one form over the other for children with LDs, most often for the superiority of cursive over manuscript.

However, there is little evidence that cursive is easier to learn than manuscript, and there are clear advantages to having children focus on the form of writing similar to what they must read in print.

Most critically, children should be able to use at least one form to produce legible, reasonably effortless writing, and instruction should focus on the form that appears most likely to lead to that outcome, especially for older children with handwriting difficulties.

Transitional Writing -

Students will learn to combine sentences using two kinds of transition words: time transitions and thought (logical) transitions. Transition words link related ideas and hold them together. They can help the parts of a narrative to be coherent or work together to tell the story. Coherence means all parts of a narrative link together to move the story along. Think of transition words as the glue that holds a story together. Using transition words helps avoid the "listing" problem in stories.

Cursive Writing -

Handwriting or penmanship is a way of writing using the hand and an instrument. Cursive is a type of penmanship in which the letters are connected. The purpose is to make writing faster. Printing relies on straight lines and pencil breaks because you have to pick up and put down your pencil several times for each letter. Cursive writing is always looped, connected and allows the writer to make fluid, pencil-to-paper connections.

Typically taught to second graders, cursive writing is a rite of passage, marking a time of transition from a less rigorous curriculum to a more challenging one. Before beginning instruction, you'll need to determine which of the two major styles is best for your students.

Keyboarding -

A kid can learn to type as soon as they have access to a device with a keyboard though it’s generally believed that they may not have the motor coordination or finger span to truly touch type until about seven or 8 years of age. If you don’t have a device with a keyboard, you can find a picture of one, print it out and they can still practice the basic drills like these. Fold it up and bring it on the go. This can be an activity children can do in the car, bus, subway, or waiting room.

Handwriting Activities

Use Manipulatives to teach/reinforce letter formation -
1. Craft Sticks
2. play dough (try making your own!)
3. small stones, gems and/or rocks
4. stickers
5. cheerios
6. M&M's
7. Pipe Cleaners
8. Wikki Stix
9. bottle caps
10. cooked spaghetti
11. yarn/string
12. beans
13. cotton balls
14. small strips of paper
15. twigs, sticks
16. small erasers
17. Unifix/Snap Cubes or Wood Counting Cubes
18. cookie cutters dipped in paint
19. flower petals and/or small leaves
20. q-tips and/or toothpicks

You don't even need a pencil and paper to practice handwriting! Break out of your comfort zone and let your children have fun practicing forming letters in/on -
21. shaving cream
22. salt tray
23. rice tray
24. ziploc baggie filled with Paint
25. ziploc baggie filled with hair gel
26. Finger Paint
27. pudding
28. icing
29. sand
30. dirt

Let them use their fingers or a paintbrush to practice the strokes. This is tactile and a great way for them to remember how the letter is formed. Later, when they are ready for the pencil they will have a solid starting point and know how to properly form those letters. Yay!

Doing the same old paper and pencil practice over and over again can get boring for everyone. Get creative, get up off the table and have fun writing on -
31. the sidewalk (use chalk, chalk paint or a paintbrush & plain water)
32. a mirror (use dry erase markers)
33. a Magna Doodle
34. a Dry Erase Board
35. the windows (use window crayons or markers)
36. the bathroom tile (use dry erase markers)
37. a Chalk Board (use chalk, a paintbrush & water or fill/color in chalkboard with chalk and invite child to write using water and a paintbrush)
38. the air
39. your back (with their finger)
40. the dirt with a stick
41. Sheet Protectors with Dry Erase and/or Wet Erase markers
42. a Geoboard with rubber bands

Assessment of Handwriting Skills

Assessment of handwriting should incorporate observations of execution, legibility, and speed of writing.

Execution includes correct and consistent pencil hold, posture, and letter formation. Counterproductive habits in these latter areas are not always obvious from looking only at writing samples and can greatly impede progress in handwriting. For instance, young children may "draw" a letter such as m using separate strokes, starting on the right side of the letter. Forming the letter beginning on the left side, without lifting the pencil from the paper, is much more conducive to building eventual speed of writing.

Legibility involves the readability of letters, as well as spacing within and between words.

Speed is important as children advance beyond the first few grades so that they can use writing efficiently in a variety of tasks.

If children have learned both manuscript and cursive, as is often the case with older youngsters, then assessment should consider the execution, legibility, and speed of both forms of writing.

Troubleshooting Problems

Some initial questions to ask if you are concerned about a child's handwriting

Has your child received any direct teaching of handwriting?
What is the policy for handwriting in the school?
Are the concerns about the handwriting shared by the teacher, the parents and the child?
What are the main areas of concern?
1. Legibility? (All or most of the words written can't be read out of context.)
2. Neatness? (The handwriting is messy or poorly controlled.)
3. Comfort? (The child is experiencing pain, strain or discomfort when writing.)
4. Pressure? (S/he is pressing too hard or not hard enough, or pressure within one piece of writing is variable.)
5. Speed? (S/he writes very slowly, producing too little writing, or too fast, becoming inaccurate.)
6. Motivation/enjoyment? (S/he is reluctant to write or gives up too easily.)

Written Expression Skills

When to Use Formal and Informal Writing

A formal writing style is not necessarily “better” than an informal style, rather each style serves a different purpose and care should be taken in choosing which style to use in each case.

Writing for professional purposes is likely to require the formal style, although individual communications can use the informal style once you are familiar with the recipient.

Note that emails tend to lend themselves to a less formal style than paper-based communications, but you should still avoid the use of "text talk".

If in doubt as to how formal your writing should be, it is usually better to err on the side of caution and be formal rather than informal.

Informal Writing Style

Colloquial – Informal writing is similar to a spoken conversation. Informal writing may include slang, figures of speech, broken syntax, asides and so on. Informal writing takes a personal tone as if you were speaking directly to your audience (the reader). You can use the first or third person point of view (I and we), and you are likely to address the reader using second person (you and your).
Simple – Short sentences are acceptable and sometimes essential to making a point in informal writing. There may be incomplete sentences or ellipsis(…) to make points.
Contractions and Abbreviations – Words are likely to be simplified using contractions (for example, I’m, doesn’t, couldn’t, it’s) and abbreviations (e.g. TV, photos) whenever possible.
Empathy and Emotion – The author can show empathy towards the reader regarding the complexity of a thought and help them through that complexity.

Formal Writing Style

Complex – Longer sentences are likely to be more prevalent in formal writing. You need to be as thorough as possible with your approach to each topic when you are using a formal style. Each main point needs to be introduced, elaborated and concluded.
Objective – State main points confidently and offer full support arguments. A formal writing style shows a limited range of emotions and avoids emotive punctuation such as exclamation points, ellipsis, etc., unless they are being cited from another source.
Full Words – No contractions should be used to simplify words (in other words use "It is" rather than "It's"). Abbreviations must be spelt out in full when first used, the only exceptions being when the acronym is better known than the full name (BBC, ITV or NATO for example).
Third Person – Formal writing is not a personal writing style. The formal writer is disconnected from the topic and does not use the first person point of view (I or we) or second person (you).

Teaching Written Expression Skills

Written expression is one of the most challenging tasks for children to learn. Students who experience difficulties in acquiring fluent and efficient writing skills may struggle to generate ideas, construct meaningful sentences, sequence and organise their ideas into paragraphs, and use grammar appropriately. These students may also have difficulty with handwriting, punctuation and spelling. Furthermore, writing requires knowledge of text genres, text cohesion and coherence, and a sense of audience. Any weaknesses in oral language expression are likely to transfer to written work as it is very rare for someone to be able to write material they are unable to say.

To learn all the skills necessary for written expression, a highly structured, explicit, systematic teaching approach is needed with many opportunities for students to practise and apply learned skills. Students must be taught to identify the features and structures of texts when reading and work towards transferring their spoken language into written work. Providing students with the structure and strategies for building suitable sentences and paragraphs, and the composition of simple texts, will give them the foundation skills necessary to write effectively in the upper primary and secondary years.

Computer Software Programs in Written Expression

There are many technological devices that can be used to help children understand written expression. They can use something as simple as a computer up to an IPad. Today, it is not uncommon for a Kindergartener to have an IPad in their backpack! It is also not uncommong for them to be in the classrooms! There are many little technology devices like LeapPads that can be used as well.