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The Need
to Revise Handwriting Systematically
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It is necessary for teachers to be systematic,
not merely in the introduction of the alphabet to young learners, but also in its
revision. This need is discussed in the article Handwriting: The Neglected Skill by
Mahamad M. Ajineh in the April 1996 edition of English Teaching Forum.
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It is not easy for school-age learners to
acquire good handwriting habits when their own language uses a different alphabet. In many
state school systems, typically those in the Middle East, children may be taught in
classes of thirty or more, with only four or five 30-minute English lessons a week. The
school year is often short-perhaps only twenty to twenty-six weeks. This is very little
time for the young learners to familiarize themselves with new letter shapes and with a
different direction of hand, eye, and pen movements, not to mention the vagaries of our
alphabet (It really is rather difficult for young Arabic- speaking children to comprehend
when-and when not-to use capital letters in English.). Added to the difficulty is the fact
that the length of summer vacations means that at the start of every new school year, many
learners will not have used English at all for three months or more-plenty of time for
them to have forgotten the good habits encouraged by their teachers. Compounding the
problem is the tendency in many countries to introduce the teaching of English earlier and
earlier in the school curriculum, so that the youngest learners are attempting to become
literate in a second language at a time when they are barely so in their own.
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The following suggestion is not intended to be a
panacea: Indeed, there is none. The proposal may, however, be of some help to teachers who
are wondering how to deal with the handwriting of their classes at the start of their
second (or third, or fourth) year of English. It is a way to systematically check, revise
and improve learners' handwriting through the use of dictations. Dictations are a tried
and trusty friend of many teachers-not least because they are easy to prepare and also
enable the teacher to control the students' language and behaviour very closely in a
lesson; this is particularly important when, for example, at the start of a year, the
teacher is in front of an unfamiliar (and often large) class. The proposal has the
additional advantage that it does not require the use of textbooks, which in many places
arrive in schools well after the official start of the school year. There are seven basic
steps.
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1. The first step is for the teachers to
consider, and make a note of, a list of likely areas of weakness:
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- wrong point of entry-too low, too high-(with a note of particular letters which might
cause problems such as o or e )
- wrong pen direction (e.g., z, y, x )
- ascenders not high enough (e.g., t, d, b, h, k )
- descenders do not extend below the line (e.g., g, j, y )
- words are not consistently written along the line
- letters are incorrectly joined to each other
- capital letters are wrongly formed (e.g., they fall below the line)
- capital letters are wrongly used (e.g., they occur in the middle of words)
- words are irregularly spaced
- basic punctuation is wrongly formed (e.g., apostrophes on the line)
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2. The next step is to write a short dictation
passage suitable for the level of the class. This might, of course, be an adaptation of a
text that the learners had worked on towards the end of the previous year. This would
ensure that the vocabulary and structures are-or should be-within their competence. This
passage should be dictated to the class in one of the first lessons of the year.
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3. The resulting scripts should be collected and
analysed by the teacher in order to identify the most common or the most important errors.
To do this, the teacher could produce a scattergram by first listing all the basic errors
and then checking every occurrence of the specified errors on the list. So, for example,
you might-with a class of 30 or 40 learners-produce a scattergram like the one below-where
every x indicates a systematic (see Footnote 1 ) error of the specific type written by the pupils in their
scripts:
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1. |
entry point: |
e
o |
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxx |
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2. |
pen direction: |
p
n |
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx |
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4. |
descenders |
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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6. |
joining |
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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7. |
capitals - form |
xxxxxx |
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8. |
capitals - use |
xxxxxxxxxx |
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9. |
irregular spacing |
xxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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For any set of dictations done by a class, there may be crosses against several items,
and-in very good classes-no crosses at all against one or two items. In the above example,
the teacher may come to the conclusion that numbers 3, 5, and 7 were all done sufficiently
well by most of the class, but that the others needed focused attention in class because a
significant number of students had shown systematic weaknesses in these areas. The teacher
needs to decide the order in which the various items should be revised.
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4. The next step is to write a short dictation
passage, including a number of words containing the particular handwriting error. In the
above case, the teacher might decide to focus on errors in descenders, which seemed to be
fairly general, so the dictation passage would contain a high proportion of words
containing letters such as f, p , and y . It is, of course, necessary to
choose these words from the known lexicon of the learners.
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5. At the start of the next lesson, the teacher
would spend some time revising the graphic features of the handwriting item in focus. As
much detail as possible should be elicited from the class about the sort of issues that
Mr. Ajineh referred to in his article, i.e., the entry point of the letters, the movement
of the hand and direction of the pen, which parts of the letters fall below the line, the
exit point, etc. The teacher should clearly show the pupils how to write the letters
properly, using a four-line stave on the board, reminding them of the basic hand movements
as he writes: "up, down, round," etc. This should be followed by some controlled
practice such as the following:
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- discriminating between those letters which have descenders and those which do not,
- using flashcards,
- demonstrating on the black/whiteboard,
- copying letters and words from the board into exercise books.
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In large classes, it is very difficult for the
teacher to check individual pupils while they are writing. This on- task monitoring is
very important as it is easy for young learners to get used to forming the letters
incorrectly-and such habits are difficult to eradicate. It is useful, therefore, for
learners in large classes to do such copying in pairs: One learner writes, while the other
monitors to give feedback as to whether or not the writer is moving his/her hand in the
correct way. The teacher can then focus on smaller groups or individuals with particular
needs.
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6. The teacher should give the prepared
dictation and collect the work.
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7. The scripts should then be analysed to see
the extent to which the class has improved (or has not!) the weakness in focus. If the
weakness has not significantly improved, the teacher should prepare another dictation to
focus on the same item, and give more (but different) remedial teaching and practice on
the specific point before doing the dictation. If the weakness has improved, the teacher
should prepare another dictation passage, this time focusing on another important general
weakness. Elements of the previous item in focus should, however, be incorporated. Then
steps 4 through 7 should be followed again.
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By following the above procedure, teachers may
attempt to systematically check, revise, and improve their learners' handwriting. Some
classes will enjoy seeing the scattergrams put up on a classroom wall, and their
improvement noted by a progressive reduction in the number of errors made by the class as
a whole. Scattergrams will also give the class a clear indication of the importance the
teacher attaches to accuracy and clarity in handwriting.
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Roger
Barnard is a lecturer at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He has also
worked for the British Council and Ministries of Education in Europe and the Middle East. |
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Return
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Footnote 1
| *The term systematic means that the
error occurs more than once or twice in the passage and cannot therefore be regarded as a
"slip of the pen." |
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