Remediating Children’s Handwriting: A Case Study

Abstract

Concern for the academic-skills area of normal classroom students has marked the resurgence of interest in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy (Baum, 1976; Corbin, 1976; Hogan & Judy, 1976). School counsellors and other resource personnel can contribute to the classroom teacher’s effectiveness in these areas by providing advice and demonstrating procedures useful in the teaching of these basic skills. Although there has been a major focus upon such areas as reading and mathematics, the abovementioned concern with literacy skills should also encompass handwriting as a major medium of communication. As a result of many requests from teachers in the field, the authors instituted the following study with a child who was experiencing learning difficulties. The study had three aims:

• (1) to improve the handwriting performance of peter, a 7 year old with few successul handwriting skills;

• (2) to implement a self-evaluative teaching system in which Peter would eventually monitor his own handwriting Performance; and

• (3) to demonstrate to teachers a method of evaluating handwriting which they could use in their classrooms.