Innovations in Handwriting Literacy Development as a Psycho-didactic Issue

Abstract

Czech primary school has been undergoing a transformation process since 1989. This vast transformation concerns the education process provided by primary school, methodology, but also ways of evaluation including the role of a teacher. Close attention has been paid to basic literacies development, mainly reading, writing, Mathematics, but also to what is known as applied literacies. Initial writing instruction has undergone a significant change in recent years. Initial writing skills development belonged to one of the most challenging issues in primary schools. Fear of failure was often a reason for a deferred primary school entry. The change in initial writing instruction involves mainly the field of didactics and psycho- didactics. In the past period, pupils’ writing competencies have been defined with appreciation of their educational needs and possibilities. Methodology has changed towards giving preference to active and creative aspects of instruction; emphasis on legible writing as opposed to neat and well-organized writing (which used to be the aim of the “traditional” writing) has become the aim of teaching. Gradually, a debate started over letter shapes of the handwriting alphabet in terms of their difficulty and legibility. In 2009, R. Lencová, a graphic designer, came up with a suggestion of unlinked vertical script, which is very similar to the shapes used in Western Europe; Comenia Script. Teachers became interested in teaching their first graders this particular script very quickly. Based on requirements of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports a pilot implementation of Comenia Script has been carried out in the teaching of writing in the first grades of 33 Czech primary schools. The pilot project lasted 2 school years. Pupils were monitored in the first and second year of primary school. In addition to the analysis of their handwriting performance and peer benchmarking with pupils who were taught the common writing alphabet, interviews with the pupils’ parents, their teachers (including a large questionnaire survey) and a number of classroom observations were carried out. The findings show unequivocally that developing initial handwriting skills through Comenia Script is suitable primarily for the pupils with writing difficulties (dysgraphia). The paper presents methodology and findings of the pilot survey. Current innovative psycho-didactic approaches to initial writing instruction will be shown as well.