Literacy and handwriting

This is from Nikki- She created her own framework to fit with the contextual needs of her work setting.

“The Bank Framework” consists of three stages and is based on the contextual approach and systems theory (Ideshi, 2003; Shumway-Cook & Woolacott 1995). It focuses firstly on establishing a child’s understanding of text, secondly considers the environmental influences affecting the child’s handwriting and then thirdly focuses on the intervention strategies of verbal guidance, based on aspects of the Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance model (Co-op), and multisensory approach .

1. Establishing Knowledge of Text.

Occupational Therapists in schools often work with children who have cognitive impairments in addition to their physical impairment. Cognitive impairments, as much as physical impairments can have considerable effect on handwriting performance. (Jongman et al., 2003). Handwriting is more than just a visual motor task and involves the understanding of a number of literacy concepts to enable meaningful learning (Clay, 1991). Studies by Graham, Harris, MacArthur & Fink (2002) and Hammerschmidt & Sudsawad (2004) found teacher’s theoretical perspectives were valuable for understanding effective writing instruction. Occupational Therapists should consider these as well as focusing on the sensorimotor aspects of handwriting.

Jongman (et al., 2003) and Clay (1991) suggest that in order for a child to write and form letters they need to have some basic concepts of text. That is; they understand messages can be written and that you ‘construct’ the message in speech, that the letters and words form a left to right sequence, there are spaces between letters/words and that the visual forms of their writing attempts have correlation with their oral message. As found by Clay (1970), 2% of 6½ year olds still confused print and pictures as the source of a story. The Ministry of Education Literacy document also suggests children need some basic phonemic knowledge to understand that spoken sounds have letters to represent them (MoE, 2003).

Establishing a child’s understanding of text can effectively be done through liaising with the teacher and observing the child in a writing task. “What the child writes is a rough indicator of how he views printed language” (Clay, 1991, p.97