Author: Irune Ibarra
Institution: University of the Basque Country EHU-UPV
Country: Spain
Topic: Connecting Open Education to Primary and Secondary (K-12) Education
Sector: K-12
UNESCO Area of Focus: Building capacity
Session Format: Lightning Talk
Abstract
The early identification of writing difficulties or developmental dysgraphia is important. In fact, during school hours, students spend between 30-60% of their time writing by hand, especially until grades 3 and 4. If what is written is not legible and/or is slow, students’ self-esteem is affected, their test scores can suffer and the ‘Mathew effect’ becomes a reality; that is, as happens with reading, students who start poor in writing, will remain poor throughout their schooling. The neurodevelopmental model of writing (Berninger & Graham, 1998) can offer us clues to identify the dimensions that may be obstructing handwriting and then correct them. The objective of this talk is to show how multimedia resources available to educators at these grades can help them identify handwriting difficulties and intervene. The resources discussed are part of the Open edX learning platform at the University of the Basque Country, in Donostia-San Sebastian and include videos, audios and Graphics Interchange Formats (GIF), among other tools. First, I will show how the course is made up, that is, what the questionnaires are like, how communication with educators is carried out and how the four modules it contains are developed. Thus, in the first module, the benefits of manual writing in school will be presented, from a neuroscience point of view. The processes that children follow when writing are also defined too. In the second module, developmental dysgraphia will be determined and the components that are affected will be identified, especially the finger function, letters legibility and letters automaticity. Possible cutting points will be also offered for the evaluation of these components. In the third module, strategies to intervene with difficulties in the affected components will be explained. Finally, in the four module, some successful interventions will be presented. The lighting talk concludes with the evaluation of the participants, the educators.Keywords
handwriting, developmental dysgraphy, Open edX course, educators, elementary grades