Aga Khan Education Service, Pakistan

ACTION RESEARCH  

On Improving English Hand Writing

Skills of Low Performing Students in Grade 2

By Aziz KarimD.J Primary School Khil ,Chipursan

Introduction Encouragement, care and students’ interest based activity of the practitioners in schools is an effective and productive way of improving their academic performance. As every student comes to the school with different dominant talent. It is a prime responsibility of the teachers to add value with that talent by engaging them in the teaching and learning environment according to their abilities. But sometimes this approach is missing in the teaching and learning process which adversely affects the overall performance of students.

Research Statement • Improving English handwriting skill of low

performing students of grade 2 at Sunshine School in a Rural Context of Gilgit Baltistan

Significance of the Study This action research will be helpful to

enhance the teaching practice of the researcher .

It will also be helpful for other practitioners to implement the tested strategies in the teaching and learning environment. This approach can be one can be effective tools for explore the hidden potentials of low performing students.

Situation Analysis

Test 1, test 2, test 3 (10 to 15% marks in every test) Interview of teachers Analysis of annual school result Meeting with parents After analyzing the data collected through the above mentioned tools, I came to know that the two students were not performing well in many areas but I selected English hand writing skills for my action research.

Findings of Situational Analysis1) Less attention and care by the teachers and

parents 2) The performance of these students affected the

overall result percentage of the school, which was a challenging task for the school management

3) The school management/teacher tagged them as slow learners, weak, and special

4) Less interest of parents in their progress5) Absenteeism of students from the school for

longer period6) Isolation 7) Less interest in writing activities and write few

lines in 1:30 hours period

Research Sample

This action research is revolving around two low performing students; Alia and Abid (Psydoname) of grade 2 of sunshine school.

Critical Friend

The head teacher who is also a classroom teacher with 27 years

of teaching experience (20 years teacher and 7 years as head teacher) was my

critical friend.

Limitations It is a small scale study in a primary school of Gilgit-Biltistan, the findings

cannot be generalized.

Literature Review • Handwriting skills are especially important for

young students because young students typically think and handwrite at the same time(Graham, 1997).

• Difficulties with handwriting faced by students with LDs are particularly troubling because handwriting troubles go beyond the mechanical task. Handwriting is known as “language by hand” (Graham, & Richards, 2002).

• With the cover-copy-compare strategy, the student looks at the letter, covers it up, draws the letter, and checks accuracy by looking at the original letter again to compare (Burns, Ganuza, & London, 2009).

Cont…• In today's world, keyboarding skills are valuable for

all students, but are particularly essential for the student who struggles with writing and/or spelling difficulties. (By: Regina G. Richards,2005)

• Handwriting is a basic tool used in many subjects- taking notes, taking tests, and doing classroom work and homework for almost every content area as well as in language arts classes - poor handwriting can have a pervasive effect on school performance.

(http://www.readingrockets.org/article/importance-teaching-handwriting)

Methodology• The research was done in the

paradigm of qualitative research. After every action, a descriptive reflection was recorded and incorporated further for further improvements. In two different cycles the researcher implemented different strategies and compiled the outcomes. On the basis of those outcomes recommendation were made for further study.

Research Design

I had taken up the model of Bassey’s action research to address the problem that was identified by me.

Bassey’s stages of action research

Strategies of cycle 1Activities Objectives

Model writing(Wrote letters on black board, computer and Four line notebook ,cover and compare )

To provide an opportunity of focused writing practice to the students

Special class and Reward(separate class for the two students, rewarded their improvements in term of giving them pencil, erasers and sharpener etc)

Familiar them with ICT(let the students to write letter and words on MS word and paint )

To value their little achievements and their self, as they are as important students of the class like other students.

Working and playing with computer is one of the students interest that is why I included it in the strategies of helping them to recognize words and letters on MS word and copy them on their note books

Time

40 minutes

20 Minutes

Results of Cycle 1Increased interest in writing and demanded more writing activities (wrote a single page during writing activity)• Both students started to write letter using

following four lines notebook.• Absenteeism decreased.• Active participation in writing activities.

Issues occurred in cycle 1

Special class was a good step to give them more time but at the same time it created gap between the two students and rest of the class.

The prizes in the form of stationery brought negative result that they became dependent on the school to provide stationery items and their parents became reluctant in fulfilling their stationery need.

Cycle 2

Model writing and copying (Gave the students an opportunity to write from their

books by following four line notebook) Time line ( 40 minutes)Encouragement in the form of STAR,WOW,CLAPS (I valued the performance of these students in the

class and encouraged them to participate more in writing activities)

Integrating ICT (let the whole class with these students to write

letter and words on MS word and paint once in a week)

Time line ( 20 minutes)

Results of Cycle 2 The student Alia succeeded to differentiate between letters, words and paragraphs

Abid started to write two pages in the every day class room activities

Both student started to write by following the four linesAbid started to complete his daily English handwriting writing assignments

Both students produced good pieces of English writing in their daily class activities like other students

Built relations with the rest of the class; as they got high marks and stars in their writing assignments. Due to which the rest of the class created relation with them.

Before Research

English Hand writing of the student Alia before the research

After Research

English Hand writing of the student Alia after the research

Before Research

English Hand writing of the student Abid before the research

After Research

English Hand writing of the student Abid after the research

FindingsWe find out that such students who cannot meet the expectations of the teachers can easily become the ignored student of the class and teachers are used to develop a negative perception (such as weak, special, dull etc) about the Child’s performance and insert it in the parents mind. Which shuts the doors of improvement for the low performing students. In the process of improving the hand writing skills of the students it is observed that their performance improved by encouragement.

Cont…………. The second technique which enhances the skills of the students is encouragement and appreciations. Every student in the class wants appreciation of their performance from their teachers as well as their parents. Unfortunately in the case of Alia and Abid we find out that they rarely got appreciation of their little achievements. Although appreciation is an inexpensive and effortless thing but in this case the teachers hardly used the words of appreciation for both students. Their parents also never appreciated them in their school task. We got improved result in the writing of these students by appreciating their efforts. Using four line notebook for English handwriting activity is an effective way for improving hand writing skills.

Cont………………

4- In the normal routine class it is difficult to address every student’s needs and interests. In the case of Alia and Abid their interests and needs were infrequently addressed. Due to which they disconnected themselves from the rest of the class. We observed that teaching according to the students interest can provide better result.5- Working on a single problem of a students can indirectly support other problem to overcome. As academic problems of the students in interlinked.

Recommendations1-All the practitioners in the schooling system should not connect any student’s performance with their common perceptions. It is also not a good practice to communicate these belief and general perceptions without proper analysis with their parents

2-WOW and then correction in the writing is a powerful tool for improving English hand writing skills of grade 2 students

Cont.………..

3-Rewards and awards should be in the form of soft values. Like if any student in the class performs well, let him/her to go to the library and read story books or play games on the computer.4- For improving English hand writing skills of grade two students the teacher should spare at least a couple of minutes only for writing on four lines notebook.

References

Richards, J. (2002). A personal reaction. RELC Journal, 33(2), 1–35.

The teachers network leadership institution by Rust F & Clark Cwww.teachersnetwork.org/tnli.

Helping Students Who Struggle to Write: Classroom CompensationsBy: Regina G. Richards(http://www.readingrockets.org/article/importance-teaching-handwriting)

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