THE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF HANDWRITING WITHOUT TEARS® CHALKBOARD, WOODEN LETTERS, AND WORKSHEET USING HIGHLIGHT, MODEL AND START POINT ON LEGIBILITY FOR TWO PRESCHOOL STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Keywords:
preschool students; with disabilities, Handwriting without Tears® ®, handwriting, multiple baseline design;Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate empirically the effects of the Handwriting without Tears® (Olsen, 1998) program for teaching two preschool students with developmental delays to write letters legibly. Participants were enrolled in a self-contained special education classroom
and four letters were targeted for intervention. Specifically, letters in the child’s name for one participant and developmentally appropriate letters were chosen for the other participant. For baseline, each participant displayed little or no skills to write targeted letters legibly. Use of the
Handwriting without Tears® ® chalkboard, wooden letters, and worksheet procedures along with the added steps of highlight, model and start point resulted in the participants’ ability to legibly write letters. The Handwriting without Tears® materials and its application are discussed.
