THE EFFECTS OF USING HANDWRITING WITHOUT TEARS TO TEACH THIRTY-ONE INTEGRATED PRESCHOOLERS OF VARYING ACADEMIC ABILITY TO WRITE THEIR NAMES

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of the prewriting and Handwriting Without Tears®. Thirty-one students were selected from a hybrid Early Childhood Education Assistance Program, ECEAP, in the Pacific Northwest. The class integrated students with special needs, students of very low income, English Language Developers, and typically developing children age three to five. The curriculum was used to teach the children how to write their name. In baseline, each child was told to, “Write your name the best you can.” After, the children’s baseline performance level was used to group the children according to handwriting needs. Three groups were formed; the first group had yet to learn any letters of their names, the second were able to write some letters of their name but not all, and the third group needed to work on perfecting their letters as well as learning uppercase and lowercase letters. The final outcomes indicated an increase in handwriting ability across all three groups. Suggestions for using Handwriting Without Tears® with large groups of preschool children were made