Analysis Of Writing Movements
Most children starting school already have well-developed motor skills required for learning to write flowingly. That is the result of a research project carried out by sensorimotor specialist Dr. Christian Marquardt. However, without guidance many children cannot put these skills into practice correctly when learning to write. Dr. Christian Marquardt’s studies shows how children learning to write can be specifically helped to develop flowing and relaxed handwriting.
Children are able to make flowing movements – this can be observed when they draw lines or circles. “Here, they have similar motor skills to adults”, believes Dr. Marquardt after reviewing results from a comparison between sample drawings by children learning to write and adult samples. However, the reason why children still have difficulties developing flowing handwriting is because they consider letters to be unknown shapes. Children feel as though they have to follow the shape of letters precisely which makes writing difficult for them. Children then slow their writing down and compensate for their problems by applying more pressure when writing. “They are writing legible letters, but are getting cramp in the process”, explains the scientist. If children therefore focus too much on the shape of the writing, they prevent themselves learning how to perform automatic movements.
Analysis of writing movements made by children using the CS Win program and graphics tablet.
The analysis reveals some interesting details that would otherwise remain hidden:
Fig. 1: The writing movements made by a child with difficulties. Dispite the the clean writing, the graph shows irregular and slow movements.
Fig. 2: After targeted practice, the writing movements made by this child are more flowing and require less effort. Writing duration has been reduced from 11.4 to 4.7 seconds.