Wednesday & Thursday: Fine Motor Activity and Spelling

I did some reading lately about how to help people who struggle with their handwriting. The reading suggested providing opportunities to practice hand-eye coordination with activities as common as cutting out patterns with scissors. I took this suggestion and used it to help the class create a useful spelling tool: paper Scrabble tiles.

As I've said in a few posts before the class is working hard to improve their spelling skills so that in the future they will feel more confident in jobs which require reading and writing. The current Arc staff member in the classroom introduced the idea of manipulatives to me around 2 weeks ago and after seeing the success it had with two students, I was ready to introduce the technique to the entire class. To help create manipulatives I used a free print out I found online of scrabble letters, the class was asked to cut the squares out along the lines to the best of their ability, and then glue the squares to construction paper to make the squares even stronger. 

Cutting along straight lines presented a challenge for some students who initially were leery of the project until I assured them I only wanted their best effort instead of perfection. I inspected each student's Scrabble tiles in order to give myself an idea of each student's skill regarding hand-eye coordination. Four out of the seven people were able to cut along the straight lines with little error, one student chose not to participate, and 2 others' tiles indicated they will need more practice. 

The Scrabble tiles themselves have proved to be very valuable and I used them in one lesson on Wednesday and another today. The lesson I used yesterday was my version of "Go Fish" which asked the students to draw tiles at random and attempt to create their spelling words as they drew. I liked the activity because it asked the students to "build" their spelling words through a systematic process, and it provided a good chance to "play" in a group. Today's activity was less recreation and required students to practice spelling out their words using the tiles. 

The Scrabble tiles work because it helps to take the letters out of the trainees heads, place the letters in from of them to see with their eyes, and then touch and manipulate the letters as needed. One student relied heavily on the manipulatives to pass his spelling test. The strategy used by the one student was to listen to the word, spell it, and if he doubted himself he would arrange the letters in front of him so that he could sound the word out. This particular student really benefited from the letters because he struggles with writing, so having the tiles printed helped eliminate a hurdle.