ELT well research
Get involved with the ELT well Handwriting Speed Research Project and compare your students to others from the same language group across the country.
One of the first stages in identifying dyslexia is to look at the students' performance as they write by hand under timed conditions. It is important that they write in the language that they feel most comfortable in, so that they do not have to keep stopping to think about words or grammar.
From this we can tell how much they can produce in a limited time (10 minutes) and whether there are
any problems with legibility or regularity of handwriting over the test time.
Of course, we can't always read what they have written to assess the quality of organisation or
accuracy. However, this first step does often highlight students who have problems with literacy in their
own languages, and who will need more support in developing English literacy, and perhaps access arrangements in exams (such as extra time).
Unfortunately, it is not always clear how much we should expect students to write in their own languages. Norms are available for students writing in English, but not easily available for all other languages. Ideally, each student's script would be compared to others who have written in the same language, but that is not always possible for students who come from language groups which form a small minority in their college.
For this reason, we are maintaining a database of average handwriting speeds, so that we can compare students from previous years, if necessary. This project is now in its 5th year, and the database is growing steadily, with the help and co-operation of institutions around the UK.
However, the more schools and colleges there are collecting and contributing data to it, the faster it will grow, and the more useful it will be for us all.
If you would like to be part of the project, and be able to compare your students' handwriting speed to hundreds of others from across the country, please join the project.
For more information about how to get involved, contact ELT well, or download the documents you need here:
Assessment Procedure Initial Consent Form FAQs
Tutor's Notes Free Writing Sheet Table of Results