Good Samaritan Colleges

Graduate School

Thesis Proposal

RECHELLE T. VISTAN
Researcher
 TITLE

PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES OF
KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS:
IT’S IMPACT TO THE HANDWRITING
ABILITIES OF THE LEARNERS
 INTRODUCTION

Strategies of Kindergarten Teachers have an important role to develop the handwriting skills of the learners.
Teachers are responsible for supporting academic outcomes such as reading and writing .Preschool is an
important time in a child’s life not just because it is a great opportunity to socialize, but also because it gives
them the foundation to become a well-rounded student and person the rest of their lives. An important
function of teachers is to remediate academic difficulties such as handwriting. This poses the question: “What
types of strategies are necessary for the development of successful handwriting in children? Also” What skills
do teachers perceive as the most essential to the development of successful handwriting?
Many kindergarten teachers recognize the importance of early writing by making writing materials available
in their classrooms and providing opportunities to write during the school day (Gerde & Bingham, 2012).Early
writing is one of the best predictors of children’s later reading success (National Early Literacy Panel (NELP),
2008).
Writing is a critical emergent literacy skill that lays the foundation for children’s later literacy skills and
reading achievement. Recent work indicates that many early childhood programs offer children materials and
tools for engaging in writing activities but teachers rarely are seen modeling writing for children or scaffolding
children’s writing attempts. Early childhood educational settings hoping to support children’s literacy
development should provide multiple opportunities for children to observe teachers model writing, provide
teacher support and scaffolding for children’s writing attempts and engage children in meaningful writing in
their play.
The aim of this study will show that pedagogical strategies of kindergarten teachers is important to easily
develop the handwriting abilities of the learners.
With the aforementioned discussions on the importance of teaching strategies in children’s handwriting
skills, the researcher was motivated to conduct a descriptive analysis on the effect of pedagogical strategies of
kindergarten teachers to the handwriting abilities of the learners.
 GENERAL OBJECTIVE:

The study will help the researcher to

develop an action plan that will help the
teachers to determine and enhance the
effective strategies to develop the
handwriting skills of the learners.
 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Flora (2009) stated that although there is a decline in the use of handwriting skills nowadays, educators
still believe that good handwriting is as essential for academic success today as it was before. Through
educational research, it has been proven that poor handwriting can result in lower academic grades when
teachers are not able to read correct written responses.
The factors which were deemed contributory to the handwriting skills of children include how frequent
they use manipulative toys; do fine motor activities and practice handwriting at home. Birnbaum (2010)
stated that in order for children not to have impeded handwriting, they should developed in-hand
manipulation. This requisite skill can be encouraged by using manipulative materials such as play dough,
plasticine, strings or laces, beads and others. In addition, these things are also useful in the acquisition
of correct pencil grip among children.
In connection with the fine-motor activities, Badioze Zaman, et al. (2011) mentioned that early
handwriting development poses a lot of difficulties and challenges. One of these is mastering complex
operations that need strong and proper control of the writing tool and paper. Through engaging in
different fine motor activities, children perform movements that exercise and develop the group of small
muscles located above the palm. As a result, children become adept in the foundation skills necessary in
doing handwriting, cutting and other similar tasks.
Meanwhile, Winebrenner and Kiss (2014) suggested that at any specific age, when children are already
developmentally prepared and necessary fine motor skills are already present in them, printing or
handwriting should already be taught. The authors further mentioned that in teaching handwriting,
children will more likely to improve through constant practice in actual writing than doing various
handwriting exercises.
 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The purpose of conducting this study will determine the pedagogical strategies of kindergarten teachers
and its effect in developing learner handwriting skills.

Specifically, the aim of this study will seek to answer the following questions:

1. How may the profile of the respondents in this study i.e.

the kindergarten teachers of Laur District, be described in
terms of the following::

1.1 age
1.2 gender
1.3 years of service
1.4 position
1.5 educational attainment
 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

2. How may the pedagogical strategies by the

kindergarten teachers in developing learners handwriting
skills be described in terms of:

2.1 teaching of the correct writing stroke sequence

2.2 modeling proper pencil grip and letter formation
2.3 handwriting instruction
2.4 name writing
2.5 practice handwriting skills
 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

3. Is there a significant relationship between the profile of

the respondents and their pedagogical strategies in
developing learners handwriting skills?

4. What action plan maybe proposed as an output of the

study?
 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

There is no significant relationship between the

profile of the respondents and their pedagogical strategies
in developing the handwriting skills of the learners.
PARADIGM OF THE STUDY

The figure shows the paradigm of the study by which the researcher will conduct a study about

the Pedagogical Strategies of Kindergarten Teachers: It’s impact to the handwriting abilities of

the learners. The data will be collected by un-structured interview form to gather systematic

and accurate information. The researcher will ask the participants using open ended questions

to encourage verbalization of the respondent feelings.

DEFINITION OF TERMS
To better understand the research study, the following terms found in this study are
operationally and conceptually defined:

Department of Education- is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for
the management of the governance of the Philippine system of basic education.
Early Childhood Education- is a broad term used to describe any type of educational program that
serves children in their pre-school years, before they are old enough to enter kindergarten.
Handwriting- is a style of manner of writing by hand which can be characterized as legible or illegible
based on the readability of words and correct formation of letters.
Kindergarten- a school or class that prepares children for first grade. A child in kindergarten is
typically 5 or 6 years old.
Manipulative- according to Illuminati (2015) are toys that teach kids how to manipulate objects so that
they can get their little fingers and brains working together and eventually acquire fine motor skills and
hand- eye coordination.
Profile- the term refers to the different distinct characteristics of the respondents who participated in
the study whom the researcher thought has some becoming in the present study.
Pedagogical Strategies – a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long
period of time
Skills - the ability to do something that comes from training, experience, or practice. Also it is the
ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance. The ability to do
something or to perform a certain task needed for learning.
SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

This study will limited only to the pedagogical strategies of kindergarten teachers in
the District of Laur and its impact to the handwriting development of the learners.
This study will deal with the Pedagogical strategies of kindergarten teachers. This study
aims to determine the pedagogical strategies of kindergarten teachers to easily develop the
handwriting skills of the learners.

The primary data will gather through the use of checklist questionnaires and interviews
while the secondary data were derived from books, internet and other related sources.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The results of this study will be of great importance for the following groups of people:

Kindergarten Learners, will be benefited by this research to help them improved their
handwriting skills that is necessary for their performance and academic achievement for
future learning.
Parents, the findings of the study may serve as a guide for providing follow-up training to
their children in order for them to have legible handwriting.
Administrators, it can guide them in developing a program that will enhances and
developed the fine motor skills of young learners for their further learning and their holistic
development.
ECE Educator, it can provide them baseline information on how to design a strategic
intervention material that will intensify the preparedness of children in acquiring the
needed skills during the preceding years in the elementary grade specifically in doing
handwriting activities which is an everyday task in school.
Future Researcher, this scholarly investigation can help them conceptualize future
researches which are bound to connect handwriting skills of kindergarten learner in other
related skills to attain holistic development
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the method of research utilized in

this study. It states the kind of data gathering procedures,
the number of the respondents, the locale where the study
was conducted as well as the statistical treatment applied
in order to gather significant data.
 RESEARCH DESIGN

In this study, the researcher used the descriptive method of research.

According to Calderon, this is used to obtain data through an interview,
observation and questionnaire which will describe practices, solutions and
phenomena. Leady and Wiersma (2003) states that this method is an organized
attempt situation as it exists during the time of study. In this light, the researcher
should have adequate and accurate information in the source of interpretation
and analysis.
The overall purpose for this study is to determine the best strategies of
kindergarten teachers to easily develop the handwriting skills of the learners.
Teacher opinions were taken in writing in order to identify the best strategies to
easily develop the handwriting skills of the learners, and thoroughly analyze their
opinions about those pedagogical strategies.
 RESPONDENTS

The respondents of the study will be the 50

kindergarten teachers of the District of Laur. The
researcher select group of teacher because they are the
one who implemented and practiced the best strategies to
develop the handwriting skills of learners. Moreover, these
teachers were also capable of answering questions by the
researcher.
 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

The researcher will use purposive non- probability

sampling design. The researcher focuses on the 50
kindergarten teachers in the District of Laur to obtain the
accurate result since the focused of the researcher was to
determine the best strategies to easily develop the
handwriting skills of the learners.
 MATERIALS AND INSTRUMENT

A checklist type of questionnaire was constructed to gather significant data. That

instrument is more reliable and valid to gather specific targets. According to Saul Mcleod,
2018 a questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions for the
purpose of gathering information from respondents. Questionnaires can be thought of as a
kind of written interview. Questionnaires provide a relatively cheap, quick and efficient way
of obtaining large amounts of information from a large sample of people. Questionnaires
can be an effective means of measuring the behavior, attitudes, preferences, opinions and,
intentions of relatively large numbers of subjects more cheaply and quickly than other
methods. An important distinction is between open-ended and closed questions.
The researcher herself and her thesis adviser constructed the questionnaire using
suitable questions modified from related research and individual questions. They will make
sure that the items in the questionnaire are enough to cover all the aspects of the problems
and answer the specific questions under the statement of the problem.
 DATA- GATHERING PROCEDURES

In gathering data, the researcher asked permission to the teacher before the
distribution of the questionnaires; researcher gave instructions and explanations
during the administrations. The researcher will secure a participants consent
which will be compose of their right to withdraw or refuse to the interview,
anonymity and confidentiality and by allowing the researcher to take a picture and
encode the entire interview. Participants will be encouraged to express their
feelings and experiences. With all the information, it will be encoded and will be
transcribed for data analysis. The participants will answer the interview form in
about 15 minutes. The researcher will be having 50 participants and will
classified them by the use of codenames. The researcher will used #1 – 50
depending on who will be the first participant that will be interviewed. Lastly, the
researcher will used ” P” for participants also to classify depending on the first
participant interviewed up to the last one to maintain the anonymity of the
participants throughout the study.
 DATA ANALYSIS

After the questions used in the interview, the gathered data will
be transcribed in the transcript file. Each word will be extracted from
the participants and will be written in a paragraph form. Numbers
and code names will be used to preserve the anonymity of the
participants.
APPENDIX
The researcher will prepare a set of the same questions that will be
answered by all participants. The research will focus on a specific objective
about the participants pedagogical strategies in developing handwriting
skills of the learners.
1. What are the best strategies you are using in the teaching of handwriting
skills?

2. What are the problems that you encountered in teaching handwriting skills in
the learners?

3. What is your solution offers relating to the problems that you encountered in
teaching handwriting skills in the learners?

4. What skills do teachers perceive as the most essential to the development of

successful handwriting?

5. Do you feel that kindergarten teacher have received adequate training for the
teaching of handwriting skills in the learners?
THANK YOU