Effectiveness of a handwriting readiness program in head start: a two-group controlled trial

Area of Science:

• Early Childhood Education
• Developmental Psychology
• Pediatric Occupational Therapy

Background:

• Head Start programs serve preschool children from low-income families.
• Developing prewriting and fine motor skills is crucial for kindergarten readiness.
• The Handwriting Without Tears-Get Set for School (HWT-GSS) program is designed to enhance these foundational skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To measure the impact of the HWT-GSS program on prewriting skills, kindergarten readiness, first-name writing, and fine motor skills.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of integrating HWT-GSS programming into a Head Start curriculum.

Main Methods:

• A two-group, nonrandomized controlled trial with a pretest-posttest design was employed.
• One rural Head Start preschool classroom implemented the HWT-GSS curriculum (experimental group).
• A control classroom did not receive the HWT-GSS intervention for comparison.

Main Results:

• The experimental group showed significant improvements in prewriting, kindergarten readiness, and fine motor skills compared to the control group.
• Both the experimental and control groups demonstrated significant progress in prewriting, first-name writing, and school readiness from pretesting to posttesting.

Conclusions:

• Integrating the HWT-GSS program into Head Start curricula yields significant benefits for children's handwriting readiness.
• The findings support the use of HWT-GSS to enhance crucial pre-academic and fine motor skills in early learners.