The effect of individualized portfolio implementation on cursive handwriting skills

In Turkey, cursive handwriting in addition to Phonics Based Setence Method has been brought into use in conjunction with the arrangement of primary school programs in 2005. There are 29 uppercase letter form and 29 lowercase letter form in cursive handwriting and these forms have got several codes of writing and bonding each other. Additionally, the writing action of cursive handwriting is affected by the codes such as the size of letter forms, aligned writing, sloped writing, writing based on right spelling, enough spacing between words. In biref, the teaching and learning process of cursive handwriting is affected by several variables. When taken into account the individual differences and requirements of first-grade students, the teaching process of cursive handwriting is the primary one of teaching processes required being individualized. The individualized instruction is a student-center approach which relies on determining that which knowledge and skills the student requires and in what order these requirements is going to been acquired to the student, and relies on preparing teaching plans pertaining to the requirements. The other students-center approach is the portfolio based learning. The portfolio based learning is a learning way which includes learning materials selected by the student and within this scope, reflects the displayed efforts, progress and success. The Individualized Portfolio Implementation is a student-center implementation model which designed wtih complemental synergy of the student-center nature of individualized instruction and portfolio that gives opportunity to the student so that he/she monitors self-performance individually and keeps progress records. The general aim of this reseach is to determine the effect of the Individualized Portfolio Implementation on first-grade students' cursive handwriting skills. In the research, embedded mixed method which is one of the mixed methods was employed, and the qualitative process was embedded in the pretest-posttest control grouped experiment proceeding. The research carried out in a class which was seperated out first-grades of a primary school as a experimental group in the downtown of Eskişehir in the second half of the 2014-2015 academic year. The participants of the research comprise 20 first-grade students from experimental group, and 20 and 17 first-grade students from two different class was determined as control I and control II groups. In the teaching process of cursive handwriting, while The Individualized Portfolio Implementation was employed in the experimental group, this implementation was not employed in the control groups. The data of the reseach was collected by means of student personal information form, anektod record, The Evaluation Test of Cursive Handwriting, Cursive Handwriting Evaluation Form, document analysing, researcher's diary, semi-structured student and teacher interview form and focus grouped parent interview form. The quantitative data was analysed by use of descriptive statistical methods, Sperman Brown correlation coefficient, Pearson correlation coefficient, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, paired samples t-test, size effect calculations of eta-square and Cohen's d and Wilcoxon signed rank test. The qualitative data was analysed by use of document analysis and descriptive analysis. The analysing process of the documents in the pretest and posttest was analysed by three evaluator, one of that was the researcher, and for the purpose of ensuring reliability between evaluator, Kendall's W calculation was conducted. In accordance with the results of the research, these conclusions have been derived: • The design of The Individualized Portfolio Implementation was employed, following the stages of determining terminal aims, pre-assessment, diagnosis, deciding lesson plan, providing assistance and assessment. • The conclusion that before the implementation, as lowercase letter the students in the experimental group and control groups had difficulty in form "s" mostly, following form "s", respectively had difficulty in forms "k", "l", "z", "d" and "a"; as uppercase letter students had difficulty in form "S and D" mostly, following form "S and D", respectively had difficulty in forms, "K and L", "H", "A and B" has been derived. • The conclusion that after the implementation, as lowercase letter the students in the experimental group and the control groups had difficulty in form "k" mostly, following form "k", respectively had difficulty in forms "s", "a", "d", "t" and "m"; as uppercase letter students had difficulty in form "K" mostly, following form "K", respectively had difficulty in forms, "E", "S" and "F" has been derived. • The conclusion that as lowercase letter, forms "s", "k", "d" and "a" and as uppercase letter, forms "S" and "K" are among the forms that the students in experimental group and control groups had difficulty before and after the implementation has been derived. • It has been emerged that the groups that did not differentiate from each other in terms of cursive handwriting skill level before The Individualized Portfolio Implementation, differentiated from each other significantly in favor of the experimental group in terms of cursive handwriting skill level after the implementation. • It has been concluded that the level of cursive handwriting skills that the experimental group has before the implementation and the level of cursive handwriting skills that the experimental group has after the implementation differentiated form each other significantly in favor of the level of post-implementation skills. • When viewing to what extent the students in the experimental group achieved the educational aims in their own profile documents, it has been concluded that all of the students achieved their own educational aims. • It has been emerged the fact that while the experimental group and the control groups did not differentiate from each other in terms of the number of letter forms that the students had difficulty in writing before the implementation, the experimental group had less difficulty in writing the letter forms than the control II group had after the implementation. • It has been concluded the fact that while the experimental group had difficulty in lowercase forms "s and k", "a and z", "l", "d" and "r", uppercase forms "D", "G and H" mostly before the implementation, the experimental group had less difficulty in these forms after the implementation. • It has been emerged that thanks to The Individualized Portfolio Implementation, the number of letter forms that the students in the experimental group had difficulty in writing decreased significantly in comparison with the previous number in pre-implementation process. • It has been concluded that the teacher perceived The Individualized Portfolio Implementation as a implementation providing opportunity to see and reform errors, regarded the writing conferences and studying the writing errors individually as effective ways, considered that the portfolios provide information to the students concerning their own handwriting progress, and observed the progress in the students' cursive handwriting performance thanks to the implementation. • It has been emerged that the students liked finding and reforming writing errors, taking feedback and handwriting duties enduring thanks to the portfolios; could be monitoring their own progress easily thanks to individualizing and they observed the progress on their own cursive handwriting skills. • It has been emerged that the parents perceived the implementation as effective, considered The Individualized Portfolio Implementation as a implementation that provides for realizing the errors and brings the habit of responsibility. Also, it has been concluded that the parents believed the students could be monitoring their own progress thanks to the implementation and considered the students transformed into a position that could write better and more legible. Key Words: Literacy education, Cursive handwriting, Individualized instruction, Portfolio, The Individualized Portfolio Implementation