Study of writing skills and writing speed of primary school first grade students

The aim of this study is to investigate the various variables (handedness, gender, socio-economic environment, pre-school education status, and age) of writing skills and writing speeds of Primary School students. Sequential explanatory mixed model was used in this study. The centre of the study was formed by the first class students in 2017-2018 school year in the province of Gaziantep, while the sample consists of 210 students studying in schools with lower, middle and upper socio-economic environment selected from the center by stratified sampling. In addition, there search contains interviews with 16 primary school first grade classroom teachers. The research data were collected using the "Writing Skills Assessment Scale" developed by the researcher, the semi-structured interview form, dictation text used for writing skills, and the reading text used to measure writing speed. Writing skills and writing speeds of the students were tested with percentage, frequency, arithmetic mean, Standard deviation, independent groups t-test, one-way variance analysis, correlation and the semi-structured interviews with teachers were analyzed with content analysis. According to the findings obtained from the study, according to the writing skills assessment scale the lowest value related to the writing ability of the students was found to be 21 and the highest value was found to be 63. The average writing ability value of the students was to be found 43.2. The writing skills of the students differ significantly according to their gender, age, pre-school education status, handedness and the socio-economic environment of their schools. In the data obtained from the legibility subscale of the writing skill, it has been observed that the students are making mistakes in the extensions of the letters, writing letters in line, paying attention to the layout and neatness of the page and the general aesthetics of their writing. In the data obtained from the spelling and punctuation subscale, it has been observed that the students are making mistakes in keeping the missing letter in the word, writing in accord once with the spelling rules, using commas, apostrophes and short lines. The minimum number of letters written by the students in writing speed results is two, while the highest number of letters is 63 letters. Students have an average writing speed of 24 letters. There was a significant difference in terms of age, pre-school edutation status related to the writing speed of the students, where as there was no significant difference in terms of gender and the hand used.Additionally, there was a significant difference between writing speed and the lower-middle and upper-upper socio-economic environment of the schools. In correlation analysis, there is a statistically positive and moderate correlation between writing skills and writing speed (r=.56; p<.01). According to interview analysis, teachers that vertical basic writing is more legible, and that they feel as the students write faster with vertical basic writing. While teaching vertical basic writing, they stated that they encountered problems mostly such as mixing letters (such as b-d), leaving too much space between the letters, and not leaving any spaces between the words. Teachers recommend regular dictation studies, giving feedback – correction, paying more attention to the child and to direct them to pre-school education as the solution of the problems they face. Keywords: Writing skills, writing speed, vertical basic writing, primary school