Arabic interference in English handwriting : cairene public preparatory school students with dysgraphia

Abstract EN

Because handwriting is the educational pathway first step, learners' academic achievement might be negatively impacted by learning difficulties such as dysgraphia.

this study sought to investigate the extent to which Arabic and English handwritings of adolescents suffering from dysgraphia are correlated and (dis) similar for the sake of determining any traces of language feature transferability.

the Arabic and English dysgraphia handwritings of 17 adolescents (collected at three Cairene preparatory Arabic public schools in January 2019) were analyzed in terms of quality using criteria borrowed from the concise evaluation scale for children's handwriting (BHK).

the results came positive regarding trunk size, trunk & non-trunk letter height differences, and letter corrections at letter level ; join fences amid letters in words at word level ; and word spacing and writing unsteadiness at sentence level.

linguists and teachers of bilingual learners are hoped to benefit from this study as to teaching handwriting to EFL young learners.