強制回憶寫字教學法對國小三年級寫字困難學生之介入成效

Intervention effects of forced-recall handwriting instruction on third-grade students with Chinese handwriting difficulties

許多學生寫字時出現字形提取的困難，傳統的重複抄寫練習，似乎對這些學生幫助不大。本研究旨在探討強調工作記憶認知加工之教學法，即強制回憶寫字教學法（Forced Recall,簡稱F；即要求學生習寫生字時，邊寫邊唸出目標字的組字部件，並且要求「寫一個字蓋一個字」，在未有參照字的情況下回憶出目標字來），是否比傳統抄寫教學法（Traditional Copying,簡稱T）有更佳的學習成效。兩名智力正常、卻有寫字困難的國小三年級男生參與本研究，研究以單一受試研究法之交替介入設計進行，由一位教師對2位學生進行每周2節，共12節課的介入，其中交替處理階段8節，最後階段4節。在交替處理階段，每節課均有F與T兩個部分，單數節教學法順序為「T、F」，雙數節順序則改為「F、T」，以平衡可能的次序效應，研究控制兩種教學狀況下目標習寫國字的筆劃數。最後階段則僅採強制回憶法教學。研究以課程本位寫字評量收集學習成效，了解立即、一周、兩周的保留情形。結果指出，強制回憶法的再生寫保留效果優於傳統抄寫法。不論是立即、一周或二周的保留成效，兩位學生在3個時間點的6次強制回憶再生寫的平均值全部大於傳統抄寫的平均值，進一步的Wilcoxon符號等級檢定的結果顯示，5次的保留成效差異比較中，有4次達到.05的顯著水準。這些證據支持了寫字教學時，強制學生在無參照字的狀況下回憶出新學的生字來，比傳統的重複抄寫，可以得到更好的習字效果。質性資料則顯示，強制回憶教學策略是簡單易行、師生均喜歡的教學方法。

Purpose and Rationale: Numerous students experience difficulties in recalling glyphs (e.g., strokes, radicals, and spatial composition forms) when they are learning to write Chinese characters, and traditional copying (TC) exercises do not seem to be of much help to these children. Studies have indicated that a main cause of Chinese handwriting difficulties is an inability to recall Chinese character glyphs. Accordingly, an intervention focused on recall of Chinese character glyphs may be an effective means of enhancing the learning of Chinese character writing. Furthermore, experimental studies have demonstrated that long-term memory is improved when part of the learning process is focused on active information retrieval. Scholars have indicated that during the learning process, repeated retrieval practice has a greater effect on learning outcomes than repeated studying does. The retrieval effect, also referred to as the testing effect or active recall, is the focus of the present study, which investigated whether forced-recall handwriting instruction (FR method), a teaching method that emphasizes retrieving Chinese character glyphs from memory, leads to more favorable learning outcomes relative to the TC method. The FR method requires students to read out the component radicals of target Chinese characters and to perform the“write a character, then cover the character”procedure, in which students have to cover the just-learned target Chinese character with hand and recall the glyphs of the character, then reproduce it on the workbook without a printed target character to refer to. By contrast, the TC method requires students to copy a printed target character and perform monotonous and repetitive copying exercises without additional deliberate effort. Methods: Two third-grade male students who were from middle-class families, exhibited normal intelligence, had handwriting difficulties, and were from the same class of a school participated in the present study. Notably, their final scores for their Mandarin course consistently placed them in the bottom 20% of their class. In the Comprehensive Test of Basic Chinese Character Reading and Writing (Hung et al., 2003), they scored in the 10th and 6th percentiles on the“character writing based on phonetic-symbol-spelled words”subtest and in the 6th and 1st percentiles on the“dictation”subtest. However, their percentile rankings in the Chinese Character Recognition Scale for Elementary Graders were 37th and 31st, within the normal range. The two participants had average pen-holding abilities, copying speeds, and literacy levels, and they did not exhibit any physical or mental disability or experience any cognitive-motor coordination difficulties that could explain their Chinese handwriting difficulties. Although the two participants exhibited average character-sizing and reading abilities during Mandarin classes, they often encountered difficulties in recalling Chinese character glyphs and using phonetic symbols to replace target Chinese characters. Because they frequently committed writing errors, such as confusing Chinese characters with similar pronunciations or appearances, misplacing radicals, adding extraneous strokes, and omitting required strokes, their regular Mandarin assessments consistently placed them in the bottom 20% of a class of 25 students. In the present study, a single-subject alternating intervention design was adopted. The implemented intervention comprised 12 40-min sessions, with 2 sessions being completed per week. These sessions were conducted by a single teacher, who taught both students simultaneously during each session. For the alternating treatment phase, eight sessions were completed, with each session incorporating both FR and TC trials. To minimize potential biases due to the order of the trials, we conducted the TC trial before the FR trial in odd-numbered sessions and the FR trial before the TC trial in even-numbered sessions. All target Chinese characters selected for the study were characters that the participants had yet to learn. The researchers of the present study controlled for the number of strokes of the target characters learned under both teaching conditions. In the final phase, comprised of 4 25-min sessions, only the FR method was implemented. To evaluate learning outcomes, this study collected data on immediate, 1-week, and 2-week retention by conducting a curriculum-based assessment of the participants’Chinese character writing skills in which they were required to reproduce specific target characters from memory without referring to printed target characters. Results/Findings: The results of the present study indicate that the FR method led to higher retention rates relative to those achieved using the TC method. For immediate, 1-week, and 2-week retention, the two participants achieved consistently higher average character retention rates through the FR method than through the TC method. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were conducted to compare the retention outcomes of the two methods, and four out of five comparisons revealed significant differences in the retention rates between the two methods at a significance level of .05. Our qualitative results also indicate that the FR method was simple and effective and that it was well-received by the participating teacher and students. Conclusions/Implications: First, our findings support that the FR method can be implemented in place of the TC method for teaching Chinese character handwriting because of its more favorable learning outcomes. When Chinese character glyphs are complex, lower-grade elementary students are most frequently assigned character copying exercises as homework. Copying new characters is a timeconsuming daily activity that every student learning Chinese experiences during the first few years of their schooling life. Our results indicate that the FR method leads to more favorable learning outcomes relative to the TC method. Moreover, the FR method does not add to the workload of students. Our findings can serve as a useful reference for teaching new Chinese characters to lower-grade elementary school students. Second, we contribute novel insights to the literature on information retrieval. Most related studies have used spoken- or written-language stimuli as learning materials in their FR trials. For example, a list of words in Swahili was used in a retrieval experiment conducted by Karpicke and Roediger (2008). In that study, participants were asked to provide oral responses (e.g., speaking the English translation of a target Swahili word). By contrast, the present study did not focus on spoken output; rather, it focused on mental representations of outcome measures related to Chinese character writing, which are different from those associated with spoken language. Furthermore, in the context of linguistic and phonological information processing, writing a Chinese character requires visual-spatial-motor coordination. Our findings indicate that the FR method can be applied to materials other than those focused on spoken or written language. Further studies on the effects of retrieval practice should explore multiple learning modes to expand on our findings.