Multimodal study of the impact of graphomotor training
Abstract
Graphomotor control constitutes a condition to the mastery of literacy and more widely to successful school apprenticeship. The Guadeloupian context is marked by significant rates of early school leaving and illiteracy. In such context, our research is concerned with two questions: “Does graphomotor training can help since kindergarten to strengthen graphomotor performances and the progression of literacy?” and “Which methodological approach can help to characterize the impact of graphomotor training?” By using online acquisition devices, we have tried to characterize the graphomotor skills for 132 pupils. These 3 to 5 years old children were submitted to 3 methods of graphomotor training. One of the methods that suppose family involvement, includes activities inspired by kid’s early scribbles. We considered the statistical analysis of the blind feedbacks of the teachers, of the features provided by the visuo-spatial processing of handwritten productions and of features provided by the sigma-lognormal modeling of the pupils’ movements. The results of this multimodal study show an increase in graphomotor control and in interest for drawing and handwriting tasks. The implication of these preliminary results on the pedagogical and co-educative choices is discussed.