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Do you have
terrible
handwriting?Can't draw? Hate to
work with
pencil and paper?The Learning Window
is a direct solution
to motor and visual
spatial problems
The Learning Window is a device used for teaching persons who have problems with handwriting, drawing, and working with pencil and paper.
It is a transparent surface on which the learner traces and copies to form letters or pictures. The learner is guided through structured exercises by a teacher who may instruct from either side of the window. Through this process the individual can build a basis for comprehensive understanding of spatial relations which is the foundation for becoming a more accurate and efficient writer and drawer.
This booklet describes specific problems that can be addressed by the Learning Window and offers instructional suggestions for each type of problem. The instructional activities in this booklet are only suggestions that must be selected and modified by the teacher or clinician in a way to meet individual student needs. As you gain knowledge of the Window, let yourself create fresh and new applications that serve the needs of your students.
Why the Window Works
As children progress developmentally, move around, and experience space, they construct an inner map of their world and their position in it. They learn whether they can reach a toy or use a chair to climb onto a higher surface. They gradually become more efficient at spatial relations.
They become aware of the relationship of their bodies to earth and whether it is safe to jump down from different heights. They stop bumping into things and tripping. They learn to catch and throw a ball, ride a bicycle, and roller skate.
The normal process of developing spatial awareness involves two parallel systems:
Motor control
Children gradually learn to control the whole body and to integrate movement of the various parts in space. They can put their hand to their nose without poking the eye with efficient and effective body movement. They learn to control a pencil while sitting in a chair and thinking about spelling at the same time. They learn to cut with scissors while maintaining focus on the line along which they are cutting.
Visual Mapping
They learn the nature of form and of boundaries in space. They learn relationships between objects in space, including clues to location and relative size. They learn to visualize how items look from above, from underneath, from the other side. They learn that items may look different, but they have not changed in form when viewed from a different perspective.
Integration of motor control with visual mapping is a key task in development How do you recognize inadequate integration of the two systems?
This is the accident-prone child, the klutz who bumps into furniture and stumbles over items everyone else avoids. It is the child who has unrealistic expectations of abilities like lifting a heavy table. Or it is the fearful child who withdraws from participation in physical events where he might get hurt. Integration of the motor and visual systems allows children to succeed as participants in many sports, academic, and social activities.
Language facilitates the integration of the motor and visual mapping systems. Children need to fully comprehend spatial words like "up", "there" "behind," "parallel,", "square," and "curve." With the Window they learn how the spatial term feels as they draw it, not just the abstract definition of a spatial term. They learn to draw "perpendicular," not just define it. With this deep understanding of spatial language they can more easily transfer the same spatial concepts to a variety of settings.
Some learners have not developed smooth and effective motor control end visual mapping. They can make up for gaps in this development through exercises with the Window. The Window is particularly effective because it requires the use of large muscles on a smooth vertical surface. It is easier to use large muscles than small fingers and there is greater control of large arm muscles in the vertical position. Also, a vertical surface is easier to use than horizontal because people are used to interacting with the world vertically, face to face.
Window exercises guide the learner to better motor control and internal mapping of spatial form and position. The teacher leads the learner through a planned progression of visual/motor/spatial exercises. The teacher writes or draws on one side of the glass while the student tracks the teacher's pen with his own pen from the other side. The student tracks, traces, and copies the teacher's model gradually working toward independent control of the pen.
A special issue in spatial understanding is effective functioning in the two-dimensional world of paper and pencil. In normal development children build a base for understanding and measuring space with activities in the three-dimensional world. Three-D is easier than two-d because it is the world of everyday experience. Also people have developed many systems in the 3-d world over generations to cope with heights, moving objects, relative size, and location.
The two dimensional world is more demanding. There are fewer cues than in three dimensions, and the learner has less practice with it. Some people do not do well at all in two dimensions. They sit in front of a blank page when asked to write. They may avoid reading. Their drawing may be scribbles. Writing, coloring, drawing, and cutting on the line are frustrating.
These learners can be led from understanding three dimensions to working effectively in two dimensions with the Learning Window. The Window allows direct transition from 3-d understanding to 2-d. The learner observes three-dimensional objects through the window and draws (traces) them on the transparent surface, thereby creating a two-d representation of a three-D object.
Learners are usually very engaged in learning with the Window because they succeed easily in building skills that were very weak. Also, the Window engages the learner with a direct, hands-on approach that resembles play. Learners who avoided pencil and paper become engaged in learning that is successful and fun.
Who Can Benefit From the Learning Window?
The Window was designed to teach writing, drawing, and other paper and pencil work to persons who have weak visual/spatial/motor skills. For whatever cause, these people may fall into one of the following groups:
Children and adults who have motor problems. These persons lack the muscle coordination to write smoothly and accurately. They are clumsy and awkward; their writing is sloppy and meager; they tire easily with pencil and paper tasks; and they avoid writing. Their letter formation may be inconsistent. That is, they may form a given letter in a different way each time so that they do not become efficient writers.
- Children and adults who have visual-spatial problems. These persons typically have trouble copying from the board or book, organizing sequences,
drawing pictures, mapping, understanding quantity, applying punctuation and capitalization, understanding dimension, changing point of view, using directional language (beside, beneath, greater than), spacing letters and words, paragraphing, subtracting and doing other math operations, adapting to schedule changes, and telling time with understanding.
- .
Children and adults may have both motor problems and visual/spatial problems. These individuals have fewer avenues through which to compensate
What are some of the known causes for weak visual/spatial and motor skills?
Some people are prevented from developing visual-spatial motor skills. They may have limited opportunity to explore space due to immobilization because of illness, injury, congenital conditions, or deprivation.
Trauma before or after birth may result in this learning problem. Spatial problems seem to occur more frequently when oxygen flow is restricted, which may happen when an individual nearly drowns or suffocates. The mother's use of alcohol or drugs during pregnancy may restrict oxygen to the developing fetus. Several congenital conditions such as Turner's Syndrome and Sphritzen's Syndrome may interfere with the normal development of spatial skills.
Just as cognitive skills vary, individuals may have weak visual-spatial motor skills for unknown reasons. These persons need enriched guided experiences to help them develop maximum proficiency.
Individuals ranging from preschool to adult who have these problems can benefit from Learning Window work
Go to the next section of the Handbook for the Learning Window
The Learning Window and this Handbook belong to the children: who crave boundaries, but know not spaces' measure,
who crave markers for time, but sense not clock hands moving,
who crave location, but feel no place on map or chart,
that they may have the freedom of known limits
in which to stretch and learn.
ARK Institute of Learning
1916 South Washington St.
Tacoma, WA 98405
Phone (253)573-0311
Fax (253)573-0211
E-mail ARKfdn@aol.com or cstockdale@ARKInst.orgCopyright © 1996, 1998 ARK Institute of Learning
Permission is granted to copy for clinical or instructional purposes but not for commercial use.Posted with permission by
New Horizons for Learning
http://www.newhorizons.org
E-mail: info@newhorizons.org
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