Deliberate Practice of Handwriting: Supervision Under the Ghost of an Expert

Abstract

It takes considerable time, experience, and direct assistance from teachers to become a skilled writer. Handwriting fluency is one of the predictors of writing quality among students. However, students do not receive enough teacher supervision as a beginner to develop handwriting fluency in a proper manner. The “Calligraphy tutor” presented in this paper, is an application developed to assist teachers to help students learn proper handwriting fluency skills. Calligraphy tutor is designed to support deliberate practice of handwriting, in which teachers play the central role. To reduce workload of teachers, Calligraphy tutor automates repetitive actions such as providing mundane real-time feedback, while also collecting performance data from students, allowing students to practice without the presence of a teacher. The collected performance data is used by teachers to further personalise students’ training.