Teaching Left-Handed Primary School Pupils in Estonia

• Authors: Pilvi Kula
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

At the primary school level, can children distinguished by their skills/abilities be sure that by acknowledging their differences they can be guaranteed a sustainable education? To what extent are they given equal treatment? The goal of this study was to identify the number of left-handed pupils in different classes of Estonian primary school and to discover what knowledge and skills are needed to teach the left-handed children. Results show that a significant number of elementary school children (9%) are left-handed, justifying a need to pay more attention to their uniqueness. In contrast, 46% of surveyed teachers report not having the necessary knowledge and skills to teach this population. While left-handedness has not been researched much throughout the world, including Estonia, it is necessary to recognize that a significant number of students are left handed and teacher knowledge about how to anticipate and prevent their difficulties in a school setting should be taken into consideration to guarantee the success of these children at school and in everyday life.

Keywords

EN

left-handedness; primary school; teachers; knowledge; skills; learning difficulties

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 9
• Pages: 58-67

Dates

published

2008-01-01

online

2009-05-04

Contributors

author

Pilvi Kula

• Tallinn University, Estonia

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10099-009-0019-0