Odia is one of the 22 official languages of India, majorly used in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. A majority of schools in Odisha employ Odia as the primary script of writing till senior secondary education. Hence, there is a need for systematic and comprehensive studies on the proficiency of early learners at handwriting in Odia. Driven by this requirement, this study aims to understand the factors that affect the legibility of Odia handwriting of children. The study involved 90 primary school children who were asked to perform systematic writing tasks based on memory, listening, and copying. The written samples were evaluated for letter shape reproducibility and overall legibility by experts in Odia script as well as non-experts unfamiliar with the script. The data were qualitatively analyzed through coding and categorization using software. This was followed by thematic analysis to identify the factors affecting the legibility of handwritten Odia text. Typographic attributes like spacing, stroke joineries, slanting, letter proportion, letter anatomy, curvature, etc. were taken into account for the categorization. The paper concludes with the pedagogical implications of these factors and how educational practitioners should use them for improved assessment and feedback during Odia handwriting instruction.

Authors:
Arnav Kumar Tripathy, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
Subir Dey, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

About the Presenter(s)
Mr. Arnav Kumar Tripathy is a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India.

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