Educationally-oriented measures of handwriting fluency--tasks such as written alphabet recall and sentence copying--conflate graphomotor skill and various higher-level abilities. Direct measurement of pen control when forming letters requires analysis of pen-tip velocity associated with the production of sub-letter features that, in a skilled…

Early literacy and writing development are inter-related, yet predictors of beginning writing are less well studied than beginning reading. This study investigated contributions of school-entry name-writing to writing skills after 1 and 2 years of school in New Zealand above and beyond school-entry oral language and early literacy skills.…

This study sought to examine the influence of transcription skills, evaluated using graphonomic measures, on the proficiency of text generation in students attending primary schools in Spain. A longitudinal design was employed involving 278 Spanish students distributed across three cohorts (cohort 1: 1st-2nd-4th grade; cohort 2: 2nd-3rd-5th grade;…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the direct and indirect relations between short-term memory (STM), reading, oral language, and writing at the letter, word, and discourse levels in young, developing writers both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Method: Participants were 449 English-speaking kindergarten students (52% female)…

Handwriting was a therapeutic intervention with an adolescent victim of a serious electrical accident that occurred in 1972. It was initiated two months after the accident as one aspect of educational therapy. The handwriting tasks involved copying numbers, printing letters, copying shapes, practicing cursive letters, writing sentences, and…

The objective for beginning writers is to learn how to generate alphabet-letters which are recognisable and easy to read. This study investigated the accuracy of Year 1 and 2 children's alphabet-letter-writing by evaluating their alphabet and orthographic knowledge, following evidence which identifies these skills as important for correctly…

Teachers must have an understanding of dyslexia, including characteristics, assessments, and interventions, but also an understanding of the reactions the students may display when faced with these learning difficulties. In addition, teachers need to be aware of how their typical classroom practices may cause even further disruptions and…

Preschool teachers and primary school teachers must work in harmony and carry out consistent practices with each other in the process of teaching literacy. This study aims to determine the practices of preschool teachers in the literacy preparation process and the opinions of primary school teachers on the level of readiness of students from…

In many classrooms across the globe, students are expected to comprehend and produce handwritten and computer-generated texts as soon as they start school. As we progress towards digitalisation in education, it has become necessary to understand the effects of writing modality on students' literacy performance and development. The current…

For preschool-aged children at-risk for literacy difficulties, we examined whether classroom and home environments were jointly associated with literacy skill gains and whether environments moderated response to intervention (n = 281). We first used a person-centered approach to characterize children's classroom and home environments, identifying…