Research suggests that providing children with activities that involve using their bodies to form the shapes of letters can help them acquire pre-reading skills. Little is known, however, as to the extent to which such embodied learning interventions are superior to more traditional pencil-and-paper activities, which of specific arm or body…

Writing is a critical foundational literacy skill for preschool and kindergarten and has received increased attention in research and policy as a result. Further, the nature of literacy more broadly is shifting towards more digital forms and formats. Research suggests that children approach tasks with and without technology differently and…

Researchers have argued that writing skills have significant implications for developing reading skills. A growing body of research has provided evidence that writing skills, in particular invented spelling, provide unique predictive information regarding future reading skills. This study examined which preschool early writing skills (i.e., name…

The aim of this research is to reveal the effects of symbolic play content activities organized in kindergarten to first reading and writing skills. For this purpose, mixed-method research has been designed. In the first stage of this research, four experiments, including pretest-posttest applied, a paired experiment-control group, were applied.…

This article describes the development and administration of the "Kindergarten-Second Grade (K-2) Writing Data-Based Decision Making (DBDM) Survey." The "K-2 Writing DBDM Survey" was developed to learn more about current DBDM practices specific to early writing. A total of 376 educational professionals (175 general education…

In the present study we examined the contributions of transcription and foundational oral language skills to written composition outcomes in a sample of kindergartners. Two hundred and eighty-two kindergarten students from 49 classrooms participated in this study. Children's writing-related skills were examined using various tasks. Latent…

Theoretical models hold that written products (e.g., quality of written composition) are the outcome of the writing process (e.g., translation, transcription, revision) and skills and knowledge on which the writing process draws (e.g., language, transcription, cognitive skills). In the present study, we examined the relations among writing…

Theoretical models hold that written products (e.g., quality of written composition) are the outcome of the writing process (e.g., translation, transcription, revision) and skills and knowledge on which the writing process draws (e.g., language, transcription, cognitive skills). In the present study, we examined the relations among writing…

In this study, we offer a unique perspective of time spent in kindergarten and young children's writing by presenting a multi-dimensional analysis of the writing of 72 children (5-years-old) living in northern communities in two Canadian provinces. We administered the "Drawing, Writing, Talking Task" (DWTT), a research-based classroom…

Factors of graphomotor skills may serve as indicators to determine a writer's handwriting proficiency or acclimation to different writing surface textures. This study examines differences in children's graphomotor skills based on types of writing medium and gender. Participants were 97 six-year-old Korean preschool children who had not received…

Despite increasing pressure for children to learn to write at younger ages, there are many unanswered questions about composition skills in early elementary school. The goal of this research was to examine the dimensionality of composition skills in kindergarten children, thereby adding to current knowledge about the measurement of young…

Despite increasing pressure for children to learn to write at younger ages, there are many unanswered questions about composition skills in early elementary school. The goal of this research was to examine the dimensionality of composition skills in kindergarten children, thereby adding to current knowledge about the measurement of young…

This article describes the development of the Early Elementary Writing Rubric (EEWR), an analytic assessment designed to measure kindergarten and first-grade writing and inform educators' instruction. Crocker and Algina's (1986) approach to instrument development and validation was used as a guide to create and refine the writing measure. Study 1…

This article addresses the characteristics of learners in the emergent stage of literacy development and describes two instructional practices that facilitate the development of the alphabetic principle and concept of word in text.

Research has established that self-regulation plays an important role in early academic skills such as math and reading, but has focused less on relations with other early skill domains such as writing. The purpose of the present study was to extend that line of research by assessing the relation between self-regulation and early writing.…