To explore the dynamics of processing in manuscript production, it is necessary to possess a system for recording the writer's graphic activity. This work describes the new version of the Eye and Pen program (version 3.01). In addition to the fact that it is now freely available (https://www.eyeandpen.net), the improvements described focus on its…

With the fetishisation of computer technologies in education, the older sense of technology as pertaining to skill, what the Greeks termed 'techne', seems to have slipped from view. Technology is generally equated with the object itself rather than the facility to use it. A skill such as writing, for example, is rarely considered a technology and…

As a teacher in the San Antonio Independent School District, Addison Davis encountered a significant challenge--maintaining student engagement during the last periods of the school day. These periods often felt like a battle between his students' growing restlessness and his efforts to keep them focused on the content. Initially, he relied heavily…

Handwriting is still a prominent mode for composing for both children and adults As a result, it is important that developing writers acquire fluent and legible handwriting. This article examines the five investigations that were presented in this special issue on handwriting instruction, providing a summary of their collective contributions as…

Writing is an important part of learning across all content areas of school (Graham & Harris, 2011). Even very young children experience the symbols of written language all around them. Soon they begin to notice that written symbols stand for people, ideas, things, or events, and attempt their own marks (Aram & Levin, 2011). However,…

The simple view of writing suggests that written composition results from oral language, transcription (e.g., spelling/handwriting), and self-regulation skills, coordinated within working memory. The model provides a number of implications for the interpretation of psychoeducational achievement batteries. For instance, it hypothesizes that writing…

We suggest that the American poet E.E. Cummings was probably mildly dyslexic. Evidence, which is drawn in particular from inspection of his archival papers, includes consideration of his spelling, letter formation, handwriting, approach to page orientation, proclivity for exploration of the mirror-image, reading and educational history, struggles…

Education in Japan has drawn attention widely from overseas, including a quantity of research pointing out that the context of Japan's modernization and its present-day advanced science and technology can be found in the high literacy rates and prevalent education of Japanese society. However, there has been insufficient examination of the effect…

Student apathy--a lack of motivation or mental presence in the classroom--is common in many academic institutions and courses of study. In Public Speaking courses, speech anxiety can be a factor that contributes to student apathy. To solve this problem, I suggest implementing an unconventional approach--in-class unguided longhand…

Pediatric developmental assessments from the early 1900s are different from those used more often today. Certain present-day pediatric expectations of fine motor skills, specifically those of pre-writing strokes, appear more advanced when compared to those of the past. In the mid-20th century, child developmentalists described the sequences in…

In this paper, we analyse the struggle for a unified style of writing in primary schools in the German-speaking part of Switzerland between the 1860s and the first decades of the twentieth century with regard to the contexts in which this struggle was embedded. In the late-nineteenth century, in German-speaking Switzerland, as in other parts of…

In the wake of the digital, some have recommended that we abandon the tedium of teaching handwriting to children in service of promoting "more creative" digital literacies. Others worry that an early diet of keyboard and screen may have deleterious effects on children's social, emotional, and cognitive development, as well as their…

In reviewing the six articles within this "Instructional Science" special issue, we are reminded of Schoenfeld's ("Educ Res" 45(2):105-111, 2016) review of American Educational Research Association president-authored papers for the centennial celebration of AERA. There, he succinctly unveiled the content focus of AERA research…

This article examines the Uruguayan state approach to the teaching of writing in public elementary education during the 1830s, and is an attempt to explain why state officials advanced new pedagogical methods aimed at increasing rationalisation and standardisation. While many different handwriting styles existed in the past, the school system…

Handwriting has historically played a significant role in the services provided by occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants working in schools. Reflecting on nearly three decades of school practice, an occupational therapy administrator considers how this niche developed and how it positions occupational therapy practitioners to…