Background: Written composition requires handwriting, spelling, and text planning skills, all largely learned through school instruction. Students' rate of learning to compose text in their first months at school will depend, in part, on their literacy-related abilities at school start. These effects have not previously been explored. Aim: We…

Unitizing, a cognitive support for number sense, describes how students conceptualize quantities in terms of units. Given the importance of this skill, a formative assessment tool was developed for array multiplication problems, including arrays that model the distributive property found in typical classroom curricula. Video of 77 fourth grade…

Copying a text quickly and accurately is important both in school and in daily life. However, this skill has never been systematically studied, either in children with typical development (TD) or in children with specific learning disabilities (SLD). The aim of this research was to study the features of a copy task and its relationship with other…

Handwriting instruction is often seen as less important in the curriculum, particularly due to pressures of passing high stakes assessments and the need to develop technology competencies, as technology in education and society has become commonplace. Current research shows that literacy skills are supported through the direct instruction of…

This randomized controlled trial with first- and second-grade students is the first experimental study addressing long-running disagreements about whether primary grade students should develop transcription and oral language abilities before learning to compose. It is also the first study at these grade levels to teach close reading (using science…

The effects of transcription skills, comprising both spelling and handwriting fluency, on sentence writing among young Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners were evaluated and compared to those of reading and oral language using a one-year longitudinal study design. Various writing models postulated that transcription skills are essential in…

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…

Handwriting deficits, or dysgraphia, are present in several neurodevelopmental disorders. To investigate whether dysgraphia differs according to the associated disorder, we performed a detailed analysis of handwriting in a group of French children with developmental coordination disorders (DCD), reading disorder (RD), or comorbid RD and DCD.…

I teach the beginning level English as a Second Language classes at the Don Bosco School for Adults in Kansas City, Missouri. We service refugees and immigrants from all over the world. In the beginning level classroom, many refugee students require guidance and instruction when they use writing utensils. They do not know how to draw basic shapes,…

Elementary students who demonstrate accuracy and speed in handwriting are better equipped to generate higher quality, longer composition. Unfortunately, students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to encounter significant difficulties with legibility, size, and speed of handwriting. The present study used a single-subject, multiple-baseline…

Although extensive research has focused on young children's writing and identified the importance of early writing experiences, there is a limited amount of writing occurring in some early childhood classrooms. Furthermore, existing research on teacher supports for emergent writing in preschool classrooms is limited. This study examined how one…

Normally, a pre service teacher will get an education in order to prepare themselves in cognitive knowledge, positive attitudes and skills. Moreover, what will be faced by them is educating children who are actually going through the initial stages of learning, namely reading, writing, and counting. Writing, especially cursive handwriting, helps…

This paper synthesises some of the recent studies that have made links between handwriting as an orthographic-motor strategy and the quality of pupils' learning and literacy skills. A poor standard of literacy is evident in many British school leavers and, in some cases, university graduates. The paper outlines the implication of this situation…

Many students use laptops to take notes in classes, but does using them impact later test performance? In a high-profile investigation comparing note-taking writing on paper versus typing on a laptop keyboard, Mueller and Oppenheimer ("Psychological Science," 25, 1159-1168, 2014) concluded that taking notes by longhand is superior. We…