The purpose of this study was to describe how experienced emergent writing teachers supported 4-year-olds in writing their own messages during the learning centers period of the preschool day. Data were drawn from two, year-long qualitative studies of early writing instruction. Adult participants were three researcher-teachers who worked in…

The purpose of this report is to describe how a teacher utilized technology to teach elderly learners Chinese calligraphy and how they learnt. Before the incidence of COVID-19, six sessions of Chinese calligraphy were conducted in a community services centre for elderly learners in Hong Kong from 9:00am to 5:00pm on a weekday every week, with each…

As researchers come to recognize the origins of dysgraphia, we can better suggest optimal approaches to remediation. In defining dysgraphia, we review the writing process, research on the development of writing, and various factors related to either spelling difficulties, visual-motor difficulties, or both, that might interfere in the process of…

This study examined the longitudinal relationship between early handwriting skills and the growth of spelling and reading skills in a large sample (N = 569) of 5- to 6-year-old children unselected for ability. The quality of children's handwriting was assessed using five indicators (letter form, slant, rhythm, ability, general appearance).…

Do handwriting skills transfer when a child writes in two different scripts, such as the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets? Are our measures of handwriting skills intrinsically bound to one alphabet or will a child who faces handwriting difficulties in one script experience similar difficulties in the other script? To answer these questions, 190…

A child's handwriting fluency may have implications on his or her quality of writing. The same may be true of typing fluency. The current study examines the effects of handwriting and typing practice on early elementary school children's transcriptional fluency and written product outcomes. Three classrooms of second-grade students were assessed…

Many Indigenous Latinx students in Spanish/English dual language programs in the US speak languages that are often not valued or taken advantage of in the process of learning Spanish and English. This participatory critical (collective) autoethnography explores the possibilities of handwriting lessons as a vehicle for the incorporation of K'iche'…

A pre-test post-test design was used to deliver the Size Matters Handwriting Program to 19 second-grade students using an occupational therapist-teacher collaborative teaching model. Outcomes from the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment indicate statistically and clinically significant gains for students in legibility, form, alignment, size, and…

Developmental dyslexia is defined as a specific reading disorder but is also thought to be underpinned by a deficit in motor skills that may well affect handwriting performance. However, the results of studies addressing this issue are not consistent. The present study was, therefore, designed to better understand the functioning of handwriting in…

Studies of early writing recognize that learning to write is a complex process requiring students to attend to the composition of the text and the transcription of the ideas. The research discussed here examined six dimensions of early writing--text structure, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting--and how each…

Previous studies have uncovered the relationship between handwriting and mathematics performance, without articulating the underlying cognitive mechanism. With 197 Chinese fourth graders as participants, this study explored the mechanism by which the spacing/spatial relationship in handwriting legibility affects number-line estimation through VMI.…

With the recent advances in learning technologies, researchers are exploring the benefits of touch-based applications to reinforce handwriting skills in children with writing difficulties. One of the reasons for writing difficulties is the lack of fine motor skills. Hence, an Android application was developed for children with writing difficulties…

Visual-motor integration is an ability to coordinate the visual information and limb movement, which has direct relevance to Chinese handwriting ability. Interestingly handwriting practice can also improve Chinese reading. However, the relationship between visual-motor integration and reading ability in Chinese is unclear. The present study…

Our understanding of spelling development has largely been gleaned from analysis of children's accuracy at spelling words under varying conditions and the nature of their errors. Here, we consider whether handwriting durations can inform us about the time course with which children use morphological information to produce accurate spellings of…

Grapheme and syllable units have been shown to influence the dynamics of handwriting in adults and children, but the influence of morphemes remains to be clarified. We tested the ability of French-speaking adults and fourth and sixth grade children to process the morphological structure of words during writing. They were asked to copy three types…