The authors used multiple-group structural equation modeling to analyze structural relationships between latent factors underlying separate measures of handwriting, spelling, and composing in Grades 1-6. For compositional fluency, the paths from both handwriting and spelling were significant in the primary grades, but only the path from handwriting was significant in the intermediate grades. For compositional quality, only the path from handwriting was significant at the primary and intermediate grades. The contribution of spelling to compositional quality was indirect through its correlation with handwriting. Handwriting and spelling accounted for a sizable proportion of the variance in compositional fluency (41 % to 66%) and compositional quality (25% to 42%). These findings show that the mechanical skills of writing may exert constraints on amount and quality of composing. Theoretical and educational implications of the findings are discussed.Mechanical requirements for producing text have been hypothesized to contribute to individual differences in writing performance in several important ways (Berninger et al., 1992;Graham, 1990;Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Goleman, 1982). For persons who have not yet mastered the mechanics of writing, having to attend to the lower level skills of getting language onto paper may "tax" a writer's processing capacity in working memory, interfering with higher order skills such as planning and content generation. Having to switch attention during composing to mechanical demands, such as figuring out how to spell a word, may lead the writer to forget already developed ideas and plans. Simultaneously allocating attention to mechanical concerns while trying to plan the next unit of text may further interfere with the planning process, affecting the complexity and coherence of content integration. If attention is occupied with mechanical concerns, the writer may also have less opportunity to make expressions more precisely fit intentions at the point of translation. Finally, the writer's fluency with handwriting (or typing) may not be fast enough to keep up with his or her thoughts, interfering with content generation and recall of ideas or text already planned and held in working memory. However, the empirical research on the relationship between the mechanics of production and the composing process has yielded mixed results, depending on age and

Almost 700 children were screened to identify 144 1st graders at risk for handwriting problems who were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 treatment conditions. Treatment was delivered to groups of 3 that met twice a week in 20-min sessions until they completed 24 lessons. Five groups received 10 min of different kinds of handwriting instruction. The contact control group received 10 min of phonological awareness training. All 6 groups composed and shared their writing for 10 min. Converging evidence across multiple measures showed that combining numbered arrows and memory retrieval was the most effective treatment for improving both handwriting and compositional fluency (composing with time limits). Thus instruction aimed at improving transcription transfers to improved text generation in beginning writers.

Four approaches to the investigation of connections between language by hand and language by eye are described and illustrated with studies from a decade-long research program. In the first approach, multigroup structural equation modeling is applied to reading and writing measures given to typically developing writers to examine unidirectional and bidirectional relationships between specific components of the reading and writing systems. In the second approach, structural equation modeling is applied to a multivariate set of language measures given to children and adults with reading and writing disabilities to examine how the same set of language processes is orchestrated differently to accomplish specific reading or writing goals, and correlations between factors are evaluated to examine the level at which the language-by-hand system and the language-by-eye system communicate most easily. In the third approach, mode of instruction and mode of response are systematically varied in evaluating effectiveness of treating reading disability with and without a writing component. In the fourth approach, functional brain imaging is used to investigate residual spelling problems in students whose problems with word decoding have been remediated. The four approaches support a model in which language by hand and language by eye are separate systems that interact in predictable ways.

Poor spellers in 2nd grade (« = 128) participated in 24 20-min sessions that included (a) direct instruction in the alphabet principle (most frequent phoneme-spelling connections); (b) modeling of different approaches, singly and in combination, for developing connections between spoken and written words for 48 words ordered by sound-spelling predictability; and (c) practice in composing. Results of this multilayered intervention showed that (a) more than 1 way of developing sound-spelling connections is effective in teaching spelling but that after training in the alphabet principle, combining whole word and onset-rime training is most effective in achieving transfer of the alphabet principle across word contexts; (b) functional spelling units of not only a single letter but also 2 or more letters are important in beginning spelling; and (c) training in spelling transfers to composition and word recognition.

The papers in this section explore multiple strategies for remediation of reading difficulties. The literature reviews are current, the techniques sophisticated, and the respect for empirical evidence outweighs (as it must) adherence to a particular philosophy of instruction.In chapter 9, Sylvia Abbott and Virginia Berninger present a detailed curriculum for students in grades 4 to 7, contrasting two different ways to provide explicit instruction in the English orthography. For half the students the code-emphasis component focused exclusively on the phoneme-grapheme correspondences, the other half were also given explicit instruction to syllable types and morphological structure. The results are encouraging in finding that both groups made discernible gains in word recognition and reading comprehension over the fourmonth period; as did virtually every child in the study (individual data are provided). There was no evidence that instruction in syllables and morphemes had an obvious advantage. Readers will find this paper useful on a number of ways: for the explicit details in lesson plans which are tied to readily available commercial programs and for the result that the only limiting factor was RSN--and that limited not mastery of the code, but speed of word recognition. As the title suggests, the study indicates that 7th graders are not too old to benefit from instruction.In chapter 10, Marshall Raskind and Eleanor Higgins provide some surprising and encouraging evidence that speech recognition technology designed to help persons compensate for reading limitations may in fact enhance reading and spelling as well--gains in word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension were small but reliable after only one semester using this technology an hour a week. This carefully conducted 221 222 STRATEGIES FOR REMEDIATION study will be read with keen interest by all who struggle with how to support students who must continue in grade-level curriculum and yet also continue to learn to read. Combined with prior evidence that text readers help the poor reader, school systems, families and clinicians will be expanding their repertoire on aids to older students.If you talk to any group of experienced reading instructors, you will find that their number one concern is how to enhance reading fluency. For even very effective code-emphasis interventions have not yielded sizable gains in reading fluency. In Chapter 11, Marianne Meyer and Rebecca Felton bring us up to date on what research finds regarding the efficacy of means to improve reading fluency, with particular emphasis on the "repeated readings" approach. This paper will be especially useful to reading instructors, as it is structured in a question answer format.The final paper, chapter 12 by Joanne Martila Pierson offers an unusual--and very readable--combination of explicit code instruction and concern for the child's continued interest. What I like about this paper is the explicit documentation of what the child does and does not learn over the period covered and ...