A Comprehensive Meta-analysis of Handwriting Instruction

Abstract

While there are many ways to author text today, writing with paper and pen (or pencil) is still quite common at home and work, and predominates writing at school. Because handwriting can bias readers' judgments about the ideas in a text and impact other writing processes, like planning and text generation, it is important to ensure students develop legible and fluent handwriting. This meta-analysis examined true-and quasi-experimental intervention studies conducted with K-12 students to determine if teaching handwriting enhanced legibility and fluency and resulted in better writing performance. When compared to no instruction or non-handwriting instructional conditions, teaching handwriting resulted in statistically greater legibility (ES=0.59) and fluency (ES=0.63). Motor instruction did not produce better handwriting skills (ES=0.10 for legibility and −0.07 for fluency), but individualizing handwriting instruction (ES=0.69) and teaching handwriting via technology (ES= 0.85) resulted in statistically significant improvements in legibility. Finally, handwriting instruction produced statistically significant gains in the quality (ES=0.84), length (ES= 1.33), and fluency of students' writing (ES=0.48). The findings from this meta-analysis provide support for one of the assumptions underlying the Simple View of Writing (Berninger et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 291-304, 2002): text transcription skills are an important ingredient in writing and writing development.

Tailoring Multicomponent Writing Interventions: Effects of Coupling Self-Regulation and Transcription Training

“…This increased automaticity in handwriting might have been largely due to transcription training, which included explicit instruction and extensive practice in writing letters, words, and sentences. These results are similar to those reported in prior research Berninger et al, 1997;Jones & Christensen, 1999) and support the results of a meta-analysis that found impressive gains in handwriting fluency due to handwriting instruction (Santangelo & Graham, 2015).…”

“…We anticipated that transcription training would raise students' handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy, as supported by recent metaanalyses' results (Graham & Santangelo, 2015;Santangelo & Graham, 2015). This increase in transcription automatization was hypothesized to free up students' attentional resources (Bourdin & Fayol, 1994Kellogg, 1996;McCutchen, 1996;Olive & Kellogg, 2002), which could be allocated to the newly acquired self-regulation skills.…”

Examining the transcription-writing link: Effects of handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy on writing performance via planning and translating in middle grades

“…There is considerable research demonstrating that more proficient transcription skills, in particular, more fluent handwriting and more accurate spelling, are associated with better writing quality (for reviews, see Graham & Harris, 2000;Graham & Santangelo, 2014;Santangelo & Graham, 2015). The relationship between transcription and writing performance is mostly noticeable in novice writers, who still struggle with the process of putting language onto the page.…”

Relationship between Legible Handwriting and Level of Success of Third Grade Students in Written Expression

“…Skills to write legibly are evaluated separately. In literature (Berninger, 1999;Santangelo & Graham, 2015;Olive & Kellog, 2002), it is claimed that success in handwriting affects success in written expression. This study has found out that students' scores for legible handwriting are good while their scores for written expression is moderate.…”

“…Even if the text is legible, the quality of handwriting (whether it looks nice or not) may create prejudices in evaluation of the content. In both scenarios, the grade given to the written text may not reflect the truth (Santangelo & Graham, 2015). Taking this fact as the starting point, this study aims at evaluation of cursive slant hand writing and written expression skills of third grade students at primary school.…”