An Analytical Study of the Development of Illegibilities in Handwriting from the Lower Grades to Adulthood

Newland, T. Ernest

doi:10.1080/00220671.1932.10880306

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…This finding is consistent with research on writing of lowercase letters with grade school children (e.g., Graham et al, 2001; Lewis & Lewis, 1964, Newland, 1932; Pressey & Pressey, 1927). The findings of this study demonstrated that, generally, a hierarchical scale existed among letters in the letter-writing task, and that only one scale was extracted providing strong evidence regarding letter writing as a unidimensional construct.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Although the methods for collecting letter-writing samples among studies have varied from asking children to copy the letters of the alphabet (e.g., Lewis & Lewis, 1964), comparing lowercase letters written in manuscript versus cursive style (e.g., Newland, 1932; Pressey & Pressey, 1927), writing letters to dictation (e.g., Ritchey, 2008), to asking children to write letters from memory (Graham, Weintraub, & Berninger, 2001), the results generally indicate that letters vary in their relative difficulty. However, because different methods have been used to collect letterwriting samples, results have also varied a little between studies.…”

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We examined dimensionality via a series of parametric and non-parametric factor analytic methods, and reliability (including the relative difficulty and precision of writing individual letters) using Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis. Given prior research about differences in the acquisition of knowledge about letter names and letter sounds (e.g., Justice et al, 2006; McBride-Chang, 1999; Phillips et al, 2012; Piasta, Petscher, & Justice, 2012; Treiman & Kessler, 2003) and writing of lowercase letters with grade school (Graham et al, 2001; Lewis & Lewis, 1964, Newland, 1932; Pressey & Pressey, 1927) and uppercase letters with preschool (Worden & Boettcher, 1990) children, we expected to find a hierarchy of difficulty for letter writing. However, we did not have a specific hypothesis regarding a sequence because of lack of prior research.…”

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dimensionality and reliability of letter writing in 3- to 5-year-old preschool children

Puranik

Petscher

Lonigan

2013

Learning and Individual Differences

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The primary purpose of this study was to examine the dimensionality and reliability of letter writing skills in preschool children with the aim of determining whether a sequence existed in how children learn to write the letters of the alphabet. Additionally, we examined gender differences in the development of letter writing skills. 471 children aged 3 to 5 years old completed a letter writing task. Results from factor analyses indicated that letter writing represented a unidimensional skill. Similar to research findings that the development of letter-names and letter-sound knowledge varies in acquisition, our findings indicate that the ability to write some letters is acquired earlier than the ability to write other letters. Although there appears to be an approximate sequence for the easiest and most difficult letters, there appears to be a less clear sequence for letters in the middle stages of development. Overall, girls had higher letter writing scores compared to boys. Gender differences regarding difficulty writing specific letters was less conclusive; however, results indicated that when controlling for ability level, girls had a higher probability of writing a letter correctly than boys. Implications of these findings for the assessment and instruction of letter writing are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dimensionality and reliability of letter writing in 3- to 5-year-old preschool children

Puranik

Petscher

Lonigan

2013

Learning and Individual Differences

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“…Although the errors are comparable, adults' handwriting is frequently less legible than that of upper ele-· mentary and junior high school students (Newland, 1932). This is, in part, related to experience and increased fluency.…”

Section: Development Of Handwriting Skillsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…For the most part, this process is straightforward and uncomplicated. Examination of children's and adults' handwriting indicates that a few errors account for a large percentage of the illegibilities in writing (Horton, 1969;Kvaraceus, 1954;Lewis, 1964;Newland, 1932;Pressey & Pressey, 1927;Rollstin, 1949). For example, only four symbolsa, e, r, t -account for about 50 percent of all the malformed letters at any grade level.…”

Section: Diagnostic and Remedial Instructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handwriting Research and Practice: A Unified Approach

Graham¹,

Miller²

2018

Exceptional

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A man walked into a New England bank and shoved a. piece of paper under one of the teller's windows. The teller carefully examined the note, then kicked the alarm button. Within minutes police officers converged on the scene and arrested the man. They later discovered that the suspect was a respected businessman suffering from laryngitis and illegible handwriting. The note was a poorly written request for a new checkbook (O'Brien, 1959).The aftereffects of malformed print are usually not so bizarre. Nonetheless, within today's schools poor handwriting has aptly been dubbed an instructional time thief (Enstrom, 1967). Students with handwriting difficulties often lose considerable time completing assignments, and teachers forfeit precious time attempting to grade papers marred by illegible letters and words. Poor penmanship is a barrier to both expressive writing and spelling achievement (Strickling, 1973). Further, regardless of content, teachers assign higher scores to papers with handwriting of good quality (

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Effects of color stimulation and information on the copying performance of attention-problem adolescents

Zentall

Falkenberg

Smith

1985

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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The optimal stimulation theory proposes that hyperactive children are less tolerant of lower levels of arousal than nonhyperactive children and should thus derive greater gains from stimulation added to repetitive copying tasks than do comparisons. To test this hypothesis, 16 adolescents, rating high on attention and behavior problems, were matched on the basis of age and poor handwriting performance to 16 controls. Matched pairs were randomly assigned to treatment order (high-stimulation colored letters followed in 2 weeks by low-stimulation black letters or the reverse order) and to level of information (color added to difficult letter parts or added to randomly selected letters), counterbalanced for treatment order and level of information within each order. Errors and activity were subjected to a mixed-design analysis of covariance, with IQ the covariate. The major findings indicated that attention-problem adolescents performed better with high-stimulation task stimuli than with low, relative to the opposite performance pattern of controls. Different responding was significant for experimental but not for control children.

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An Analytical Study of the Development of Illegibilities in Handwriting from the Lower Grades to Adulthood

Cited by 15 publications

References 1 publication

Dimensionality and reliability of letter writing in 3- to 5-year-old preschool children

Dimensionality and reliability of letter writing in 3- to 5-year-old preschool children

Handwriting Research and Practice: A Unified Approach

Effects of color stimulation and information on the copying performance of attention-problem adolescents

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