Development of the Writing Readiness Inventory Tool in Context (WRITIC)

Abstract

This article describes the development of the Writing Readiness Inventory Tool in Context (WRITIC), a measurement evaluating writing readiness in Dutch kindergarten children (5 and 6 years old). Content validity was established through 10 expert evaluations in three rounds. Construct validity was established with 251 children following regular education. To identify scale constructs, factor analysis was performed. Discriminative validity was established by examining contrast groups with good (n = 142) and poor (n = 109) performers in paper-and-pencil tasks. Content validity was high with 94.4% agreement among the experts. Two reliable factors were found in the performance of paper-and-pencil tasks with Cronbach's alphas of 0.82 and 0.69 respectively. The contrast groups differed significantly in two WRITIC subdomains: "Sustained attention" and "Task performance". Our findings indicated that the WRITIC is feasible for use in the classroom.

Evaluating Fine Motor Coordination in Children Who Are Not Ready for Handwriting: Which Test Should We Take?

“…The other subdomains are criterion referenced and provide valuable information for advice and intervention. The WRITIC‐TP has high internal consistency after factor analysis, discriminates between children with good and poor performance of paper‐and‐pencil tasks and has excellent test–re‐test and inter‐rater reliability (van Hartingsveldt et al, , ). The WRITIC‐TP, administered in kindergarten, is found to be the main predictor for handwriting quality (van Hartingsveldt et al, ) evaluated in Grade 1 by the Systematic Screening for Handwriting Difficulties (Smits‐Engelsman et al, ).…”

“…In the WRITIC, handwriting readiness is measured as having a proper seating posture (Pollock et al, ; Schneck and Amundson, ), a mature pencil grasp (Schwellnus et al, , ) and performance of age‐appropriate tasks such as colouring, writing patterns, writing own name and copying letters and numbers. The WRITIC discriminates between children who are ready for instruction in handwriting and children who are not (van Hartingsveldt et al, ).…”

“…The WRITIC has items in three domains and six subdomains: child ("interest" and "sustained attention"), environment ("physical" and "social") and paper-and-pencil tasks ("task performance" and "intensity of performance"). In a series of studies, the reliability and validity of the WRITIC have been established (van Hartingsveldt et al, 2014a(van Hartingsveldt et al, , 2014c.…”

“…In the WRITIC, handwriting readiness is measured as having a proper seating posture (Pollock et al, 2009;Schneck and Amundson, 2010), a mature pencil grasp (Schwellnus et al, 2012(Schwellnus et al, , 2013 and performance of age-appropriate tasks such as colouring, writing patterns, writing own name and copying letters and Figure 1. Conceptual model of handwriting readiness and its relation to handwriting, text writing and performance components, based on the model of Berninger (Abbott and Berninger, 1993;Berninger et al, 1992;van Hartingsveldt et al, 2014avan Hartingsveldt et al, , 2014bVolman et al, 2006) Fine Motor Coordination and Handwriting de Vries et al…”

“…numbers. The WRITIC discriminates between children who are ready for instruction in handwriting and children who are not (van Hartingsveldt et al, 2014c).…”