Handwriting: what do we know and what do we need to know?

Abstract

Handwriting has a low status and profile in literacy education in England and in recent years has attracted little attention from teachers, policy‐makers or researchers into mainstream educational processes. This article identifies a substantial programme of research into handwriting, including studies located in the domains of special needs education and psychology, suggesting that it is time to re‐evaluate the importance of handwriting in the teaching of literacy. Explorations of the way handwriting affects composing have opened up new avenues for research, screening and intervention, which have the potential to make a significant contribution to children's progress in learning to write. In particular, the role of orthographic motor integration and automaticity in handwriting is now seen as of key importance in composing. Evidence from existing studies suggests that handwriting intervention programmes may have a real impact on the composing skills of young writers. In particular, they could positively affect the progress of the many boys who struggle with writing throughout the primary school years.

Relação entre destreza manual e legibilidade da escrita em crianças: estudo piloto

“…Tal achado é compatível com outros estudos (KATUSIK et al, 2005;MEDWELL;WRAY, 2007;BERNINGER et al, 2008), os quais, apesar de usarem metodologias distintas, verificaram a presença de diferenças significativas entre os sexos na habilidade de escrita. No trabalho de Berninger et al (2008), tanto meninos como homens, com e sem dislexia, apresentaram pior desempenho nas medidas de automatismo de produção das letras do alfabeto e expressão escrita.…”

Relationship between gender and tactile-kinesthetic sensitivity and the quality of writing among students with and without writing difficulties

“…Посматрајући просечну брзину писања на сва четири задатка, уочава се и постојање статистички значајне разлике (р= ,024). Постојећа истраживања (Medwell & Wray, 2007;Schwellnus et al, 2012) такође показују да је брзина писања дечака спорија од брзине писања девојчица. Услед развоја перцептивних, моторичких и гностичких способности, али и вежбе, брзина писања се повећава током основношколског периода, међутим, и тада постоји разлика у брзини писања дечака и девојчица (Ziviani & Watson Will, 1998), која се може објаснити различитим развојним тенденцијама.…”

‘Off the Radar:’ the Framing of Speech, Language and Communication in the Description of Children with Special Educational Needs in Literacy

“…Handwriting is included as part of literacy based on more recent understandings of its role in contributing to the composition process in writing (Medwell and Wray, 2007). Within the fourteen literacy interventions ten explicitly referred to the teaching of phonics and two of the fourteen reports focused on a phonics-only intervention.…”