Morphological processing in developmental handwriting production: evidence from kinematics

In this study, we investigated effects of morphological processing on handwriting production in beginning writers of German. Children from Grades 3 and 4 were asked to copy words from a computer screen onto a pen tablet, while we recorded their handwriting with high spatiotemporal resolution. Words involved a syllable-congruent visual disruption (e.g., “Golfer”), a morpheme-congruent visual disruption (e.g., “Golfer”), or had no disruption (e.g., “Golfer”). We analyzed productions in terms of Writing Onset Duration and Letter Duration at the onset of the second syllable (“f” in “Gol.fer”) and the onset of the suffix (“e” in “Golf_er”). Results showed that durations were longer at word-writing onset only for words with a morpheme-congruent visual disruption. Also, letter durations were longer at the onset of the second syllable (i.e., “-fer”) and shorter at the onset of the suffix (i.e., “-er”) only for words with a syllable-congruent visual disruption. We interpret these findings within extant theories of handwriting production and offer an explanation for the observed effects before and during trajectory formation.

Handwriting versus keyboarding: Does writing modality affect quality of narratives written by beginning writers?

To date, there is no clear evidence to support choosing handwriting over keyboarding or vice versa as the modality children should use when they first learn to write. 102 Norwegian first-grade children from classrooms that used both electronic touchscreen keyboard on a digital tablet and pencil-and-paper for writing instruction wrote narratives in both modalities three months after starting school and were assessed on several literacy-related skills. The students’ texts were then analysed for a range of text features, and were rated holistically. Data were analysed using Bayesian methods. These permitted evaluation both of evidence in favour of a difference between modalities and of evidence in favour of there being no difference. We found moderate to strong evidence in favour of no difference between modalities. We also found moderate to strong evidence against modality effects being moderated by students’ literacy ability. Findings may be specific to students who are just starting to write, but suggest that for children at this stage of development writing performance is independent of modality.

Learning Handwriting: Factors Affecting Pen-Movement Fluency in Beginning Writers

Skilled handwriting of single letters is associated not only with a neat final product but also with fluent pen-movement, characterized by a smooth pen-tip velocity profile. Our study explored fluency when writing single letters in children who were just beginning to learn to handwrite, and the extent to which this was predicted by the children’s pen-control ability and by their letter knowledge. 176 Norwegian children formed letters by copying and from dictation (i.e., in response to hearing letter sounds). Performance on these tasks was assessed in terms of the counts of velocity inversions as the children produced sub-letter features that would be produced by competent handwriters as a single, smooth (ballistic) action. We found that there was considerable variation in these measures across writers, even when producing well-formed letters. Children also copied unfamiliar symbols, completed various pen-control tasks (drawing lines, circles, garlands, and figure eights), and tasks that assessed knowledge of letter sounds and shapes. After controlling for pen-control ability, pen-movement fluency was affected by letter knowledge (specifically children’s performance on a task that required selecting graphemes on the basis of their sound). This was the case when children retrieved letter forms from dictated letter sounds, but also when directly copying letters and, unexpectedly, when copying unfamiliar symbols. These findings suggest that familiarity with a letter affects movement fluency during letter production but may also point towards a more general ability to process new letter-like symbols in children with good letter knowledge.

L1 USED DURING L2 FREE WRITING: A LOOK AT BEGINNING WRITERS

This research aims to investigate the composing process and writing strategiesofthe beginning writers’free writing product dealing with the writing problem and theory of the writing process. It is seenfrom their grammar (minor grammatical errors, such as –s on verbs in third person singular),vocabulary (knows most words needed to express ideas but lacks vocabulary for finer shades ofmeaning), sentence (uses several sentences pattern), organization (somewhat sequenced), and fluency(writes several sentences). It focuses on how the beginning writers’ L1 influence their L2 free writingproduct. Twenty five (25) students invoked by producing twenty five (25) different topics. The resultshows that there is an influence of L1 knowledge to L2 language production in which the participantstranslate their ideas in L1 knowledge to L2 language directly without considering the structures andforms.

Classification Accuracy of Curriculum-Based Measures for Beginning Writers in First Grade

We examined the classification accuracy of Curriculum-Based Measurement in writing (CBM-W) Picture Word prompts scored for words written (WW), words spelled correctly (WSC), and correct word sequences (CWS). First graders ( n = 133) were administered CBM-W prompts and the Test of Written Language–Third Edition (TOWL-3; Hammill & Larsen, 1996). Prompts scored for WSC showed acceptable levels of sensitivity (.947) and specificity (.587) with the TOWL-3 Contextual Language. Positive predictive values were low (approximately .20 to .30), and negative predictive values were high (mostly above .95). Overall classification accuracy, represented by the area under curve (AUC), ranged from .727 to .831. Further research regarding ways to improve classification accuracy of CBM-W and preliminary implications for practice are discussed.