The Critical Role Handwriting Plays in

the Ability to Produce High Quality

Written Text

Carol Christensen
The story of Rick

There is a surprisingly robust relationship

between orthographic-motor integration and
students’ capacity to produce high quality
written text.
Measurement of orthographic-motor
integration

I. Alphabet task

II.Copy or dictate text

 Evaluating Students’ Writing
• Technical accuracy of spelling and grammar

• Originality and creativity

• Logical structure, organisation and coherence

• Comprehensiveness

• Clarity, sensitivity to audience and communicative

competence
Significant correlations between quality and
quantity of written text which students
produce, and fluency of handwriting for:
Elementary students:

Biemiller , Regan and Gang (1993)

Students Grades 1-6
Correlations .34 - .76 (fluency in
handwriting and fluency in written text)
Graham, Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, and
Whitaker (1997)
300 primary (Grades 1,2,3)
.81 mechanics and quantity of written text
.5 Mechanics and quality

300 intermediate (Grades 4,5,6)

Correlation .64 mechanics and fluency of written
text
.64 mechanics and quality
Jones and Christensen (correlation handwriting
and quality of written text).
455 Grade 1 .79
114 Grade 2 .82
115 Grade 3 .74
104 Grade 5 .70
165 Grade 9 .81
158 Grade 10 .80
Handwriting exerts a continuing influence on
students’ writing skills.

Smits-Engelsman and Van Galen (1997)

Longitudinal study 16 Grade 2,3,4 children.
Without assistance, children did not ‘grow out’ of
difficulties.

Mojet (1991)
Normally developing children (8 to 12 years)
improved with age. Children with handwriting
problems, continued to experience difficulties.
The continuing role of handwriting for
difficulties in written language for older
students.

Connelly (2006) post secondary students.

Compared with age-matched control group,
students experiencing writing difficulties were
poorer on measures of lower-order
transcription skills but not higher-order
processes (ideation, organisation, cognitive
monitoring)
Peverly (2006)
Handwriting exerts an influence into adulthood.
Tertiary students can experience problems in
note taking and essay writing.
Children with Learning Disabilities (dyslexia)

Weintraub and Graham (1998)

Grade 5 students with learning disabilities had:
•Slower handwriting
•Difficulty in increasing handwriting speech (executive
control)

Yates, Berninger and Abbott (1994)

Transcription skills best variable to differentiate good
and poor writers among intellectually gifted students.
 Issues of Cognitive Load
• Ideation
• Technical accuracy
• Communicative competence
• Sequencing ideas
• Genre
• Executive control (eg cognitive monitoring)

Resolve issues of cognitive load

Automaticity in orthographic-motor integration.
Intervention studies show that practice in handwriting
can improve the quality and quantity of text that
students write.

Jones and Christensen (1999)

19 six and seven year-olds with difficulties in
handwriting and 19 age and reading-matched peers.
10 minutes handwriting intervention per day for one
semester.
Significant differences in quality and quantity of text
children produced at pretest which disappeared at post
text
 Pretest Scores for Year 8 and 9
Students
Journal Handwriting
OMI 26.7 26.3

Quality of 10.8 9.9

Written Text

Length of 116.3 108.5

Written Text
 Post Test Scores for Year 8 and 9
Students
Journal Handwriting
OMI 28.5 (26.7) 48.5 (26.3)

Quality of 10.8 (10.8) 15.9 (9.9)

Written Text

Length of 87.9 (116.3) 197.8 (108.5)

Written Text
 Effective Strategies to Teach
Handwriting
• Relatively little research on teaching
strategies.
• Teaching should focus on handwriting skills,
little support for development of general fine
motor skills.
• Focus should be on fluency not neatness or
motor control.
• It’s the little things that count.
Berninger, Vaughn, Abbott, Rogan, Brooks, Reed and
Graham (1997)
Compared 5 conditions with a control group working on
phonological awareness.
The groups were, writing letters:
i.after seeing teacher model
ii.after looking at a written model with arrows to
indicate direction
iii.while looking at an unmarked example
iv.from memory after looking at a copy with direction
arrows.
v.from memory after looking at an unmarked copy.
All handwriting groups improved more than the
control.

Best performance was for group who wrote

letters from memory after looking at a copy with
arrows.
 Role of Teacher Verbal Mediation
Graham and Weintraub (1996)found that verbal
descriptions were helpful for young beginning
writers.

Berninger, et al (1997)
Teacher mediation was not effective for older
students.
Jones (2004)

Gave a group of teachers one hour of

professional development on how to teach
handwriting and another group an hour on
the importance of handwriting as well as
some tips on developing students’ written
language.
At the end of the year:
Children in experimental classrooms had:
• Significantly higher quality and quantity of written
text.
• Significantly fewer spelling errors.
At the end of the second year:
Children in experimental classrooms:
• Scored 40% higher in handwriting
• Wrote 65% more text
• Scored 30% higher on quality of written language
• Made 50% fewer spelling errors
Teaching Practices for Young Children
Control Experimental
Emphasized skilled Focused on learning letter
pencil control shapes and fluency rather then
motor control
Used double-lined Taught all letters in Term 1
paper Assessed each student on letter
names, sounds and formations
Used commercial Early intervention to ensure
texts individual students knew letter
names, sounds and formations
Christensen (2005)
Working with adolescents:
Practice handwriting 15 minutes per day.
Sequence:
Letters based on anticlockwise circle (a, d, o, c)
Stroke (l, i, j)
Arch (n, m, n, r, f)
Slanting strokes (v, w)
Clockwise circle (b, p)
Other (s,u, z)
Began with single letters, then two letters, and
words.

Timed mastery tests a key feature.

In summary:
Orthographic-motor integration has a remarkably strong
and enduring relationship with students’ capacity to
produce high quality written text.
This applied to:
young beginning writers
older secondary students
tertiary students and adults
The problem is embedded in issues of cognitive load.
Effective instruction in handwriting can prevent the
development of problems in written language for
young children and remediate them for older students.