Ensure fluent handwriting before expecting executive resources to support higher-level composition¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Because handwriting fluency mediated EF effects on all narrative outcomes, the authors emphasize that "fluent handwriting skills are essential for writing development, as non-automatized transcription skills are cognitively demanding and may constrain the use of EF". Instruction should build transcription automaticity so EF resources can serve text generation.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Handwriting instruction achieving fluency/automaticity

Constraints¶

• Typing advantage may hold only for fluent typists; typing automaticity matters similarly

Target Learners¶

• elementary school children learning to write

Target Learning Goals¶

• narrative writing fluency, text length, complexity, and content

Claims¶

• In a cross-sectional path model of fourth graders, handwriting fluency statistically mediated the relation between inhibition/updating and all narrative outcomes (text length, syntactic complexity, story content) [+W]
• Executive functions do not directly predict syntactic complexity or story content once transcription and language skills are controlled [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Cursive Handwriting Activities

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Drijbooms, E., Groen, M. A., & Verhoeven, L. (2015). The contribution of executive functions to narrative writing in fourth grade children. Reading and Writing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9558-z