While handwriting has been linked to successful writing composition, emerging evidence supports handwriting’s role in reading development as well. Handwriting fluency is the ability to write recognizable letters and words from memory and it impacts many classroom tasks. Findings show that handwriting can improve things like recognizing letters and sorting them into groups. However less is known about how to help beginning writers improve their handwriting skills and how these skills affect early readers' ability to read.
In this study, researchers at La Trobe University and University of Newcastle explored how handwriting fluency in Kindergarten students related to their early reading and writing skills. They began by conducting a pilot study to test an adaptation of a writing program for young learners featuring a collaborative, whole-class handwriting intervention designed for Kindergarteners. The study included 81 Kindergarten students from an independent regional school in Australia. Participants who received the modified intervention showed notable improvements in their handwriting fluency.
A Cohesive Model
Drawing from both existing literature and findings from their pilot study, the researchers then created a theoretical model to understand how beginner writers acquire handwriting fluency through four main processes: Recall, Retrieve, Reproduce, and Repeat (4Rs). These processes rely on cognitive and perceptual motor skills that are crucial to handwriting fluency and are seen as a cohesive system required for effective fluency acquisition. Then they carried out a comparative study to assess the impact of their 4Rs program on the handwriting fluency and early literacy skills of Kindergarten students. The program was tested in two Kindergarten classes at the intervention school, and the outcomes were measured against those of Kindergarteners in a control school where standard handwriting instruction was provided.
Foundational Learning
The researchers evaluated handwriting, early reading abilities and writing composition before the intervention began, immediately after it ended, and again 12 weeks later. When compared with standard teaching, participants in the 4Rs handwriting fluency program made greater gains in handwriting fluency, letter sound correspondence, word reading fluency and letter name knowledge. The researchers conclude that focusing on handwriting fluency can impact foundational reading skills such as letter identification, adding to the emerging evidence on the impact of handwriting fluency on literacy in Kindergarten.
StepUp Note
StepUp to Learn is designed to teach handwriting fluency, not just handwriting skills. Fluency affects learning. Fluent skills become tools for new learning. Disfluent skills are a distraction from learning. This research shows how fluent handwriting skills become useful tools for alphabet knowledge and reading decoding, for these kindergarten students.
Note by Nancy W. Rowe, MS, CCC/A