Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 4.0

Developing Interactions between Language and Motor Skills in the First Three Years of Formal Handwriting Education

Ida M. Bosga-Stork, Jurjen Bosga, Jules L. Ellis, Ruud G. J. Meulenbroek

Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science · pp. 1–13 · Published 24 Sep 2015

10.9734/BJESBS/2016/20703

Abstract

Aims: The present study was designed to provide a basis for teachers and therapists to better understand primary school children’s handwriting problems in the face of the complex relationships that exist between literacy skills with the goal to contribute to treatment choices. Study Design: A longitudinal, experimental study of handwriting-, literacy- and motor skill development of primary school children. Place and Duration of Study: Two parallel classrooms of a mainstream medium-sized primary school in the Netherlands participated, covering the first three years of handwriting education. Methodology: General performances and intercorrelations between developing spelling, reading and handwriting skills were assessed for 32 children (15 girls and 17 boys). A standardized handwriting assessment scale was used to measure handwriting speed performance, a non-linguistic loop-writing task, using an electronic inking pen and a digitizer evaluated motor performance. Reading- and spelling performance was extracted from a national, school-based follow-up system, used by teachers. Results: At group level the results showed an increase in performance for all measures, the performance of the children showed considerable variation. Spelling and reading were positively related within all grades (P= .004; .000 and .005 respectively). Handwriting and reading were positively related within Grade 1 only (P = .003), handwriting and spelling were positively related in Grades 1 and 2 (P = .004 and .001 respectively). The amplitude errors in loop-writing were negatively related to both language measures in Grade 1 (for reading P =. 007, for spelling P = .004) Conclusion: To broaden the view on developing handwriting problems in individual primary school children, it is advised to assess spelling and reading skills as well as motor skills, especially in the second and third grade.

Handwriting development handwriting education language development motor performance primary school children

References (38)

  1. 1 Chapter 12: What does the Anthropocene hold for citizenship? [DOI]
  2. 2 A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing [DOI]
  3. 3 Acquisition of literacy: A longitudinal study of children in first and second grade. [DOI]
  4. 4 Handwriting: Issues for a psychomotor theory [DOI]
  5. 5 Longitudinal relationships of levels of language in writing and between writing and reading in grades 1 to 7. [DOI]
  6. 6 Lower-level developmental skills in beginning writing [DOI]
  7. 7 Writing and Reading [DOI]
  8. 8 Relationship between automaticity in handwriting and students' ability to generate written text. [DOI]
  9. 9 Fine motor deficiencies in children diagnosed as DCD based on poor grapho-motor ability [DOI]
  10. 10 Development of Handwriting Speed and Legibility in Grades 1–9 [DOI]
  11. 11 Early Development of Language by Hand: Composing, Reading, Listening, and Speaking Connections; Three Letter-Writing Modes; and Fast Mapping in Spelling [DOI]
  12. 12 Development of Language by Hand and Its Connections with Language by Ear, Mouth, and Eye [DOI]
  13. 13 Handwriting development in grade 2 and grade 3 primary school children with normal, at risk, or dysgraphic characteristics [DOI]
  14. 14 Letter processing automatically recruits a sensory–motor brain network [DOI]
  15. 15 A process model of writing development across the life span [DOI]
  16. 16 Gender differences in orthographic, verbal, and compositional fluency: Implications for assessing writing disabilities in primary grade children [DOI]
  17. 17 Dimensions of Good and Poor Handwriting Legibility in First and Second Graders: Motor Programs, Visual–Spatial Arrangement, and Letter Formation Parameter Setting [DOI]
  18. 18 How does the interaction between spelling and motor processes build up during writing acquisition? [DOI]
  19. 19 Changes in kinetics and kinematics of handwriting during a prolonged writing task in children with and without dysgraphia [DOI]
  20. 20 Handwriting – A Forgotten Language Skill? [DOI]
  21. 21 Influence of handwriting skills during spelling in primary and lower secondary grades [DOI]
  22. 22 Writing process theory: A functional dynamic approach
  23. 23 Why spelling is more difficult than reading. [DOI]
  24. 24 DEVELOPMENT OF HANDWRITING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY [DOI]
  25. 25 Writing speed and legibility of 7–14‐year‐old school students using modern cursive script [DOI]
  26. 26 Is graphic activity cognitively costly? A developmental approach [DOI]
  27. 27 SOS: A Screening Instrument to Identify Children with Handwriting Impairments [DOI]
  28. 28 Extraction of dynamic features from hand drawn data for the identification of children with handwriting difficulty [DOI]
  29. 29 Handwriting movement analyses comparing first and second graders with normal or dysgraphic characteristics [DOI]
  30. 30 Phonological effects in handwriting production: Evidence from the implicit priming paradigm. [DOI]
  31. 31 Handwriting Performance on the ETCH-M of Students in a Grade One Regular Education Program [DOI]
  32. 32 Explaining age and sex differences in children's handwriting: A neurobiological approach [DOI]
  33. 33 On inference for Kendall's τ within a longitudinal data setting [DOI]
  34. 34 The stability of pen–joint and interjoint coordination in loop writing [DOI]
  35. 35 A device for quantitative kinematic analysis of children’s handwriting movements [DOI]
  36. 36 Understanding writing problems in young children: contributions of cognitive skills to the development of written expression [DOI]
  37. 37 Het fonologisch coherentiemodel voor lezen en spellen
  38. 38 The first known larva of the Australian tribe Mystropomini (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Paussinae) [DOI]

Cited by 45

Lexical-semantic abilities in children with developmental dysgraphia

Slađana Ćalasan, Mile Vuković, Radomir Arsić · Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta u Pristini · 2021

Influence of musical background on children’s handwriting: Effects of melody and rhythm

Margaux Lê, Marianne Jover, Aline Frey · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · 2025

Showing 18 of 45 known citations — external sources report more than can currently be individually listed.

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

98

Page views

0

PDF downloads

22

Outbound clicks

45

Citations

Views over time

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.