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

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.