Learning handwriting: factors affecting pen-movement fluency in beginning writers

Fitjar, CL, Rønneberg, V, Nottbusch, G and Torrance, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5305-4315, 2021. Learning handwriting: factors affecting pen-movement fluency in beginning writers. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 663829. ISSN 1664-1078

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Abstract

Skilled handwriting of single letters is associated not only with a neat final product but also with fluent pen-movement, characterized by a smooth pen-tip velocity profile. Our study explored fluency when writing single letters in children who were just beginning to learn to handwrite, and the extent to which this was predicted by the children’s pen-control ability and by their letter knowledge. 176 Norwegian children formed letters by copying and from dictation (i.e., in response to hearing letter sounds). Performance on these tasks was assessed in terms of the counts of velocity inversions as the children produced sub-letter features that would be produced by competent handwriters as a single, smooth (ballistic) action. We found that there was considerable variation in these measures across writers, even when producing well-formed letters. Children also copied unfamiliar symbols, completed various pen-control tasks (drawing lines, circles, garlands, and figure eights), and tasks that assessed knowledge of letter sounds and shapes. After controlling for pen-control ability, pen-movement fluency was affected by letter knowledge (specifically children’s performance on a task that required selecting graphemes on the basis of their sound). This was the case when children retrieved letter forms from dictated letter sounds, but also when directly copying letters and, unexpectedly, when copying unfamiliar symbols. These findings suggest that familiarity with a letter affects movement fluency during letter production but may also point towards a more general ability to process new letter-like symbols in children with good letter knowledge.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Frontiers in Psychology
Creators:	Fitjar, C.L., Rønneberg, V., Nottbusch, G. and Torrance, M.
Publisher:	Frontiers Media SA
Date:	20 May 2021
Volume:	12
ISSN:	1664-1078
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.663829 DOI 1440463 Other
Rights:	© 2021 Fitjar, Rønneberg, Nottbusch and Torrance. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	29 Sep 2021 13:04
Last Modified:	29 Sep 2021 13:04
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/44289

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