A thread on handwriting fluency (automaticity and pace)

With a steadily rising recognition (in the UK, specifally) of how vital reading fluency is in the reading comprehension process, I wonder if handwriting *fluency* could do with some added impetus in schools.

From my experiences (teaching over the last 9 years or so in the UK and in my twittersphere), it is common to for handwriting accuracy/legibility to be taught and monitored at least fairly consistently, but conversations centred around handwriting automaticity/pace are very rare.

Many studies have shown that older children who lack handwriting fluency tend to write at a lower level than peers with better handwriting fluency. A recent study by Limpo et al. (2018) found that 15 x 20mins of intensive, *fast-paced* handwriting intervention sessions lead to...

... significant improvements in handwriting accuracy and fluency, which, in turn, had a significant impact on written composition and self-efficacy.

Why?

1. Slow/Disfluent handwriting makes it difficult for the writer to keep pace with idea formulation in the moment of writing.

2. Until writing is fluent and automatic, it consumes valuable cognitive resources that could have been allocated to the more complex aspects of the writing process.

3. Poor transcriptional skills are more likely to ‘turn children off’ writing (negative self-appraisal of own writing ability) and see it as a strenuous, difficult activity, leading to a perpetually worse attitude towards writing.

What could we be doing differently/more of?

1. Consider *both* handwriting accuracy/legibility and fluency when explicitly teaching handwriting by incorporating some opportunities for children to practice handwriting under timed conditions and some under untimed conditions.

2. Use self-monitoring activities to encourage accurate, fluent handwriting. Children should self-assess their least effective handwriting elements for repeated practice and also identify their handwriting strengths (e.g. circle the best word). Self monitoring...

... of handwriting fluency has also been found to be effective when combined with goal setting so children should have opportunities to record the number of correctly written words/letters written within a set time period and aim to improve on their score in future sessions.

3. Assess and track handwriting fluency periodically by getting children to write/copy the alphabet and/or a sentence containing all letters in the alphabet under timed conditions. Identify children in need of intervention and then plan and monitor progress accordingly.

Specifically*