Pallot, E; Sumner, E; (2020) How much does style matter? Investigating legibility and speed of writing in Year 2 children. [Digital scholarly resource]. https://nha-handwriting.org.uk/

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Abstract

Efficient transcription skills underpin the writing process and have been shown to explain variance in both quality and quantity of written composition. Although there is broad consensus that the development of legible handwriting produced at sufficient speed is a priority in the early years of school, there is much debate about how this is best achieved. The present study compared the performance of two groups of Year 2 pupils, with contrasting instructional regimes and experience, across a range of tasks assessing writing speed and legibility, and spelling. Participants from School M (n=74) had initially been taught to form individual (manuscript) letters and had only been introduced to joining at the end of Year 1; while participants from School CC (n=39) had been taught to form letters with entry strokes from the baseline since school-entry and a continuous cursive style had been promoted throughout. Results showed that participants from School CC were more productive than those from School M; however, participants at School M produced text that was more legible. The evidence regarding the merits of particular regimes and styles is not conclusive, nor is a secure relationship between handwriting style and spelling established. However, for both settings, findings provide useful implications for practice.

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