TREATMENT OF HANDWRITING PROBLEMS IN BEGINNING WRITERS - TRANSFER FROM HANDWRITING TO COMPOSITION

Almost 700 children were screened to identify 144 Ist graders at risk for handwriting problems who were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 treatmen t conditions. Treatment was delivered to groups of 3 that mel twice a week in 20-min sessions until they completed 24 lessons. Five groups r eceived 10 min of different kinds of handwriting instruction. The cont act control group received 10 min of phonological awareness training. All 6 groups composed and shared their writing for 10 min. Converging evidence across multiple measures showed that combining numbered arrow s and memory retrieval was the most effective treatment for improving both handwriting and compositional fluency (composing with time limits ). Thus instruction aimed at improving transcription transfers to impr oved text generation in beginning writers.