In early Finnish reading instruction, hyphens are used to denote syllable boundaries. However, this practice slows down reading already during the 1st grade. It has been hypothesized that hyphenation forces readers to rely more on phonology than orthography. Since hyphenation highlights the phonology of the word, it may facilitate reading during…

Syllabification by hyphens (e.g., hy-phen-a-tion) is a standard procedure in early Finnish reading instruction. However, recent findings indicate that hyphenation slows down children's reading already during the first grade (Häikiö, Hyönä, & Bertram, 2015, 2016). In the present study, it was examined whether this slowdown is indicative of…

Research about the development of the graphomotor side of writing is very scarce. The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of what constitutes graphic complexity of written material by determining the impact of graphic characteristics on handwriting production. In this end, the pen stroke of cursive handwriting was precisely…

The enormously complex and sometimes controversial project to unify the traditional literary Braille code used in English-speaking countries with the technical and mathematical codes authorized by the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) and the Braille Authority of the United Kingdom (BAUK) proposes to change English Grade Two Braille on a…