There is a strong body of research showing associations between handwriting automaticity and children's writing performance. However, less is known about keyboarding automaticity and young students' writing performance. We investigated the relationship between handwriting and keyboarding automaticity and writing performance in both modalities in a…

This study examined the relationship and degree of predictability that the fluency of writing the alphabet from memory and the selection of allographs have on measures of fluency and accuracy of spelling in a free-writing sentence task when keyboarding. The "Test Estandarizado para la Evaluación de la Escritura con Teclado"…

Writing development seems heavily dependent upon the automatization of transcription. This study aimed to further investigate the link between transcription and writing by examining the effects of promoting handwriting and spelling skills on a comprehensive set of writing measures (viz., bursts and pauses, levels of written language, and writing…

Legible written communication is essential for students to share knowledge (Rogers and Case-Smith 2002). If students lack proficiency in written communication, their composition skills will suffer, which can affect their self-esteem and grades. Whether or not this proficiency is in handwriting or keyboarding is a question worthy of discussion. In…

Participants in this study completed an online experiment in which they wrote essays by stylus or keyboard. Three translation measures (length of language burst, length of pauses, and rate of pausing) and four transcription measures (total words, total time, words/minute, and percent spelling errors) for composition were analyzed for two research…

The goal of this study is to model pauses extracted from writing keystroke logs as a way of characterizing the processes students use in essay composition. Low-level timing data were modeled, the interkey interval and its subtype, the intraword duration, thought to reflect processes associated with keyboarding skills and composition fluency.…

When responding to a writing task, writers spend a significant amount of their time not writing. These periods of physical inactivity, or pauses, during writing provide observable and measurable cues as to when, where, and how long writers halt to plan and/or revise their texts. Consequently, examining writers' pausing patterns can provide…

This study examined the composing processes of five postsecondary students who used or were learning to use speech recognition software (SR) for college-level writing. The study analyzed their composing processes through observation, interviews, and analysis of written products over a series of composing sessions. This investigation was prompted…

Many children struggle with writing. Idea generation, planning, organizing ideas, editing, and encoding a final text all have a part in a child's producing a publishable copy. Part of the challenge for these students is how working memory can be overloaded when initially planning and writing at the same time. To address this issue, the author…

The purpose of the report is to explore some of the mechanisms involved in the writing process. In particular, we examine students' process data (keystroke log analysis) to uncover how students approach a knowledge-telling task using 2 different task types. In the first task, students were asked to list as many words as possible related to a…

Background: It is well established that handwriting fluency constrains writing quality by limiting resources for higher order processes such as planning and reviewing. According to the "simple view of writing" then slow keyboarding speed should hinder the quality of keyboarded essay compositions in the same way that slow handwriting…

Composing text is an essential skill for students. Assignments, tests, and emailing are a few examples of the many tasks which require students to generate thoughts and put them into prose. For many students, choosing a topic, creating an outline, generating an initial draft, and making edits to produce a final copy is a fluid process which poses…

Describes the use of "Happy Hands" instructional materials and techniques for grades K-3 develop keyboarding knowledge and skills for computer-assisted instruction. Color coding techniques are explained; the use of dictation is discussed; keyboarding games and software are described; and the development of writing skills through…

The article addresses use of microcomputer-based word processing for students with writing disabilities. The research is briefly reviewed, and four guidelines for choosing word processing software are offered, as are principles for teaching keyboarding. (DB)

Asserts that research into the effects of word processing on student writing is dependent on established writing skills, keyboarding techniques, human intervention, and the established criteria for good writing. Concludes that nonnative writers may benefit in significant ways from the attributes of word processing. (CFR)