Key Highlights
- There are extensive studies on the Science of Reading™ and the essential skills children need to develop it, including fluency, comprehension, phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary.
- Only recently has the Science of Handwriting™ been studied in conjunction with developing reading skills, showcasing how writing instruction may be critical to enhancing overall literacy.
- Researchers have concluded that reading and writing are deeply intertwined, as they require many of the same skills, including the development of visual-motor neural pathways and awareness of sound-symbol relationships.
The Connection Between Reading & Writing
Teachers and educators know that learning how to write is about so much more than simply putting a pencil on the paper and waiting for letters to magically form. Writing depends heavily on fine motor skills and the visual-motor development of neural pathways. Letter recognition, sound-symbol relationships, and directionality all matter for handwriting practice. And unsurprisingly, these skills are also essential for reading.
If you’re interested in the study of reading, writing, and how they relate, take a look at this overview as Real OT Solutions® explores how the Science of Handwriting™ impacts the Science of Reading™. Here, you’ll find the scientific reason why reading, handwriting, and fine motor skills are related, as well as teaching guidance to support your lesson plans. Keep reading for all the details.
What Is the Science of Reading™
The Science of Reading™, also known as SoR, is a collection of scientific research that explores how people learn to read and write. It reviews the most effective strategies for learning these skills and emphasizes the need for research-backed practices in any instructional approach. SoR has identified five pillars that constitute the ideal framework for teaching students how to read, including:
- Phonics: Also known as the alphabetic code, phonics teaches the relationship between single letters or groupings of letters and their corresponding sounds.
- Phonemic Awareness: This is the ability that students have to distinguish, identify, and utilize the shortest units of sound that make up individual words.
- Fluency: Defined by the smoothness, continuity, rate, and effort it takes to produce speech, fluency is clearly measurable in speech-language pathology.
- Comprehension: How much does a student understand of what they’re reading? Comprehension measures the ability to interpret information from reading.
- Vocabulary: The number of words students know dictates their reading proficiency. Can a student read an entire sentence, paragraph, or chapter without having to look up words?
So, is there any crossover between the five pillars of reading and the skills you need to learn writing?
Crossover Into Writing Skills
Here is how learning to write plays a role in each of the five pillars we’ve just discussed:
- Phonics: Writing out letters and words while saying them reinforces the relationship between letter patterns and sounds.
- Phonemic Awareness: Writing ensures students practice letter-sound connections and directionality, fostering letter recognition and orthographic memory.
- Fluency: Effort plays a significant role in fluency. With handwriting practice, letter and word recognition become much easier.
- Comprehension: Reinforcing letter recognition through writing helps to free cognitive resources to focus on deciphering the meaning of words and sentences.
- Vocabulary: fMRI research shows that writing activates additional regions of the brain and encourages more neural pathway development than reading, helping with word retention.
Has There Been a Science of Handwriting™ Decline?
The Science of Handwriting™ saw its first decline in the 1950s when systemic phonics learning was replaced by whole language learning. Instead of focusing on pencil grip, letter formation, and directionality, students were encouraged to express ideas through open-ended writing activities with less structure.
Later, advancing technology rendered handwriting nearly extinct, as keyboards and typing took center stage as our primary means of communication. The final blow came with the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced students to rely more heavily on digital communication through online learning. Many teachers also admitted that they weren’t sure how to teach kids' handwriting over video calls, as it was more difficult to monitor students digitally.
How to Use Reading & Writing Instruction Together
At Real OT Solutions®, we’ve done a ton of research into how reading and writing instruction can support one another. By blending SoR and Size Matters® strategies, students can learn even faster!
Typically, we recommend that teachers focus on a specific letter and engage students in activities across reading, writing, and motor skill development. For example, with the letter “W”, you can ask Science of Reading™ questions that encourage students to find all the images in the cartoon on the corresponding letter page in the Student Workbook that begin with that letter. Then, continue building robust vocabulary by telling stories about the cartoon. Note that the story begins on an uppercase page and ends on its lowercase page. Next, move on to Size Matters® questions and activities, including a discussion of the size of the letter and finding the letter on the Alphatrangle® handwriting resource. You can also incorporate motor skill development activities, like tracing the letter on a piece of paper with your finger or cutting the letter out of scissor practice sheets.
With all of these overlapping activities, teachers can reinforce multiple skill sets that all improve fluency and comprehension in both reading and writing.
Teaching Essentials
If you’re a teacher, therapist, parent, or educator looking for additional guidance for adding writing to your lesson plans, Real OT Solutions® can provide some standards you can use to achieve success with your students, including:
- Start as early as possible. Kindergarten is a great time to introduce writing to your students with a step-by-step approach that focuses on letter size and formation.
- Letter size and formation are key. Emphasize correct letter formation to ensure healthy habits that encourage writing fluency.
- Encourage students to practice writing with adaptive paper at the appropriate skill level. The physical act of writing will develop additional neural pathways.
- Blend motor skill activities with writing instruction to help students commit letter formation and sounds to memory.
- Set aside time every day to practice in kindergarten handwriting workbooks, as regular practice enables students to start writing more easily and unconsciously.
Teachers can improve their classroom instruction while earning continuing education credits by attending teacher professional development workshops that focus on how to teach handwriting to students of every age and skill level.
Real OT Solutions® Can Help
Real OT Solutions® has utilized studies that focus on the Science of Reading™ and Science of Handwriting™ when creating our own handwriting program for educators, occupational therapists, and parents. Whether you’re teaching a single child in a home environment or you’re trying to standardize handwriting curricula across an entire school district, Size Matters® could be the best choice for you.
Our team is here to answer questions and help you with the implementation process. Contact the Real OT Solutions® team for our homeschool handwriting curriculum or to sign your teachers up for one of our OT CEU courses. We’re here to help however we can to promote handwriting excellence in your teaching environment.
