The Role of Text Production Skills in Writing Development: A Special Issue - I

Abstract

One way to gain an understanding of how difficulties with text production skills, such as handwriting and spelling, can interfere with the process of composing, is to imagine that you were just asked to write something using a Chinese typewriter. This is the most difficult typewriter in the world to use, as it has 5,850 characters (Hendrickson, 1994). As you diligently search for the characters needed to produce the next word in your masterpiece, some of the ideas and plans you just generated may be forgotten, as the attentional requirements for turning words into print are likely to tax the capacity of your working memory. Allocating attention to planning the next unit of text or sharpening your conceptualization of the current segment of text while simultaneously translating words into print is also likely to be difficult, as the search for the correct characters will undoubtebly consume most of your attentional resources. Even if you were an expert with a Chinese typewriter, cruising along at the dizzying speed of 11 words a minute, you will probably find that this is not fast enough to keep up with your thoughts, causing you to forget ideas, as they slip from working memory. Fortunately, most of us will never experience the travails of a Chinese typewriter. We have, however, at one time or another, experienced frustration from our own limitations in turning words into print. Most likely, this involved the irrevocable loss of some part of an idea as we were unable to write all of our thoughts down fast enough. Nevertheless, most of us have reached a point where our spelling is good enough and our handwriting fast enough so that interference from text production skills is minimal. For many children with learning disabilities (LD) this is not the case, as their handwriting is slow and uneven and they make an inordinate number of spelling miscues when writing (Fulk & Stormont-Spurgin, 1995; Graham & Weintraub, 1996). Eliminating these mechanical difficulties through the use of dictation, however, can improve the writing of students with LD, resulting in text that is longer (MacArthur & Graham, 1987) and qualitatively better (Graham, 1990; MacArthur & Graham, 1987). The difficulties with text production skills that many children with LD experience may affect not only how they write (as the example with the Chinese typewriter illustrates), but the pace and course of their writing development as well. According to McCutchen (1996), the physical act of transcribing text is so demanding for you g writers that they develop an approach to writing (the knowledge telling approach) that minimizes the use of other writing processes, such as planning, because they also exert considerable processing demands. Berninger, Mizokawa, and Bragg (1991) furth r indicate that difficulties acquiring text production skills may lead children to avoid writing and develop a mind set that they cannot write, resulting in arrested writing development. Although additional research is needed to validate mor fully the claims noted above, the outcomes from several recent investigations provide strong support for the critical role of text production skills in writing development. For example, Graham, Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, and Whitaker (1997) found that individual differences in handwriting and spelling accounted for a considerable proportion of the variance in children's wr ting. These two mechanical skills accounted for 66% and 41% of the variance in compositional fluency at the primary and intermediate grades, and 25% and 42% of the variance in compositional quality at these same grade levels, respectively. Even more importantly, explicitly teaching handwriting or spelling to children who have difficulty acquiring these skills resulted in improved writing performance (Berninger, Vaughn, Abbott, Abbott, Brooks, Reed, & Graham, 1998; Berninger, Vaughn, Abbott, Brooks, Abbott, Rogan, Reed, & Graham, 1997). Unfortunately, the effects of text production difficulties extend beyond the act of writing to include perceptions of competence. Probably no one knows this