Cross-sectional examination of the proficiency of year 1 and year 2 children’s alphabet-letter-writing skills

Abstract The objective for beginning writers is to learn how to generate alphabet-letters which are recognisable and easy to read. This study investigated the accuracy of Year 1 and 2 children’s alphabet-letter-writing by evaluating their alphabet and orthographic knowledge, following evidence which identifies these skills as important for correctly representing the Latin alphabet-letters in written form. 408 typical children from the first two years of formal schooling were recruited from eight Western Australian schools and asked to write the twenty-six-lowercase alphabet-letters under three different writing conditions: from memory; the initial sounds of words; and copying. Performance was measured using the Perceive, Recall, Plan and Perform (PRPP) System of Task Analysis (Stage One). Analyses revealed the mean average number of the 26- lowercase alphabet-letters correctly written from memory was 8.17 (Year 1) and 12.76 (Year 2). Mean averages were similar across the three writing conditions. Comparative analysis showed children in Year 2 were significantly better than Year 1 children at recalling the alphabet-sequence, sound-letter-translation, and retrieving the letter-shape, letter-case, and letter-orientation. No significant difference was found in name-to-letter translation, letter-formation, or letter-placement skills. The results highlighted that many typical Year 1 and 2 children have difficulty accurately generating all 26- lowercase alphabet-letters. The findings suggested that the way early writers learn to form and place an alphabet-letter, whether it is accurate or not, is how they continue to write the alphabet-letter through their early school journey. Considerations for evaluation and instruction of alphabet-letter-writing are discussed.