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When writing, a person must have an idea, understand the meaning of symbols used to express the idea, translate the idea to symbols, and have the capability to produce the symbols. Further, the writer needs to comprehend the structure, content, and purpose of the writing process.

The WSDP concentrates on the relations among the development of writing skills and cognitive processes for students from preschool to seventh grade, as well as writing programs to advance skills for children who struggle. We have several overlapping goals:

  • Provide evidence for the efficacy of evidence-based writing interventions,
  • Provide evidence of whether select cognitive abilities mediate the effects of the interventions,
  • Provide accessibility to professional development for teachers to gain access to an effective writing curriculum,
  • Develop an empirical framework for writing to provide a strong foundation for creating age-specific measures and effective tools for monitoring progress.

 

Hand Writing

What is writing?

The term ‘writing’ has many meanings. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to write is “to make significant characters or inscriptions.”

In the field of education, writing includes 3 aspects: handwriting, spelling, and translation. For this project, we will focus on this last aspect: translation.

Translation is organizing unique thoughts into a piece of work. This includes structure (i.e. paragraphs, sentences), content (i.e. the author’s thoughts), and purpose (i.e. the author’s intentions, audience). This aspect of writing is particularly important in the school setting, many work settings, and personal expression……