Writing and Reading for All

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Writing and Reading for All

We are a team of national and international researchers aiming to investigate the diverse factors that shape writing and reading development in primary education. We are particularly interested in learning more about how children’s transcription skills (e.g., handwriting, typing and spelling), reading abilities, executive functioning skills, and motivation for writing impact the development of effective writing. Since writing development is shaped by the context and the community in which it takes place, we are also interested in understanding how schools and families can foster the development of children’s writing skills and motivation for writing.

Teaching Writing for All in Primary Education

The main objective of this project was to provide critical information on writing instruction in Australian primary schools.

Handwriting and keyboarding skills in the Early Years

This project investigates Year 2 students’ abilities, attitudes, and self-efficacy to write paper-based and keyboard-based texts and teaching practices promoting effective writing development, including practices for teaching handwriting and keyboarding skills.

Write at the start, all kids need to keyboard

In Australia, children are expected to develop computer-based writing skills as soon as they start schooling yet the writing performance of students is plateauing or even declining. Across the globe, results from national standardised tests show a large percentage of students writing at or below basic proficiency. That includes Australia.

Most students’ writing skills on the decline, but spelling improving

The writing skills of Australia’s school students have declined over 7 years, with spelling the only metric to buck the trend, new research from the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has found.

In these pandemic school days handwriting still matters!

During the last 1000 years handwriting has been the prevalent mode of writing. In today’s increasingly digital world, writing is changing as fast as we exchange emails, texts and tweets.

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Publications

Malpique, A. A., Pino-Pasternak, D., & Valcan, D. (2017). Handwriting automaticity and writing instruction in Australian kindergarten: An exploratory study. Reading and Writing, 30, 1789–1812. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-017-9753-1
Malpique, A., Pino-Pasternak, D., & Roberto, M. S. (2020). Writing and reading performance in Year 1 Australian classrooms: Associations with handwriting automaticity and writing instruction. Reading and Writing, 33, 783–805. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-019-09994-z
Merga, M., Roni. M., S., & Malpique, A. (2020). Do secondary English teachers have adequate time and resourcing to meet the needs of struggling literacy learners?. English in Education, 1-17. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/04250494.2020.1838897
Valcan, D., Davis, H., Pino-Pasternak, D., & Malpique, A. (2020). Executive functioning as a predictor of children’s mathematics, reading and writing. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 70, 101196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2020.101196

Our Team

Contact us

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School of Education

Writing and Reading for All

Teaching Writing for All in Primary Education

Handwriting and keyboarding skills in the Early Years

News

Write at the start, all kids need to keyboard

Most students’ writing skills on the decline, but spelling improving

In these pandemic school days handwriting still matters!

Publications

Our Team

Contact us

Contacting ECU

Supplemental

Contacting ECU

Supplemental

Help us improve our content

School of Education

Related Contents

Writing and Reading for All

Teaching Writing for All in Primary Education

Handwriting and keyboarding skills in the Early Years

News

Write at the start, all kids need to keyboard

Most students’ writing skills on the decline, but spelling improving

In these pandemic school days handwriting still matters!

Publications

Our Team

Contact us

Contacting ECU

Supplemental

Contacting ECU

Supplemental

Help us improve our content