Second and fourth graders' copying ability

From graphical to linguistic processing

authored by: Joachim Grabowski, Christian Weinzierl, Markus Schmitt
Abstract: Particularly in primary school, good performance on copy tasks is an important working technique. With respect to writing skills, copying is a very basic process on which more complex writing abilities are based. We studied the copying ability of second and fourth graders across four types of symbols which vary with respect to their semantic and phonological characteristics: arbitrary graphical objects, unpronounceable consonant strings, numerals and meaningful text. Results show, in terms of average copying speed, significant effects of both factors: fourth graders performed generally faster than second graders, and for both class levels, the number of copied characters per time decreased from meaningful text to graphical objects, all pair-wise contrasts between symbol types being statistically significant. Moreover, a significant interaction shows that fourth graders improved more when copying symbols that form pronounceable chunks, namely meaningful text and numerical strings. This indicates an increasing role of phonological (and probably also semantic) processes involved in copying across primary school.
Organisation(s): Institute of Psychology
External Organisation(s): University of Education
Type: Article
Journal: Journal of research in reading
Volume: 33
Pages: 39-53
No. of pages: 15
ISSN: 0141-0423
Publication date: 02.2010
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Education, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Psychology (miscellaneous)
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01431.x (Access: Unknown)

BibTeX

@article{f4823afc7f8c4e4cb779325693696782,
title = "Second and fourth graders' copying ability: From graphical to linguistic processing",
abstract = "Particularly in primary school, good performance on copy tasks is an important working technique. With respect to writing skills, copying is a very basic process on which more complex writing abilities are based. We studied the copying ability of second and fourth graders across four types of symbols which vary with respect to their semantic and phonological characteristics: arbitrary graphical objects, unpronounceable consonant strings, numerals and meaningful text. Results show, in terms of average copying speed, significant effects of both factors: fourth graders performed generally faster than second graders, and for both class levels, the number of copied characters per time decreased from meaningful text to graphical objects, all pair-wise contrasts between symbol types being statistically significant. Moreover, a significant interaction shows that fourth graders improved more when copying symbols that form pronounceable chunks, namely meaningful text and numerical strings. This indicates an increasing role of phonological (and probably also semantic) processes involved in copying across primary school.",
author = "Joachim Grabowski and Christian Weinzierl and Markus Schmitt",
note = "Copyright: Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2010",
month = feb,
doi = "10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01431.x",
language = "English",
volume = "33",
pages = "39--53",
journal = "Journal of research in reading",
issn = "0141-0423",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd",
number = "1",
}