Research Reveals Key Role of Keyboarding in Children’s Writing

In Australia, the importance of early keyboarding skills for children’s writing development is increasingly recognized. Despite this, student writing performance is showing stagnation or even decline, not only in Australia but globally as well.

Research plays a crucial role in unraveling the complexities of writing development in children. Understanding the factors influencing students’ computer-based writing skills, such as literacy proficiency, attitudes, and gender, is essential. Early literacy skills are closely linked to later performance, emphasizing the need for a thorough investigation into these factors, particularly in early primary education.

The Writing for All research initiative, initiated in 2015, delves into the myriad factors affecting writing acquisition and development in primary education. A study conducted as part of this initiative involved 544 Year 2 students from Western Australia, assessing various literacy skills, keyboarding automaticity, and computer-based text production and quality. Additionally, students’ attitudes towards writing and teachers’ classroom practices were examined.

The study revealed the significance of keyboarding automaticity in predicting students’ computer-based text production and quality. Developing rapid and accurate typing skills is crucial in freeing up cognitive resources for higher-order writing processes. Surprisingly, female students outperformed male students in both the length and quality of computer-based texts, as well as reading comprehension tasks.

The findings underscore the need for classroom environments that support students in composing high-quality computer-based texts. Explicit instruction in keyboarding, combined with meaningful writing tasks, is vital to foster keyboarding automaticity and engage students in complex text composition. Addressing potential gender gaps in writing performance requires tailored keyboarding instruction in the early years of schooling.

Further research is needed to understand current writing instruction practices in Australian classrooms, particularly concerning keyboarding. By disentangling the complexities of writing instruction across paper and digital platforms, educators can better support the development of proficient writers in the digital age.

Dr. Anabela Malpique, a senior lecturer at Edith Cowan University, focuses on literacy development and leads the Writing for All initiative. Dr. Deborah Pino-Pasternak, an Associate Professor at the University of Canberra, explores self-regulatory skills in young children within home and school environments. Together, they investigate how cognitive skills and instructional environments impact early writing development.

The Writing for All project, in collaboration with Professor Susan Ledger from the University of Newcastle, is funded by The Ian Potter Foundation. Their research aims to enhance understanding of handwriting and keyboarding skills development in early childhood through adolescence.