Research School Network: Why transcription matters? What do we do for pupils who find handwriting difficult?

Sarah Stock, Director of Newcastle Research School, shares how we can support pupils to develop their transcription skills. 

Why transcription matters?

Transcription refers to the physical skills involved in writing and the skill of spelling words correctly. As highlighted in the EEF’s Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 Guidance Report, pupils without sufficiently strong transcription skills will struggle with writing.

West Walker Primary School is a one-form entry school serving the Walker community and has over 80% of pupils who are eligible for free school meals. In a year 1 class, Praise had orally shared his words and phrases to describe the character ​‘Beegu’ but quickly became frustrated when he could not remember how to write a capital B.

As we have seen with Praise, for some pupils their working memory can become overloaded and they struggle to write down their ideas. The writing process then becomes more challenging for pupils as they have to stop to check how to spell a word or remember how to form letters for the word they need to spell. For many pupils this can become frustrating.

Handwriting – practice makes permanent

Accurate letter formation is an essential early skill that forms the basis of a fluent handwriting style. However, it is also important to focus on the speed of pupils’ writing as well as the accuracy to develop automaticity. Slow or effortful transcription hinders writing composition as pupils have to concentrate on their handwriting and spelling and are less able to think about the content of their writing. 

As teachers we can support pupils through:

Purposeful practice – a large amount of regular practice is required for pupils to achieve fluency in these skills. This practice should ensure that the letter formation is explicitly taught to pupils. Achieving the necessary quantity of practice requires pupils to be motivated and fully engaged in improving their writing.

At West Walker Primary School, Aidan Lewis, a Year 1 teacher carried out a diagnostic handwriting screen on all his Year 1 pupils at the start of the year to see which letters pupils could form correctly. The data from the diagnostic tool highlighted which letters he would more frequently revisit and explicitly model within discreet handwriting lessons. Within English lessons these key letters were also used when modelling how to edit work correctly.

Research evidence highlights 10 common letters which seem more susceptible to formation errors and may require additional attention: i, j, a, d, g, r, n, m, h, and z.

Effective Feedback – across the autumn term he would then regularly update the handwriting diagnostic to identify which pupils needed more support and feedback during handwriting sessions. The feedback given was specific guidance on how to improve focusing on the process of forming the letter including starting and ending points.

Across the term he ensured practice was purposeful by targeting letters which were frequently formed inaccurately. Over the term successes were seen by pupils forming the identified tricky letters correctly.

Spelling– do we teach it or just test it

Accurate spelling is also a key component of writing fluently and should be explicitly taught rather than simply tested. Research evidence so far suggests a range of approaches are effective for teaching spelling, however, this is an area in need of more research evidence.

To support effective teaching of spelling we can reflect upon what good spellers do:

- a phonic approach—sounding out the word, and spelling it the way it sounds e.g. check would be ch-e-ck

- analogy—spelling it like other known words e.g. if we know how to spell would we can use that to help us spell should, could.

- know the ​‘tricky’ parts of words so that these can be learned– in our English curriculum many of these tricky words are also common exception words. Sometimes we can also use a mnemonic which could help e.g. in separate there is a rat in separate. Or identifying syllables and prefixes in words be-cause, happy unhappy

- a visual approach – this can support through showing 3 ways to spell words and deciding which looks right (such as switching between graphemes to compare for best fit: e.g. play, plai, pleigh

Supporting pupils to develop fluent transcription allows them to transfer their thoughts and ideas into words effectively, rather than being bogged down by the mechanics of writing. By focusing on the transcription skills and understanding how automaticity can free up working memory we can support pupils in improving their writing. 

Reflection points:

Who are the pupils in your class who struggle with writing?

How do you plan for purposeful handwriting practice?

Which approaches might help the children you teach with their spelling?

Further Reading

Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1

Blog 1 – Executive function (Stella Jones Town End Research School)
Blog 3 – Text Generation (Alicia McKenna Shotton Hall Research School)