Abstract
Spelling and handwriting are related skills which are critical for writing but are typically assessed separately. Doing so makes it more difficult to understand their respective development. We describe the creation and evaluation of a tool for their concurrent assessment: the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT). We examined whether (a) sentence spelling and handwriting legibility could be reliable and valid, independent measures of English spelling and handwriting legibility and (b) whether spelling and handwriting legibility can be measured concurrently. A total of 1461 primary-aged children (Mage = 9.14 years-old, SD = 12.80) completed the SaHLT and background tests. The SaHLT was a sensitive, reliable, and valid measure of spelling and handwriting. Multi-group factor analyses revealed the test to be a robust concurrent measure. The SaHLT offers a cost and time saving method of measuring two key skills of writing. This is important for assessments in practice and for furthering our understanding of the relationship between spelling and handwriting.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the children, parents, and schools who took part in the projects which led to this publication. We also wish to thank Caspar Wynne, for his assistance with developing and scoring using this measure.
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Much of this work was funded by the Waterloo Foundation (Grant Number: 1939–3205) and we thank them for their support of this work.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by CD and MC. The first draft of the manuscript was written by CD and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Downing, C., Caravolas, M. Evaluating the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT): a tool for the concurrent assessment of spelling and handwriting. Read Writ 37, 147–172 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10402-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10402-2