SELF-REGULATION MODERATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINE MOTOR 

SKILLS AND WRITING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD 

 
By 
 

Madison C. Chandler 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to 

Michigan State University 

in partial fulfillment of the requirements 

for the degree of 

Kinesiology—Doctor of Philosophy 

2021 

 

PUBLIC ABSTRACT 

SELF-REGULATION MODERATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINE MOTOR 

SKILLS AND WRITING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD 

 

 

 
By 
 

Madison C. Chandler 

For young children, learning to write is a challenging and complex process. Not only 

must they have an understanding of written language (i.e., be able to identify letters and their 

corresponding sounds), but they must also learn how to produce a specific mark for each letter. 

Writing tasks span a range of difficulty, from producing single letters to combining letters into 

words, and eventually combining these words into meaningful sentences. Two factors that 

contribute to children’s writing development are fine motor skills and self-regulation. However, 

many questions still remain about the exact nature of these relationships – especially because 

fine motor skills and self-regulation are also related to each other. The purpose of this 

dissertation was to clarify the ways in which fine motor skills and self-regulation – and the 

interaction between the two – relate to writing tasks across a range of difficulty levels. Two large 

samples of preschool children from Head Start programs were assessed on fine motor skill level, 

self-regulation, and a variety of writing tasks at both the beginning (N = 333 children) and end (N 

= 405 children) of the school year. Results indicated that both self-regulation and fine motor 

skills were important predictors of writing performance at both the beginning and end of the 

school year – and that the two interacted with each other in a few key ways. On the more-

challenging tasks, high self-regulatory skills appeared to bolster the performance of children who 

were higher in fine motor skills (and thus, more skilled at writing). On the less-challenging tasks, 

self-regulation bolstered the performance of children who were lower in fine motor skills. These 

findings suggest that the relation between self-regulation and motor skills may compensate for 

 

deficits in one or the other skill. Such findings have considerable implications for practice, 

including in the design and implementation of future interventions designed to improve 

children’s fine motor skills and/or self-regulatory abilities – which may, in turn, be associated 

with improvements in classroom performance.  

 

 

ABSTRACT 

 

 

 
By 
 

Madison C. Chandler 

SELF-REGULATION MODERATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINE MOTOR 

SKILLS AND WRITING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD 

 

Learning to write is challenging for young children, as they must integrate their still-

developing fine motor skills with an understanding of written language to produce a mark that 

has meaning. Complicating things more is the fact that children are often asked to produce a 

variety of written products with varying task demands (e.g., writing single letters vs. combining 

these letters to form entire words or sentences). Although theoretical models of writing highlight 

the importance of both self-regulation and fine motor skills for writing, our current 

understanding of how these two constructs interact to support writing remains incomplete. Thus, 

this dissertation examined the extent to which self-regulation moderates the relation between fine 

motor skills and early writing development – and whether this relation differs by writing task 

difficulty. To address this, two diverse cross-sectional samples of 3-5-year-old children from 

Head Start programs were assessed on motor skills, self-regulation, and a variety of writing tasks 

at the beginning (N = 333) and end (N = 405) of the preschool year. Hierarchical regression 

analyses were conducted to examine the potential moderating association between fine motor 

skill and self-regulation on early writing skills, with separate models fit for each writing task. 

After controlling for demographic factors, results indicated that self-regulation was important at 

the beginning of the year for children with higher levels of motor skills when completing a 

challenging writing task. Self-regulation was also important at the end of the school year for both 

1) children with lower motor skills, but only for the simpler writing tasks, and 2) for children 

with higher motor skills on the more-challenging writing tasks. Findings suggest that the relation 

 

between self-regulation and writing is dependent upon task difficulty, and that self-regulation 

and motor skills may compensate for deficits in one or the other skill when children perform 

writing tasks. 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Copyright by 
MADISON C. CHANDLER 
2021

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

 

 

Completion of this dissertation – and this PhD – would not have been possible without 

the guidance, support, and encouragement of many people. 

 

To my advisor, Dr. Matt Pontifex: Thank you for your thoughtful & patient mentorship 

and for believing in me every step of the way. I am a better scholar because of you. I hope to 

provide the same strength of support to my own students in the future, and I look forward to a 

lifetime of collaboration. Thanks also to Katie, Emerson, and Ava Pontifex for making me feel 

like a part of the family from the very beginning. 

 

To my committee members – Dr. David Ferguson, Dr. Janet Hauck, and Dr. Hope Gerde: 

Each of you has contributed to my development in a unique and powerful way. Your perspective, 

insight, and encouragement have meant the world to me, and I know that I will continue to draw 

upon the lessons you have taught me as I progress in my own research career. 

 

To the members of the Health Behaviors & Cognition Laboratory, past and present – Dr. 

Drew Parks, Dr. Katy Gwizdala, Dr. Amanda McGowan, Oksana Ellison, Lauren Bullard, and 

each of our undergraduate research assistants: Being a part of this team has been a privilege, and 

I am so thankful that we had the chance to work together. 

 

To the members of the Early Language & Literacy Investigations Laboratory – I have 

learned so much from our work together, and I will be forever grateful to you all for welcoming 

me as one of your own. 

 

To the MSU Kinesiology Department: I could not have chosen a better or more 

supportive environment in which to pursue a PhD. Thanks to the faculty, the staff, and all of my 

fellow graduate students for making this experience such a great one. Thanks also to Coach 

 v 

Orlando and the staff of the MSU Tennis Center for giving me a home away from home in East 

Lansing. 

 

To Drs. Jennifer Coffman and J. D. DeFreese: Thank you for being my original 

champions and mentors and for the support that has extended far beyond UNC. I am lucky to 

know you. 

 

To the children, families, and teachers who participated in this study: Thank you for your 

willingness to contribute to this work. It is my sincere hope that these findings can be used to 

optimize children’s development, both physically and in the classroom. 

 

Finally, to my family: Thank you for providing me with the strongest of foundations 

through every stage of this journey and for your unconditional love and support. I hope I’ve 

made you proud. 

 

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U. S. 

Department of Education, through Grant R305A150210 to Michigan State University. The 

opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of the Institute or the U. S. 

Department of Education.   

 vi 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

 

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... ix 
 
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ x 
 
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................ xi 
 
CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................... 1 
Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 
Early Writing is Important ...................................................................................................... 2 
The Relation between Fine Motor Skills and Writing ............................................................ 2 
The Relation between Self-regulation and Writing ................................................................ 4 
The Relationship between Fine Motor Skills, Self-regulation, and Writing .......................... 5 
Aims and Hypotheses ............................................................................................................. 6 

 
CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................... 8 
Review of Literature ................................................................................................................... 8 
Head Start Preschool Programs .............................................................................................. 8 
Fine Motor Skill Development ............................................................................................... 9 
The Development of Self-Regulation ................................................................................... 12 
The Relationship Between Fine Motor Skills and Self-Regulation ...................................... 14 
Early Writing Development: The Not-So-Simple Theoretical Framework .......................... 15 
Fine Motor Skills and Self-Regulation in the Context of Early Writing .............................. 17 
The Theory of Automaticity ................................................................................................. 18 
The Role of Task Difficulty & The Zone of Proximal Development ................................... 18 

 
CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................. 21 
Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 21 
Participants ............................................................................................................................ 21 
Procedure .............................................................................................................................. 22 
Coding Early Writing ............................................................................................................ 28 
Statistical Analysis ................................................................................................................ 29 

 
CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................................. 31 
Results ....................................................................................................................................... 31 
Beginning of the Preschool Year .......................................................................................... 31 
End of the Preschool Year .................................................................................................... 36 

 
CHAPTER 5 ................................................................................................................................. 45 
Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 45 
Implications for Practice ....................................................................................................... 49 
Public Health Significance .................................................................................................... 51 
Limitations & Future Directions ........................................................................................... 52 

 vii 

Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 54 

 
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................. 55 
APPENDIX A: IRB Approval Letter ....................................................................................... 56 
APPENDIX B: Dissertation Funding Sources .......................................................................... 57 

 
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 58 
 

 viii 

 

LIST OF TABLES 

Table 1. Participant demographic characteristics and motor skill, self-regulation, and writing 
outcome measures at the beginning of the preschool year (mean ± SD). ..................................... 32 
 
Table 2. Bivariate correlations between fine motor skill proficiency, self-regulation level, and 
writing outcome measures at the beginning of the preschool year. .............................................. 33 
 
Table 3. Participant demographic characteristics and motor skill, self-regulation, and writing 
outcome measures at the end of the preschool year (mean ± SD). ............................................... 37 
 
Table 4. Comparison of fine motor skills, self-regulation, and performance on the four writing 
tasks at the beginning and end of the preschool year. ................................................................... 38 
 
Table 5. Bivariate correlations between fine motor skill proficiency, self-regulation level, and 
writing outcome measures at the end of the preschool year. ........................................................ 39 
 

	

	

 ix 

 

LIST OF FIGURES 

Figure 1. A child’s response to the name writing task. Despite one backwards letter, this response 
would have earned a score of 8, indicating that the name was spelled correctly. ........................ 25 
 
Figure 2. A child’s response when asked to write the letter ‘S.’ This response would have earned 
a score of 4, indicating a letter-like form. ..................................................................................... 26 
 
Figure 3. A child’s response when asked to write the word ‘sad.’ This response would have 
earned a score of 7, indicating that letters were used and that two sounds were represented. ..... 27 
 
Figure 4. A child’s response when asked to write what Mama Raccoon might be saying to her 
baby. As this child indicated that the text was supposed to say, “I love you,” this response would 
have earned a score of 5, indicating that beginning and salient sounds were represented. .......... 28 
 
Figure 5. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-regulation 
for word writing performance at the beginning of the preschool year. ........................................ 35 
 
Figure 6. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-regulation 
for name writing performance at the end of the preschool year. .................................................. 41 
 
Figure 7. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-regulation 
for letter writing performance at the end of the preschool year. ................................................... 42 
 
Figure 8. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-regulation 
for word writing performance at the end of the preschool year. ................................................... 43 

 

 

 x 

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS 

 

ESI-R   

HTKS   

ZPD 

 

 

Early Screening Inventory – Revised (Assessment of Fine Motor Skills) 

Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (Assessment of Self-Regulation) 

Zone of Proximal Development 

 

 

 xi 

CHAPTER 1 

Introduction 

Even for young children, early writing is a complex task requiring the execution of a 

range of skills (Gerde, Skibbe, et al., 2012). Widely-accepted theoretical frameworks model 

writing to incorporate multiple components such as transcription skills including handwriting 

(i.e., the forms of letters) and spelling (i.e., orthography), as well as text generation skills (i.e., 

generating ideas for composition; Berninger et al., 2002; Puranik & Lonigan, 2014; Rhyner, 

2009). Beyond the cognitive-linguistic skills (e.g., letter knowledge; Puranik & Lonigan, 2012), 

empirical evidence has identified that behavioral skills like self-regulation (Puranik et al., 2019; 

Zhang et al., 2017) are also important for early writing development. As handwriting – a part of 

transcription – is dependent on well-developed fine motor muscles (Berninger & Rutberg, 1992; 

Graham et al., 1998; Son & Meisels, 2006), it is logical that fine motor skills would be essential 

for early writing. Indeed, automaticity of these fine motor skills is related to the length and 

quality of children’s writing (Graham et al., 2012). The relation between self-regulation and 

writing is less clear, however, and behavioral skills are not always included in theoretical 

frameworks of writing (e.g., Rhyner, 2009). This opacity in the role of self-regulation may be 

due to the interrelatedness of self-regulation and motor skill development (Cameron et al., 2015; 

McClelland & Cameron, 2019). Moreover, young children are asked to write a variety of tasks 

that range in difficulty (e.g., their name, single letters, words) – each of which may recruit skills 

differently to execute the task. The purposes of this dissertation were: 1) to clarify the relation 

between motor skills, self-regulation, and early writing using a model that recognizes potential 

interrelations between motor and self-regulatory skills, and 2) to explore the extent to which 

these relationships differ as a function of writing task difficulty. 

 1 

Early Writing is Important 

 

Early writing skills are important because they are concurrently related to other early 

literacy skills including letter knowledge, print concepts, and phonological awareness (Diamond 

et al., 2008) and lay the foundation for later writing and reading achievement (Kim et al., 2015; 

Levin et al., 2005). Moreover, early writing skills appear in national and state early learning 

standards and are key features of early childhood curricula (e.g., Tools of the Mind, Bodrova & 

Leong, 2007), marking their value for early literacy development. Writing, even for young 

children, is conceptualized to include multiple skills including handwriting, spelling, and 

composing (Berninger et al., 2002; Puranik & Lonigan, 2014; Rhyner, 2009). As such, to elicit 

writing from children, researchers have utilized a variety of tasks which range in difficulty 

because they engage different orthographic skills. Writing tasks that are easier for preschool 

children, because they require more novice knowledge of print and limited orthographic 

knowledge, include writing one’s name or writing individual letters (Gerde et al., 2012; Puranik 

& Lonigan, 2012). More difficult tasks include those that require children to use advanced print 

knowledge and spelling such as word writing (Puranik et al., 2019) or require children to 

generate ideas (i.e., compose) in addition to transcribing such as writing a story (Thomas et al., 

2020). Due to variation in the orthographic knowledge needed to execute each of these 

increasingly challenging tasks, it is essential to understand how children utilize motor and self-

regulatory skills as they engage in multiple writing tasks. 

The Relation between Fine Motor Skills and Writing 

Motor skill proficiency – specifically, fine motor skill proficiency – is integral to the 

development of early writing (Berninger & Rutberg, 1992; Berninger et al., 1992). Fine motor 

skills include behaviors like manipulating small objects, cutting with scissors, drawing, tracing, 

 2 

and copying figures, and these skills have been linked to writing such that children with higher 

levels of fine motor skill proficiency perform better on writing assessments than do their peers 

who are lower in fine motor skill proficiency (Daly et al., 2003; Gerde et al., 2012). Especially in 

a classroom context, fine motor skills feature prominently in young children’s daily activities – 

in fact, an observational study of Head Start and kindergarten classrooms showed that between 

27-66% of the school day is devoted to fine motor activities (Marr et al., 2003). Mastery of fine 

motor skills can be framed in the context of the Theory of Automaticity, which posits that the 

more skilled an individual becomes at performing a particular task, the more “automatic” this 

process becomes – thus freeing up cognitive resources that would otherwise be used to focus on 

its execution (Logan, 1988; Savage, 2004).  

In the context of motor skills and school performance, this means that a child who 

possesses higher levels of mastery of basic motor skills (i.e., grasping a pencil, writing letters) 

may be better able to focus his/her attention on higher-order concepts like spelling words 

correctly or composing sentences (Cameron et al., 2012; Medwell et al., 2009). In contrast, a 

child low in motor skills may struggle with these more basic classroom activities and thus be less 

able to allocate his or her attention to the content of lessons or the execution of more complex 

tasks. Difficulties with executing the motor skills associated with writing inherently limit both 

the amount of text that children can produce and the speed with which they can produce it 

(Berninger, 1999; Graham et al., 2012). Since writing is an integral part of children’s early 

academic development, it is necessary to explore potential compensatory mechanisms that could 

be used to overcome deficits in fine motor skill proficiency – and one such potential 

compensatory mechanism is self-regulation. 

 3 

The Relation between Self-regulation and Writing 

Self-regulation – a composite skill that develops rapidly during the preschool period 

(Diamond, 2002) – includes the ability to pay attention, switch focus, remember instructions, and 

execute self-control (McClelland et al., 2007b). In addition, it is strongly related to early 

academic success and school performance in a variety of domains such as reading and 

mathematics (Best et al., 2011; Blair et al., 2005; McClelland et al., 2014; Ponitz et al., 2009; 

Zelazo et al., 2003). The three components of self-regulation are also utilized during the writing 

process (Berninger & Winn, 2006): writing taps cognitive flexibility as children shift their focus 

among composing, handwriting, and spelling, and requires working memory to recall and use 

letter sounds and shapes in word formation. Throughout the writing process, inhibitory control is 

also at work to keep children’s attention on the task. A growing body of empirical evidence 

supports the association of self-regulation to writing. A longitudinal study by Kent et al. (2014) 

showed that a writing model including the attentional aspect of self-regulation was a better-

fitting model (i.e., more predictive of writing performance) than one that included only reading 

and spelling. This same study found that self-regulation was positively related to composition 

quality and fluency in kindergarten and first grade. 

For younger children, however, the relation between self-regulation and writing is less 

clear. Some research has identified direct relations between self-regulation and writing (e.g., 

Gerde et al., 2012; Puranik et al., 2019), whereas others have found reading skills (e.g., 

phonological awareness and letter knowledge) to mediate the relation between self-regulation 

and writing (Zhang et al., 2017). Interestingly, work from Gerde et al. (2012) found that self-

regulation was directly associated with preschoolers’ name writing – however, work from 

Puranik et al. (2019) did not find a direct association between self-regulation and name writing in 

 4 

a sample of kindergartners. Important to note is that as tasks become more automatic, they 

inherently require less self-regulation (Logan, 1988; Savage, 2004; Willingham, 1999). For 

instance, children tend to be successful in writing their name before they can write other words 

(Treiman et al., 2001), and writing an individual letter requires less skill than writing a word. 

Thus, specific writing tasks that have been mastered – and thus, are easier for children – may not 

engage children’s self-regulation, though self-regulation seems to be important when the task is 

sufficiently challenging. Accordingly, the six-month age difference between the samples of these 

two studies (Gerde et al., 2012; Puranik et al., 2019) resulted in general mastery of the name 

writing task, which may have reduced children’s need for self-regulation to execute this specific 

task. Even for other writing tasks, some complexities in the relation between self-regulation and 

writing exist. For example, Puranik and colleagues (2019) found self-regulation to be associated 

with children’s writing of dictated letters and words in preschool – however, in kindergarten, 

self-regulation was not related to letters but was instead related to the higher-level skills of word 

writing and composing. Collectively then, greater self-regulation may be needed when the task is 

“at the upper end, or beyond [a child’s] zone of proximal development” (Puranik et al., 2019, p. 

229). 

The Relationship between Fine Motor Skills, Self-regulation, and Writing 

Recent research indicates that self-regulation and motor skills are highly related and co-

develop – and as such, this work hypothesizes that skill in one may make up for deficiencies in 

another (Cameron et al., 2015; McClelland & Cameron, 2019; Roebers et al., 2014). For 

example, if a child has low levels of motor skills but high levels of self-regulation, it may be that 

this higher level of self-regulation allows for the child to perform (on various academic 

 5 

assessments) at a level comparable to a child who is high in both. This interrelation between 

motor skills and self-regulation may play a role in how these skills relate to early writing. 

Given the strong links between both fine motor skills and self-regulation and early writing 

outcomes, the relationship between these two factors presents a particularly interesting research 

area to explore – especially in the context of when and how these variables interact. Informed by 

the work of Puranik et al. (2019) suggesting that self-regulation may differentially affect 

children’s writing performance as a function of task difficulty, this dissertation examined 

children’s performance at two time points in the preschool year: both at the beginning (when 

writing skill was less-well-developed) and again at the end (when writing skill for most children 

had improved) using writing transcription tasks that varied in difficulty, from easier (i.e., writing 

one’s own name, writing individual letters), to more challenging (i.e., writing whole words, 

writing a story).  

Aims and Hypotheses 

 

 

The purpose of this dissertation was to address the following aims:  

Aim 1. To examine the extent to which self-regulation moderated the relation between 

fine motor skills and early writing development. 

Hypothesis 1. Informed by the Theory of Automaticity, it was hypothesized that self-

regulation would serve a compensatory role in the development of early writing, such that 

children who were lower in fine motor skill proficiency – and thus, whose writing skills were not 

yet automatized – but higher in self-regulation would outperform their lower-self-regulated peers 

on writing outcome measures. 

Aim 2. To examine whether the relationship between self-regulation and fine motor skills 

differed by writing task difficulty. 

 6 

 

Hypothesis 2. It was also hypothesized that task difficulty would play a role in this 

relationship, such that self-regulation would serve a compensatory role only when children were 

performing a writing task that was within their Zone of Proximal Development (i.e., not too 

challenging, yet also not too simple).  

By establishing an understanding of the nature of the relationship(s) between self-

regulation and motor skills as it relates to early writing, this dissertation study provides key 

insights into the ways in which self-regulation may differentially interact with fine motor skill 

proficiency – based both on children’s skill level and the difficulty of the task. In the classroom 

context, this work could also help to inform future educational interventions to improve 

children’s early writing development. Finally, from a public health perspective, this work 

highlights the importance of prioritizing children’s physical – in addition to their cognitive – 

health in early childhood, and the role that self-regulation plays in optimal development.   

 7 

CHAPTER 2 

Review of Literature 

To gain a fuller understanding of the relationship(s) between fine motor skills, self-

regulation, and early writing, it is first necessary to review the existing literature surrounding 

each of these topics. In this chapter, information will first be provided on Head Start preschool 

programs to provide context about the sample utilized in this investigation. Next, a discussion of 

(1) fine motor skill development; (2) the development of self-regulation; and (3) the Not-So-

Simple theoretical framework of writing development will be presented. In addition, a 

comprehensive overview of (4) the relationship between fine motor skills and self-regulation; 

and (5) the interrelationships between fine motor skills and self-regulation in the context of 

writing is included.  

Head Start Preschool Programs 

The Head Start preschool program, founded in 1965 as a part of President Lyndon B. 

Johnson’s War on Poverty initiative (Ludwig & Phillips, 2008), today provides close to 700,000 

children with access to free early educational programming across the United States (“National 

Head Start Fact Sheets”). Head Start programs are federally-funded and serve children ages 3-5, 

targeting three primary areas: early learning, health, and family well-being (Head Start 

Programs | ECLKC). As a part of Head Start, children are provided with a variety of 

opportunities throughout the school day including educational activities, healthy snacks and 

meals, time to play with peers both indoors and outdoors, and even some free medical and dental 

care services (Head Start and Early Head Start | Childcare.Gov). The primary eligibility criteria 

for nearly all Head Start programs is having a family income level at or below the federal 

poverty line – but regardless of income, all children from families receiving public assistance 

 8 

(e.g., from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or Supplemental Security Income 

programs), all children in foster care, and all homeless children are eligible for Head Start (How 

to Apply | ECLKC). Participation in Head Start programs has been linked to higher performance 

on academic achievement measures later in children’s educational careers (e.g., Currie & 

Thomas, 1993), as well as an increased likelihood of completing high school and attending 

college (Garces et al., 2002; Ludwig & Miller, 2007) – and even a reduction in health problems 

such as depression and obesity (Carneiro & Ginja, 2014).  

Fine Motor Skill Development 

Early childhood is perhaps the most intensive time for the development of fine motor 

skills, which include things like manipulating small objects, cutting with scissors, drawing, 

tracing, and copying figures (McHale & Cermak, 1992). A large proportion of time during the 

day in early childhood classrooms is spent engaging in fine motor activities: for example, a study 

of 10 Head Start preschool and 10 kindergarten classrooms found that on average, children in 

Head Start spent between 27-46% and children in kindergarten spent between 36-66% of the 

school day engaged in fine motor activities (Marr et al., 2003). Specific to writing, children’s 

fine motor development occurs in relative sequence from least complex to most complex, and 

can be conceptualized using four overarching categories: whole arm control, whole hand control, 

pincher coordination, and pincer coordination (Carvell, 2006). Many teachers in early childhood 

classrooms recognize the importance of developing these fine motor skills, and so integrate 

various activities throughout the school day to promote each of these four stages. For example, to 

promote whole arm skills, teachers may have students stir a large pot of dry pasta with a wooden 

spoon. To promote whole hand skills, they may have students use a sponge to transfer water 

from one container to another. For pincher skills, teachers may instruct students in how to use 

 9 

tongs, and then have them pick up various items and sort them into groups. And finally, to 

promote pincer skills (those requiring the most finesse), teachers may show students how to use 

keys to open various types of locks (all examples adapted from Huffman & Fortenberry, 2011). 

In experimental settings, fine motor skills are most commonly measured using one of two 

standardized assessments: The Beery Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery, 

2004; McCrimmon et al., 2012) and the Early Screening Inventory – Revised (ESI-R; (Meisels et 

al., 1997)), both of which include measures such as copying, tracing, drawing, and grasping 

small objects.  

 

Interestingly, fine motor skills have been linked to academic achievement such that 

children with higher levels of fine motor skill proficiency perform better on measures of writing, 

mathematics, and reading than do their less-skilled peers (Cameron et al., 2012; Grissmer et al., 

2010; Son & Meisels, 2006). The underlying mechanism for this phenomenon has not been 

conclusively identified – but experimental work points to a few possibilities. For example, 

compelling evidence from research in the realm of handwriting shows that following an exercise 

in which five-year-old children were asked to write letters by hand – as opposed to simply typing 

or tracing the letters – the children displayed increased activation in neural areas associated with 

reading (e.g., the interior frontal gyrus, the left anterior cingulate cortex, and the fusiform gyrus) 

when presented with letters in an MRI scanner (James & Engelhardt, 2012). In essence, the 

hypothesis that has been most commonly presented to explain the motor skill-achievement link is 

that the act of writing itself links visual processing with motor experience – thus strengthening 

the connections in children’s brains, and facilitating superior performance on related academic 

assessments (e.g., recognizing letters after performing a letter-writing task) (James, 2017). Other 

hypotheses to explain this link center on the idea that fine motor skills are essential for 

 10 

functioning within a classroom context: children must learn to successfully manipulate scissors, 

tie their shoes, and grasp writing utensils that will eventually be used compose sentences, write 

numbers to solve equations, and explain their rationale in scientific lab reports. If children do not 

have mastery of these basic fine motor skills, then they less likely to be able to progress from 

simpler tasks to more complex ones – thus affecting their development (and success) in the 

classroom (McHale & Cermak, 1992). 

Fine motor skills can even be used as a predictor of school readiness or academic 

achievement: for example, higher levels of fine motor skill in preschool relate to superior 

kindergarten achievement in the areas of letter-word identification, reading comprehension, 

vocabulary, phonological awareness, and mathematics performance (Becker et al., 2014; 

Cameron et al., 2012; Son & Meisels, 2006). Even several years later, this relationship is still 

observed: fine motor skills in preschool predict reading performance in 2nd (Dinehart & Manfra, 

2013) and 3rd (McPhillips & Jordan-Black, 2007) grades. Interestingly, some data suggest that 

higher levels of fine motor skill may be especially beneficial for students who struggle in the 

classroom (e.g., Kindergartners with low-to-average English grades (Milne et al., 2018)) or for 

students who are economically disadvantaged (Dinehart & Manfra, 2013). In fact, those students 

who are low in fine motor skills at the beginning of kindergarten are particularly vulnerable to 

difficulties not only in academic subject areas but also in areas like social and emotional 

adjustment to school – and without intervention, may be at risk of falling behind their peers (Bart 

et al., 2007). A large proportion of children (anywhere from 10-24%) experience fine motor skill 

difficulties – but fortunately, meta-analytic evidence does show that interventions to improve 

these skills are largely successful in doing so (Strooband et al., 2020). 

 11 

The Development of Self-Regulation 

 

“Self-regulation” refers to a composite measure of skills, including 1) the ability to hold 

information and manipulate it as a part of working memory; 2) the ability to pay attention for a 

sustained period of time; and 3) the ability to exercise restraint or control over a particular 

behavior or response (inhibitory control) (McClelland & Cameron, 2011). Like fine motor skills, 

self-regulatory skills develop most rapidly in early childhood: specifically, between the ages of 

3-7, but especially in the preschool years (Montroy et al., 2016). Also in a similar manner to the 

relationship between fine motor skills and academic achievement, children with higher levels of 

self-regulation have been shown to out-perform their lower self-regulated peers in subject areas 

such as: print knowledge and phonological awareness (Purpura et al., 2017), vocabulary 

(McClelland et al., 2007b), reading (Duncan et al., 2007), and mathematics (Mazzocco & Kover, 

2007). In a classroom context, all three components of self-regulation are drawn upon on a 

regular basis: having to pay attention to a teacher’s instructions for a particular assignment or 

task; holding these instructions in working memory as the child prepares to execute the task; and 

exercising inhibitory control by suppressing the desire to get up out of their seat or talk to their 

friends instead of completing their assignment. As early as preschool, higher levels of self-

regulation are related to superior performance in the classroom (Blair & Razza, 2007) – and 

gains in self-regulation have been shown to predict subsequent gains in math, literacy, and 

vocabulary (e.g., over the course of the preschool or the kindergarten year; McClelland et al., 

2007a; Ponitz et al., 2009). This relationship is also observed longitudinally, predicting school 

success into adolescence and even early adulthood. For example, four-year-olds with attention 

levels one standard deviation above the average were 48.7% more likely to complete college by 

the age of 25 (McClelland et al., 2013). This relationship between self-regulation and 

 12 

achievement has been demonstrated across a variety of samples and in a variety of domains – 

even after controlling for factors like age, IQ, ethnicity, and parental education level (Duncan et 

al., 2007). In addition, it appears to be especially meaningful in the context of low-income/at-risk 

children. For example, a study of 157 at-risk children showed that self-regulation partially 

mediated the relationship between early reading skills and later reading performance – 

suggesting that self-regulation plays an important role in the development of reading competence 

(Smith et al., 2008). Like fine motor skills, self-regulatory skills are also often integrated into 

early childhood curricula – for example, as outlined in the Tools of the Mind approach (Bodrova 

& Leong, 2007), which includes information about ways in which teachers can be intentional 

about scaffolding classroom activities to develop children’s self-regulatory abilities. To 

illustrate: teachers may have preschool students engage in games of “Simon Says” or “Duck-

Duck-Goose” to teach them about how to both follow instructions (e.g., only perform an action if 

Simon says so) and to learn to physically control their bodies (e.g., stay seated unless you are 

tapped on the head when someone says, “Goose!”) (Bodrova & Leong, 2007). These types of 

skills, if mastered early in development, have considerable downstream effects in terms of 

children being able to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically (Bodrova & Leong, 2007). 

In experimental settings, self-regulation is often measured using tasks like the Day-Night Stroop 

Task (Gerstadt et al., 1994) or the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders assessment (McClelland et al., 

2014), which require children to hold a set of instructions in their working memory, pay attention 

to changing task demands, and inhibit a prepotent response to make the correct choice. As it was 

the task used in the present investigation, more information about the Head-Toes-Knees-

Shoulders assessment is provided in the Methodology section.        

 13 

The Relationship Between Fine Motor Skills and Self-Regulation 

 

Interestingly, there are also data to suggest that fine motor skills and self-regulation are 

related to each other: specifically, such that higher levels of motor skills are related to higher 

levels of self-regulation, and vice-versa (McClelland & Cameron, 2019; Oberer et al., 2017). 

This link between fine motor skills and self-regulation manifests in the context of achievement as 

well: for example, preschoolers with either strong fine motor skills or strong self-regulation 

learned as much in print knowledge as did children who were strong in both – suggesting a 

potential compensatory relationship (Cameron et al., 2015).  

The mechanism through which this relationship occurs is not necessarily known – 

however, there is speculation that it has to do with the overlapping involvement of a few key 

brain areas. Involved most heavily in the execution of fine motor skills are the cerebellum and 

the prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain which is also most heavily involved in self-regulation 

(Diamond, 2000; Willingham, 1999). In fact, evidence from neuroimaging studies suggest that 

during certain cognitive and motor tasks, the prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, and connecting 

structures such as the basal ganglia are often concurrently activated (Diamond, 2000). Thus, one 

prominent assertion is that the relationship between these skills has to do with enhanced 

connectivity or communication between the neural networks involved in both fine motor skill 

execution and self-regulation, and that development of each one contributes positively to the 

development and functioning of the other (Diamond, 2000).  

Compelling evidence to support this hypothesis is also demonstrated in studies 

comparing children with dyslexia or other language/reading impairments to typically-developing 

readers: often, those with language or reading impairment also have comorbid motor or self-

regulatory deficits (e.g., they perform more poorly on finger-tapping or motor timing tasks, or on 

 14 

tasks of inhibitory control) – providing further support for a link between these cognitive and 

motor areas of the brain and related processes (Savage, 2004; Viholainen et al., 2006).   

One study in particular, investigating the link between fine motor skills and self-

regulation, has introduced several questions regarding the exact nature of this relationship. 

Roebers and colleagues (2014) measured fine motor skills, non-verbal intelligence, and self-

regulation in a sample of N = 169 five- and six-year-old preschool children, then followed up 

with subsequent measurements of academic achievement when children were in kindergarten 

and first grade. At all three of these time points, fine motor skills, non-verbal intelligence, and 

self-regulation were related to each other – and at the later time points, it was found that 

children’s initial levels of fine motor skills and non-verbal intelligence were predictive of later 

school achievement (Roebers et al., 2014). However, when self-regulation was added into the 

regression model, fine motor skills and non-verbal intelligence were no longer significant 

predictors of academic performance (Roebers et al., 2014) – identifying self-regulation as an 

important component in the link between fine motor skills and academic achievement, and 

presenting several interesting questions about the nuance(s) present in this relationship.   

Early Writing Development: The Not-So-Simple Theoretical Framework 

 

For children, learning to write is a complex and multi-faceted process. Not only must 

they learn to identify letters, remember which sounds each one makes, and then combine those 

letters to form meaningful words and sentences, but they must also learn how to grasp and 

manipulate writing utensils in order to do so. The development of writing can be conceptualized 

using a theoretical framework that includes several key component, the most all-encompassing 

of which is referred to as the “Not-So-Simple View” (Berninger et al., 2009). The Not-So-

Simple View places text generation – including words, sentences, and more complex forms of 

 15 

writing such as discourse – as the outcome variable of interest, visualized in a model schematic 

as the top point of a triangle (Berninger et al., 2009). Components that relate to text generation 

are included as the bottom two points of the triangle in this schematic diagram: transcription 

skills (i.e., handwriting, keyboarding, and spelling) on one side, and executive functions (i.e., 

self-regulation of attention, goal setting, planning, reviewing, revising, and self-monitoring) on 

the other (Berninger et al., 2009). In the middle of the triangle are dynamic cognitive processes 

including components of working memory (e.g., the phonological loop for remembering sounds, 

the orthographic loop for remembering the visual aspects of letters), and a more general 

construct that enables children to fluidly integrate their self-regulatory processes with their fine 

motor skills and their knowledge of letters, sounds, and words to produce a mark that has 

meaning (Berninger et al., 2009). By considering such a complex model – as opposed to a 

simpler model that includes only the most essential elements involved in text generation – 

writing can be examined through a multitude of lenses, and a variety of components can be 

targeted by teachers in order to improve it (Berninger et al., 2009). For example, a program 

called Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) targets these executive-functioning-related 

components of writing, and has been successfully employed in schools to improve older 

elementary school children’s writing outcomes (Graham & Harris, 2003; Harris et al., 2019). The 

Not-So-Simple View of writing is particularly appropriate to be used as the theoretical 

framework in this dissertation, as both motor skills and self-regulatory processes – and the 

dynamic interplay between the two – are the main focus as potential predictors of text generation 

outcomes.    

 16 

Fine Motor Skills and Self-Regulation in the Context of Early Writing 

In addition to being related to superior academic achievement in areas like reading and 

mathematics, fine motor skills and self-regulation are also related to superior performance on 

measures of early writing. Specifically, children with higher levels of fine motor skills (Gerde, 

Skibbe, et al., 2012) and/or higher levels of self-regulation (Puranik et al., 2019) evidence 

superior writing performance as compared to their less-skilled peers. Early writing skills – 

specifically, learning how to produce letters, words, and sentences –are of the utmost importance 

in childhood. For young children, much early instruction is focused on teaching handwriting, 

spelling, and composing (Berninger et al., 2002; Puranik & Lonigan, 2014; Rhyner, 2009), all of 

which are related to fluent written communication skills and subsequent academic success. 

Proficiency in these skills is related to other early literacy skills including letter knowledge, print 

concepts, and phonological awareness (Diamond et al., 2008), helping to lay the foundation for 

later writing and reading achievement (Kim et al., 2015; Levin et al., 2005). In experimental 

settings, researchers use a variety of tasks – spanning a range of difficulty levels – to assess 

children’s writing proficiency. The easiest writing tasks for young children, because they require 

a less-advanced knowledge of various print concepts, are writing one’s own name (e.g., 

“Madison”) or writing individual letters (e.g., “M,” “S,” “U”) (Gerde, Skibbe, et al., 2012; 

Puranik & Lonigan, 2012; Treiman et al., 2001). More difficult tasks, because they require a 

higher level of spelling knowledge and a larger vocabulary, including writing entire words 

(Puranik et al., 2019) or composing ideas in the context of a story (Thomas et al., 2020). Because 

we know that motor skills and self-regulation are also related to each other, understanding how 

both might be interrelated – especially in the context of writing – is of particular interest, and 

may be due to a number of factors. 

 17 

The Theory of Automaticity 

 

One way to understand the relationship between fine motor skills and self-regulation in 

the context of writing could be via the Theory of Automaticity. This theory states that the more 

skilled an individual is at performing a particular task, the more automatic and the less 

cognitively-taxing this process becomes – and thus, the more cognitive resources are then freed 

up to be able to focus on other tasks (Logan, 1988; Savage, 2004; Willingham, 1999). In the 

classroom context, this could play out in the following way: if a child becomes proficient in fine 

motor skills like writing, copying, tracing, and drawing, he/she then has more cognitive 

resources available for higher-order concepts like learning how to compose sentences, how to 

solve math problems, and how to read paragraphs for comprehension. On the other hand, a child 

who struggles just to write letters and numbers will have to devote more cognitive resources to 

this relatively low-level task and will therefore have less cognitive resources that he/she can 

devote to these more advanced concepts. Thus, in the context of early writing development 

especially, it has been speculated that the extent to which a child can achieve mastery – and thus, 

automaticity – of writing-related tasks may play a role in the amount of cognitive reserves 

available to devote to other higher-order learning objectives (and the amount of self-regulation 

needed to overcome this motor skill deficiency) (Cameron et al., 2012).  

The Role of Task Difficulty & The Zone of Proximal Development 

Whereas the relations between self-regulation and achievement in reading and 

mathematics are relatively clear-cut (i.e., higher self-regulation corresponds with higher 

achievement levels essentially across the board), the link is a bit less clear in the realm of early 

writing – and findings in this area have been equivocal. Some research has identified direct 

relations between self-regulation and writing (e.g., Gerde et al., 2012; Puranik et al., 2019), but 

 18 

others have found that there is not a direct link, instead showing a mediated relationship between 

self-regulation and writing through other skills like phonological awareness and letter knowledge 

(Zhang et al., 2017). Interestingly, work from Gerde et al. (2012) shows that self-regulation was 

directly associated with preschoolers’ name writing – however, work from Puranik et al. (2019) 

did not find a direct association between self-regulation and name writing in a sample of 

kindergartners. Important to note here is the six-month age difference between these two samples 

– and the fact that name writing is likely more challenging for younger children, as they have not 

yet had as much experience writing their own names as would have children entering 

kindergarten. Along this same line of logic, Puranik and colleagues (2019) found self-regulation 

to be associated with children’s letter- and word-writing in preschool – but in kindergarten, self-

regulation was no longer related to letters and was instead related to word writing and composing 

(which require higher levels of writing skill).  

As tasks become more automatic, they inherently require less self-regulation – and so it 

may be that task difficulty also plays a role in the relationship between self-regulation and 

writing performance. This phenomenon can be framed in terms of the Zone of Proximal 

Development (ZPD; Vygotsky, 1978), which essentially states that for learning to occur (or, in 

this case, for self-regulation to come online), tasks that children perform must be within their 

own personal realm of difficulty. The task cannot be too easy – and thus, not engaging enough 

for the child to experience any meaningful growth opportunities – but it also cannot be too 

challenging, and thus outside the window within which children are able to eventually be 

successful given their current set of skills (Daniels, 2002). In an educational setting, it is 

important for teachers to keep this zone in mind for each student – coupled with the fact that 

depending on the difficulty of the task and the skillset of the individual student, the ZPD for each 

 19 

student will be slightly different and will change with time and experience. This concept is 

especially important in the context of this dissertation study, as our hypotheses center around the 

idea that the interaction of fine motor skills and self-regulation are dependent on where each 

task’s level of difficulty is located relative to each individual child’s ZPD. For example, if a child 

possesses a relatively high level of fine motor skill and is performing a relatively simple task like 

writing his name, self-regulatory processes may not need to be recruited in order to execute the 

task. However, if the task becomes more difficult – or if his fine motor skill proficiency were 

lower – he may need to employ higher levels of self-regulation in order to successfully complete 

it. 

 

 

 

 20 

CHAPTER 3 

Methodology 

Participants 

 

Participating children were recruited from Head Start preschool programs – one in Flint, 

Michigan and one in Atlanta, Georgia – both representing high levels of ethnic and cultural 

diversity. Eligibility criteria ensured that children were in a classroom participating in a larger 

study of teacher writing practices, between 3-5 years old, and attending the preschool program 

regularly to minimize missing data. All children were eligible for Head Start – and thus, family 

income for the vast majority of children was at or below the federal poverty line (Department of 

Health and Human Services, 2015). In addition, this was the first year attending Head Start for 

all participating children (i.e., most, if not all, had no prior preschool experience). Analyses were 

conducted on only those children with complete data for the measures of interest in this 

investigation (fine motor skills, self-regulation, and four writing tasks) – as such, the current 

study included 333 children at the beginning of the preschool year (i.e., September-October) and 

405 children at the end of the preschool year (i.e., April-May). Of note, instruction for all 

children began and ended at the same time (i.e., the school year period comprised the same 

months, regardless of which classroom the child was in). These cross-sectional samples were 

used to assess children’s self-regulation, fine motor skills, and writing at two distinct time points 

– thus allowing for the examination of task-difficulty-dependent relationships among these 

variables and replicating the approach of Puranik et al. (2019). Two hundred seventy-two of 

these children were assessed at both time points. 

 

At the beginning of the preschool year, participating children were between 37 and 71 

months old (M = 51.7, SD = 6.5) and 45% were female. Most children were African-American 

 21 

(61.3%), with smaller numbers of White (15.6%) and multiracial (8.7%) children. Children 

spoke predominantly English as their first language (78.7%). Mothers/female guardians reported 

their highest level of education, with 59.7% attaining a high school diploma or less, 26.7% 

attaining a college degree, and 3.9% attaining a graduate degree. 

 

At the end of the preschool year, participating children were between 41 and 76 months 

old (M = 57.5, SD = 6.4) and 46.2% were female. Most children were African-American 

(67.4%), with smaller numbers of White (14.6%) and multiracial (6.7%) children. Children 

spoke predominantly English as their first language (84.4%). Mothers/female guardians reported 

their highest level of education, with 66.5% attaining a high school diploma or less, 23.7% 

attaining a college degree, and 3.6% attaining a graduate degree.  

Procedure 

 

Children were recruited from classrooms participating in a study of early writing 

approaches. Teachers invited parents of all children to participate by sending home informational 

fliers and talking with parents at arrival/pick up. Parents or legal guardians signed informed 

consent to register their child for participation in the study and completed a survey of 

demographic information about their family. Data were collected during the fall and spring of the 

2017-2018 school year. At both time points, children were assessed on fine motor skills, 

behavioral self-regulation, and writing. Trained research assistants assessed children individually 

for approximately 15-20 minutes during the school day in a quiet space within their respective 

preschool. Research assistants were rigorously trained to administer each assessment accurately 

by reviewing the test materials and passing a quiz on assessment instructions, watching training 

videos, practicing administering the assessments with adults, and then, with children under 

supervision. Once research assistants administered the test accurately with no errors with three 

 22 

children, they were “passed” for data collection. Assessments were audited in the field by a peer 

and again during data filing in the lab.  

 

Measurement of fine motor skills 
 

Children’s visual motor skills were assessed using the Motor subtest of the Early 

Screening Inventory – Revised (ESI – R; Meisels et al., 2007). Previous work has used this well-

established, standardized developmental screener to identify preschool and kindergarten children 

who may be at risk for school failure (Kimmel, 2001; Paget, 2001) and to assess motor 

development for research purposes (e.g., Son & Meisels, 2006). The task consists of a block 

building item (using five blocks to build a gate – 1 point for imitation, 2 points for build on 

own), four shape copying items (circle, cross, square, triangle – 1 point each), and a person-

drawing item (0 points for less than 3 body parts, 1 point for 3-4 body parts, 2 points for 5+ body 

parts). Scores on the Motor subtest ranged from 0 to 8. Meisels et al. (1997) found test-retest 

reliability for the ESI – R to be .89 (Meisels et al., 1997). Inter-item reliability for the visual 

motor subscale was .57 (ECLS-K Base Year Public-Use Data Files and Electronic Codebook, 

2001). 

Measurement of self-regulation 
 
 

The Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS; McClelland et al., 2014) was used as a 

direct measure of behavior regulation (including working memory, attention, inhibitory control, 

and task persistence). The HTKS, which has been linked to literacy achievement in preschool 

(McClelland et al., 2007b; Smith et al., 2008), consists of three sections. In the first section, 

children were taught two oral commands (‘touch your head,’ and ‘touch your toes’). They were 

then asked to do the opposite of what the researcher said. For example, if the researcher 

instructed the child to touch his/her head, the child had to do the opposite and touch his/her toes. 

 23 

In the second section, two additional opposing commands were added (‘touch your knees,’ and 

‘touch your shoulders,’). In the third section, children continued to perform the opposite 

movement from the researcher’s instruction, but the rules were switched such that head was 

paired with knees, and shoulders was paired with toes. An additional section in which children 

are instructed to verbalize – rather than physically execute – the opposite command (i.e., ‘say 

head when I say toes’) was included only for children who responded inaccurately to all practice 

items prior to engagement in the first section; these children continued on to the first section if 

they scored 4 or above. Responses for each of the sections were scored as 0 = incorrect, 1 = self-

correct (i.e., the child changed an incorrect response to a correct one with no help from the 

administrator), or 2 = correct. Each of the three main sections contained ten items and the 

additional “drop-back” section contained seven items. Children who successfully passed the 

practice items (i.e., did not need to engage in the drop-back section) earned the full amount of 

points for this section. Higher scores on this task indicate higher levels of self-regulation, and 

children’s scores ranged from 0 – 74.  Research demonstrates strong reliability and validity of 

the HTKS (Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008; Ponitz et al., 2009).   

Measurement of writing outcomes 
 
 

Children’s writing skills were assessed using four writing tasks based on previous work 

by Diamond and colleagues (2008), Gerde, Bingham, and Pendergast (2015), and Thomas et al. 

(2020). The tasks proceeded in the order listed below: 

 

Name writing. The researcher instructed the child to write their name with a marker on a 

blank 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper. Scores on this task ranged from 0 to 8: name writing was coded 

0 = refusal, 1 = scribbling, 2 = drawing, 3 = linear scribble, 4 = letter-like forms, 5 = at least one 

 24 

letter, 6 = all letters/partial name, 7 = all letters in name out of order, 8 = name spelled correctly. 

See Figure 1 for an example name writing response. 

Figure 1. A child’s response to the name writing task. Despite one backwards letter, this 

response would have earned a score of 8, indicating that the name was spelled correctly. 

 

 

 

Letter writing. The researcher dictated 10 letters (T, B, H, M, S, A, D, C, J, and P) one 

at a time, and children were instructed to write each letter. Letter writing was coded 0 = refusal, 

1 = scribbling, 2 = drawing, 3 = linear scribble, 4 = letter-like form, 5 = non-target letter, 6 = 

target letter. The score for each letter was summed to create a total score (range 0 – 60; a = .76). 

See Figure 2 for an example letter writing response. 

 25 

Figure 2. A child’s response when asked to write the letter ‘S.’ This response would have 

earned a score of 4, indicating a letter-like form. 

 

 

 

Word writing. The researcher dictated 5 consonant-vowel-consonant words (sad, hug, 

lip, net, and job) one at a time, and children were instructed to write each word, a typical 

procedure for eliciting word writing (Thomas et al., 2020). Word writing was coded 0 = refusal, 

1 = scribbling, 2 = drawing as writing, 3 = scribble writing, 4 = letter-like form, 5 = at least one 

letter, 6 = letters with one sound represented, 7 = letters with two sounds represented, 8 = word 

spelled correctly. The score for each of the five words was summed to create a total score (range 

0 – 35; a = .82). See Figure 3 for an example word writing response. 

 26 

Figure 3. A child’s response when asked to write the word ‘sad.’ This response would have 

earned a score of 7, indicating that letters were used and that two sounds were represented. 

 

 

 

Story writing. A story writing task (Gerde & Bingham, 2013), including a picture of two 

raccoons with a dialogue bubble above the larger raccoon, was used to elicit story writing from 

children. Children were told, “In books, text bubbles include words that characters say or think,” 

then asked, “What do you think Mama Raccoon might be saying or thinking in the picture?” The 

researcher recorded the child’s response verbatim, then instructed the child to write what they 

had said in the speech bubble. When the child finished, the researcher asked, “Can you tell me 

what you wrote so I can remember?” and recorded the child’s response. In alignment with word 

writing and previous work (Thomas et al., 2020), children’s story writing was coded for the 

highest form of transcription (handwriting/spelling) they produced: 0 = refusal, 1 = child name as 

story, 2 = drawing/scribbling, 3 = letter-like forms, 4 = at least one letter, 5 = beginning and 

 27 

salient sounds, 6 = advanced phonological spelling. See Figure 4 for an example story writing 

response. 

 

Figure 4. A child’s response when asked to write what Mama Raccoon might be saying to her 

baby. As this child indicated that the text was supposed to say, “I love you,” this response 

would have earned a score of 5, indicating that beginning and salient sounds were represented. 

 

Coding Early Writing 

 

Three research assistants were trained to use the above coding system through the use of 

a training manual which includes master-coded examples of children’s early name, letter, word, 

and story writing. Coders initially read the coding manual containing coding instructions, code 

definitions, and example coded writing samples of each type of writing and discussed the process 

with a master coder. The coders then completed three rounds (15 samples each) of practice 

scoring followed by debriefing meetings with the master coder. Next, coders scored three sets of 

five master-coded writing sample packets for a total of 15 writing sample packets. Coders were 

 28 

considered reliable when they achieved 90% agreement with master codes across three sets of 

writing sample packets. Reliable coders double-coded a randomly-selected 20% of all writing 

samples to ascertain ongoing interrater reliability; kappa ranged from .87-1.00 for all codes used 

in analyses. 

Statistical Analysis 

 

All analyses were conducted in R Version 3.6.3 (R Core Team, 2019) using the stats (R 

Core Team, 2020), fmsb (Nakazawa, 2019), psychometric (Fletcher, 2010), lm.beta (Behrendt, 

2014), and Rmimic (Pontifex, 2020) packages with an alpha level of p = .05. Separate cross-

sectional analyses were conducted at each time point (the beginning of the preschool year and 

the end of the preschool year). Only those children with complete data for all measures (fine 

motor skill, self-regulation, name writing, letter writing, word writing, and story writing) were 

included: N = 333 children at the beginning of the preschool year and N = 405 children at the end 

of the preschool year, representing 86% and 95% of the children tested at each time point, 

respectively. Bivariate correlations were conducted to examine the relation(s) between fine 

motor skill, self-regulation, and each of the writing outcomes. Hierarchical regression analyses 

were then conducted to examine the potential moderating association between fine motor skill 

and self-regulation on early writing skills. Four separate regression models were fit for each of 

the writing outcome measures. In the first step, a hierarchical approach using a stepwise model 

selection based on Akaike Information Criteria (Akaike, 1974) was performed to determine 

which of four demographic factors (Age in Months; Sex; Race/Ethnicity [0 = White, 1 = 

Nonwhite]; and Geographic Site [0 = Georgia, 1 = Michigan]) – bidirectionally introduced in a 

stepwise fashion and compared against a model including just a constant – were significant 

predictors of each of the writing outcome variables. The demographic factors that improved the 

 29 

model fit were then included in each of the subsequent analysis steps, which remained the same 

for each of the variables at both time points. In the second model, fine motor skills were entered 

as the sole independent variable; in the third, both fine motor skills and self-regulation were 

entered into the model; and the fourth model included fine motor skills, self-regulation, and the 

interaction between the two. Analysis of variance tests (ANOVAs) were then conducted to 

compare model fits, the results of which are reported below. Given the sample size and analytical 

strategy – and assuming a beta of 0.20 (i.e., 80% power) – the present investigation theoretically 

had sufficient sensitivity to detect an R2 increase exceeding an effect size (Cohen’s f2) of 0.03, as 

computed using G*Power statistical software (Faul et al., 2007). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 30 

CHAPTER 4 

Results 

Beginning of the Preschool Year 

At the beginning of the preschool year, data from 333 children were analyzed; see Table 

1 for full demographic and overall task performance information about this sample. In the fall of 

the school year, children’s writing scores across the four tasks varied widely. On average, 

children wrote their name using letter-like forms (M = 4.6, SD = 2.1), but some children used 

scribbles and others wrote all letters; no child wrote their name accurately. Typically, children 

wrote letters using linear scribbles (M = 33.2, SD = 17.3) though some wrote letters and others 

scribbled. For words, children primarily drew illustrations (M = 11.1, SD = 9.3); however, some 

children used letter-like forms and others scribbled. Generally, children depicted their story 

through drawing/scribbling (M = 2.7, SD = 1.0); however, some children wrote letter-like forms. 

 
 

 

 31 

Table 1. Participant demographic characteristics and motor skill, self-regulation, and writing 
outcome measures at the beginning of the preschool year (mean ± SD). 
Measure 

All Participants 

[Range] 

N 

Age (months) 

Ethnicity (%) 

333 (150 female) 

 

51.7 ± 6.5 

[37 – 71] 

African-American = 61% 

 

Asian American = 2% 

Latino/Hispanic = 2% 

Multiple ethnicity = 9% 

White = 16% 

Other = 2% 

Missing or Unreported = 

8%  

2.9 ± 2.3 

[0 – 8] 

ESI-R Score  

(Fine Motor Skill) 

Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) 

18.1 ± 15.0 

[0 – 70] 

Score 

(Self-Regulation Level) 

Name Writing Score 

Letter Writing Score 

Word Writing Score 

Story Writing Score 

4.6 ± 2.1 

33.2 ± 17.3 

11.1 ± 9.3 

2.7 ± 1.0 

[0 – 8] 

[3 – 60] 

[0 – 38] 

[0 – 6] 

Note. Only participants with complete data for all motor skill, self-regulation, and writing 
outcome variables included in analysis.  

 32 

Both fine motor skill and self-regulation were positively related to children’s performance on all 

four of the writing outcome measures (r’s ³ 0.36, p’s < .001; see Table 2).  

 
Table 2. Bivariate correlations between fine motor skill proficiency, self-regulation level, and 
writing outcome measures at the beginning of the preschool year. 

Letter 

Word 

Story 

Variable 

ESI-R 

HTKS 

Name 

Writing 

Writing 

Writing 

Writing 

Score 

(Fine 

Score 

(Self-

Motor 

Regulation 

Skill) 

Level) 

ESI-R Score 

--- 

 

(Fine Motor 

Skill) 

HTKS Score 

0.43** 

--- 

 

 

(Self-Regulation 

Level) 

Name Writing 

Letter Writing 

Word Writing 

Story Writing 

0.59** 

0.64** 

0.52** 

0.46** 

0.44** 

0.38** 

0.36** 

0.36** 

--- 

0.68** 

0.54** 

0.57** 

 

 

 

--- 

0.64** 

0.54** 

 

 

 

 

--- 

 

 

 

 

 

0.56** 

--- 

Note. * denotes correlation was significant at p ≤ .05. ** denotes correlation was significant at p 
≤ .001 
 

 

 33 

The results of the hierarchical regression modeling for each writing outcome measure are 

reported below, presented using change statistics to reflect the difference in variance explained 

as compared to the models including only demographic factors:  

 

Name writing. Age, site, sex, and race/ethnicity were significant predictors of name 

writing performance (F(4, 328) = 43.5, f2 = 0.53 [95% CI: 0.36 to 0.75]; R2adj = 0.34, p < 0.001). 

Beyond these demographic factors, both fine motor skills and self-regulation explained a 

statistically significant amount of variance in name writing performance: (Fchange(6, 326) = 40.5, 

p < .001, f2 = .20 [95% CI: 0.09 to 0.34]; βfine motor skills = 0.38, t = 7.8, p < 0.001; βself-regulation = 

0.15, t = 3.1, p = 0.002; R2change = 0.13; R2adj = 0.47). 

 

Letter writing. Age, site, and sex were significant predictors of letter writing 

performance (F(3, 329) = 54.0, f2 = 0.49 [95% CI: 0.33 to 0.70]; R2adj = 0.32, p < 0.001). Beyond 

these demographic factors, fine motor skills explained a statistically significant (Fchange(4, 328) = 

95.4, p < 0.001, f2 = 0.23 [95% CI: 0.11 to 0.37]; βfine motor skills = 0.47, t = 9.8, p < 0.001) amount 

of variance in letter writing performance (R2change = 0.15; R2adj = 0.47). 

 

 

Word writing. Age, sex, and site were significant predictors of word writing 

performance (F(3, 329) = 33.6, f2 = 0.31 [95% CI: 0.19 to 0.46]; R2adj = 0.23, p < 0.001). Beyond 

these demographic factors and novel to the present investigation, self-regulation was found to 

moderate the relationship between fine motor skills and word writing performance (Fchange(6, 

326) = 24.2, p < .001, f2 = 0.18 [95% CI: 0.09 to 0.30]; βfine motor skills = 0.27, t = 3.5, p < 0.001; 

βself-regulation = -0.03, t = -0.3, p = 0.8; βinteraction = 0.23, t = 2.0, p = 0.042; R2change = 0.14, R2adj = 

0.36). Higher levels of self-regulation were associated with enhanced word writing performance 

in children with higher levels of fine motor skills, but the impact of self-regulation was 

attenuated for children with lower levels of fine motor skills (see Figure 5). 

 34 

 

Figure 5. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-

regulation for word writing performance at the beginning of the preschool year. 

 

 

 

 35 

 

Story writing. Age was a significant predictor of story writing performance (F(1, 331) = 

82.7, f2 = 0.25 [95% CI: 0.14 to 0.38]; R2adj = 0.20, p < 0.001). Both fine motor skills and self-

regulation explained a statistically significant amount of variance in story writing performance, 

over and above age: (Fchange(3, 329) = 26.5, p < .001, f2 = .14 [95% CI: 0.06 to 0.24]; βfine motor skills 

= 0.33, t = 6.2, p < 0.001; βself-regulation = 0.14, t = 2.6, p = 0.01; R2change = 0.11; R2adj = 0.30). 

End of the Preschool Year 

 

At the end of preschool, data from 405 children were analyzed; see Table 3 for full 

demographic and overall task performance information about this sample. Similar to the 

beginning of the year, at the end preschool children’s writing varied widely across the four tasks. 

Children wrote their name using letters and letter-like forms, on average (M = 5.4, SD = 1.9); 

some children spelled their name correctly and still others scribbled to represent their name. For 

letters, typically, children wrote letter-like forms (M = 39.1, SD = 17.6), but some children 

scribbled and others wrote accurate letters. When writing words, children drew illustrations in 

general (M = 12.4, SD = 10.4); however, some children used letters and spelled words correctly 

and others scribbled. For story writing, on average, children used letter-like forms in their 

writing (M = 3.2, SD = 1.2), although some children used advanced invented spelling (multiple 

sounds represented) and others drew illustrations to reflect their ideas.  

 

 

 36 

Table 3. Participant demographic characteristics and motor skill, self-regulation, and writing 
outcome measures at the end of the preschool year (mean ± SD). 
Measure 
All Participants 

[Range] 

N 

Age (months) 

Ethnicity (%) 

405 (187 female) 

57.5 ± 6.4 

 

[41 – 76] 

African-American = 67% 

 

Asian American = 3% 

Latino/Hispanic = 2% 

Multiple ethnicity = 7% 

White = 15% 

Other = 3% 

Missing or Unreported = 

4% 

4.2 ± 2.3 

[0 – 8] 

ESI-R Score  

(Fine Motor Skill) 

Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) 

27.6 ± 20.2 

[0 – 74] 

Score 

(Self-Regulation Level) 

Name Writing Score 

Letter Writing Score 

Word Writing Score 

Story Writing Score 

5.4 ± 1.9 

39.1 ± 17.6 

12.4 ± 10.4 

3.2 ± 1.2 

[1 – 8] 

[3 – 60] 

[0 – 40] 

[0 – 6] 

Note. Only participants with complete data for all motor skill, self-regulation, and writing 
outcome variables included in analysis. 

 37 

 

Importantly, children’s performance on all measures of interest – fine motor skills, self-

regulation, name writing, letter writing, word writing, and story writing – was significantly better 

at the end of the preschool year than at the beginning of the preschool year (see Table 4 for 

comparison data from the 272 children who were tested at both time points). 

 

Table 4. Comparison of fine motor skills, self-regulation, and performance on the four writing 
tasks at the beginning and end of the preschool year. 

Variable 

Beginning of 
the Preschool 

End of the 

Preschool Year 

Year 

t 

drm [95% CI] 

p 

ESI-R Score (Fine 

3.1 ± 2.3 

4.5 ± 2.2 

12.1 

0.61  

< .001** 

Motor Skill) 

HTKS Score (Self-
Regulation Level) 

18.4 ± 15.2 

29.8 ± 20.9 

11.5 

0.60 

< .001** 

[0.49 to 0.72] 

[0.49 to 0.72] 

Name Writing 

4.7 ± 2.0 

5.6 ± 1.9 

7.4 

0.43 

< .001** 

Letter Writing 

34.8 ± 17.0 

40.9 ± 17.3 

8.1 

0.36 

< .001** 

[0.31 to 0.54] 

[0.27 to 0.45] 

Word Writing 

11.9 ± 9.6 

13.4 ± 10.8 

2.7 

0.15 

.006** 

[0.04 to 0.26] 

Story Writing 

2.8 ± 1.1 

3.2 ± 1.2 

7.0 

0.42 

< .001** 

[0.30 to 0.55] 

Note. * denotes significance at p < .05. ** denotes significance at p < .001. These data reflect 
comparisons of the children (N = 272) who were tested at both the beginning and the end of the 
preschool year.  

 38 

 

Bivariate correlations were conducted to examine the relationship(s) between fine motor 

skill, self-regulation, and each of the writing outcomes. Both fine motor skill and self-regulation 

were positively related to performance on all four of the writing outcome measures (r’s ³ 0.38, 

p’s < .001; see Table 5).  

Table 5. Bivariate correlations between fine motor skill proficiency, self-regulation level, and 
writing outcome measures at the end of the preschool year. 

Letter 

Word 

Story 

Variable 

ESI-R 

HTKS 

Name 

Writing 

Writing 

Writing 

Writing 

Score 

(Fine 

Score 

(Self-

Motor 

Regulation 

Skill) 

Level) 

ESI-R Score 

--- 

 

(Fine Motor 

Skill) 

HTKS Score 

0.48** 

--- 

 

 

(Self-Regulation 

Level) 

Name Writing 

Letter Writing 

Word Writing 

Story Writing 

0.55** 

0.62** 

0.57** 

0.51** 

0.43** 

0.54** 

0.51** 

0.38** 

--- 

0.69** 

0.51** 

0.48** 

 

 

 

--- 

0.72** 

0.61** 

 

 

 

 

--- 

 

 

 

 

 

0.62** 

--- 

Note. * denotes correlation was significant at p ≤ .05. ** denotes correlation was significant at p 
≤ .001. 
 
The same hierarchical regression analyses as for the beginning of the preschool year data were 

conducted at the end of the preschool year to examine the potential moderating association 

 39 

between fine motor skill and self-regulation on emergent writing skills. The results of this 

hierarchical regression modeling for each writing outcome measure are reported below:   

 

Name writing. Age, site, and sex were significant predictors of name writing 

performance at the end of the preschool year (F(3, 401) = 43.2, f2 = 0.32 [95% CI: 0.21 to 0.46]; 

R2adj = 0.24, p < 0.001). Beyond these demographic factors, self-regulation was found to 

moderate the relationship between fine motor skills and name writing (Fchange(6, 398) = 36.2, p < 

0.001, f2 = 0.21 [95% CI: 0.12 to 0.33]; βfine motor skills = 0.50, t = 6.8, p < 0.001; βself-regulation = 

0.38, t = 3.6, p < 0.001; βinteraction = -0.31, t = -2.3, p = 0.02; R2change = 0.16, R2adj = 0.40) such that 

higher levels of self-regulation were associated with enhanced name writing performance in 

children with lower levels of fine motor skills, but the impact of self-regulation was attenuated 

for children with higher levels of fine motor skills (see Figure 6). 

 

 

 

 40 

 

 

Figure 6. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-

regulation for name writing performance at the end of the preschool year. 

 

Letter writing. Age, site, and sex were significant predictors of letter writing 

performance (F(3, 401) = 62.2, f2 = 0.47 [95% CI: 0.32 to 0.64]; R2adj = 0.31, p < 0.001). Beyond 

these demographic factors, self-regulation was found to moderate the relationship between fine 

motor skills and letter writing (Fchange(6, 398) = 58.7, p < 0.001, f2 = 0.31 [95% CI: 0.19 to 0.46]; 

βfine motor skills = 0.53, t = 7.9, p < 0.001; βself-regulation = 0.50, t = 5.4, p < 0.001; βinteraction = -0.36, t = 

-3.1, p = 0.002; R2change = 0.21, R2adj = 0.52) such that higher levels of self-regulation were 

associated with enhanced letter writing performance in children with lower levels of fine motor 

 41 

skills, but the impact of self-regulation was attenuated for children with higher levels of fine 

motor skills (see Figure 7). 

 

 

 

Figure 7. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-

regulation for letter writing performance at the end of the preschool year. 

 

 

Word writing. Age, site, and race/ethnicity were significant predictors of word writing 

performance (F(3, 401) = 34.6, f2 = 0.26 [95% CI: 0.16 to 0.38]; R2adj = 0.20, p < 0.001). Beyond 

these demographic factors, self-regulation was found to moderate the relationship between fine 

motor skills and word writing (Fchange(6, 398) = 45.0, p < 0.001, f2 = 0.25 [95% CI: 0.15 to 0.37]; 

βfine motor skills = 0.12, t = 1.6, p = 0.11; βself-regulation = -0.09, t = -0.9, p = 0.37; βinteraction = 0.50, t = 

3.8, p < 0.001; R2change = 0.20, R2adj = 0.40). Higher levels of self-regulation were associated with 

 42 

enhanced word writing performance in children with higher levels of fine motor skills, but the 

impact of self-regulation was attenuated for children with lower levels of fine motor skills (see 

Figure 8). 

 

 

 

Figure 8. Visualization of the significant interaction between fine motor skills and self-

regulation for word writing performance at the end of the preschool year. 

 

Story writing. Age, site, and sex were significant predictors of story writing performance 

(F(3, 401) = 32.1, f2 = 0.24 [95% CI: 0.14 to 0.35]; R2adj = 0.19, p < 0.001). Beyond these 

demographic factors, both fine motor skills and self-regulation – but not the interaction between 

the two – explained a statistically significant amount of variance in story writing: (Fchange(5, 399) 

 43 

= 33.2, p < 0.001, f2 = 0.14 [95% CI: 0.07 to 0.23]; βfine motor skills = 0.33, t = 6.4, p < 0.001; βself-

regulation = 0.12, t = 2.4, p = 0.017; R2change = 0.12, R2adj = 0.30.  

 

 44 

CHAPTER 5 

Discussion 

The aim of this dissertation was to explore the extent to which self-regulation moderates 

the relationship between fine motor skill proficiency and early writing – more specifically, to 

begin to illuminate the nature of these relations by clarifying how these variables interact at two 

different points in children’s development. To answer this research question, children were 

assessed both at the beginning and at the end of the preschool year using writing transcription 

tasks that spanned a range of difficulty, from easier (i.e., name writing, letter writing), to more 

challenging (i.e., writing whole words, writing in the context of a story). In line with theories of 

writing development including the Not-so-Simple View (Berninger & Winn, 2006) and previous 

empirical research, both self-regulation and motor skills were related to young children’s 

performance on a range of writing tasks (Gerde et al., 2012; McClelland & Cameron, 2019; 

Puranik et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2017). Consistent with our a priori hypothesis and novel to this 

dissertation, self-regulation interacted with fine motor skills for several tasks measuring early 

writing proficiency in a sample of preschool children. These findings identify the interrelation 

between motor skills and self-regulation to be important – and compensatory – for children in the 

context of particular tasks at particular times. 

Results from this investigation are consistent with research from (Puranik et al., 2019), 

suggesting that the relationship between self-regulation and writing may indeed be task-

dependent. In other words, self-regulatory processes may need only come online for tasks that 

are adequately challenging for children – but not for tasks that are too easy or too difficult. 

Because the act of writing is by its nature a fine motor task, the present investigation also builds 

upon the assertion from McClelland & Cameron (2019) to support the notion that the 

 45 

relationship between self-regulation and writing may manifest via an interaction with children’s 

fine motor abilities – and that skill in one may help to compensate for deficiencies in another. 

These findings also help to clarify the reason(s) why some of the relationships observed in the 

investigation by Roebers et al. (2014) may have seemed inconsistent. In that investigation, cross-

lagged models were used in which children’s levels of fine motor skills and self-regulation in 

preschool were used to predict academic performance in kindergarten and first grade. Fine motor 

skills on their own were predictive of academic performance – however, when self-regulation 

was added to the model, fine motor skills were no longer a significant predictor (Roebers et al., 

2014). As demonstrated in the present investigation, the relationship between fine motor skills 

and self-regulation in an achievement context is dynamic, changing as children improve in their 

skill development even throughout the course of a single school year (i.e., from fall to spring). It 

could be, then, that the findings observed by Roebers et al. (2014) – captured across a period of 

three distinct school years – are an indication of this very phenomenon: that fine motor skills and 

self-regulation are related to academic performance in a task-dependent manner, ever-changing 

based on improvements in skill level as children grow and develop.  

At the beginning of the school year, this dissertation showed that beyond demographic 

factors (i.e., age, sex, race/ethnicity, and geographic site) self-regulation and fine motor skills are 

both important variables involved with performance on several writing tasks, evidenced by the 

fact that each of these variables was associated with a significant amount of variance in writing 

performance. This was the case for all outcome variables with the exception of letter writing, for 

which motor skills – but not self-regulation – were a predictor. Novel to this study, a significant 

interaction was observed between self-regulation and motor skills in the context of the word-

writing task, manifesting such that children with higher levels of motor skills and higher levels of 

 46 

self-regulation outperformed children with higher levels of motor skills but lower levels of self-

regulation. This relationship was not observed for children with lower levels of motor skills, 

suggesting that for these children, there may have been a sort of “floor” effect wherein self-

regulation could not come online because the task was simply too challenging. While it may 

seem counterintuitive that an interaction was observed for the harder – but not the easier – tasks 

at the beginning of the school year, the concept of a floor effect may also help to explain this 

phenomenon. In other words, because performance on all tasks was relatively low at the 

beginning of the year (i.e., no child wrote his/her name accurately; most of the writing observed 

in the other tasks was in the form of letter-like forms, drawings, or scribbles), the only group 

within which self-regulation was able to come online as a compensatory mechanism was 

children with high levels of fine motor skill – presumably the most adept at completing the most 

challenging task. As will be detailed in the following paragraphs, it was not until the end of the 

school year – when both motor skill and writing performance had increased – that any sort of 

striation in accordance with self-regulation levels for the easier tasks was observed.      

At the end of the preschool year, children improved in their performance on all four 

writing tasks as well as their fine motor skill and self-regulation levels (see Tables 1 & 3 for 

means and standard deviations and Table 4 for t-test comparisons of scores on each variable 

from the 272 children who participated at both time points). Indeed, overall scores for all of the 

variables in this investigation were significantly higher at the end of the preschool year than at 

the beginning: t’s ³ 2.7, p’s £ .006. Interestingly and in line with previous research, for tasks that 

were “easier” – and thus, more automatic – for children (i.e., name writing, letter writing), self-

regulatory processes appeared to come online for those children who struggled to execute the 

task: in this case, for children with lower levels of fine motor skills. To illustrate: self-regulation 

 47 

appeared to play a compensatory role for those children with lower levels of fine motor skills – 

in some cases allowing them to perform at the same level as children with higher levels of motor 

skills – on the simpler writing tasks (name writing, letter writing). For those children with higher 

levels of motor skills – presumably, those for whom these more basic tasks were not as difficult 

– this interaction with self-regulation was not observed.  

 

Also at the end of the preschool year (and consistent with the finding from the beginning 

of the year), an opposite relationship was observed in the context of the more-challenging word 

writing task. Instead of self-regulation coming online for those children with low levels of fine 

motor skills, it appeared to matter more for children with higher levels of fine motor skills. This 

is again in line with the findings from (Puranik et al., 2019), who posited that the relationship 

between self-regulation and motor skills is task- or difficulty-dependent: because writing words 

is more complex than just writing letters (Cabell et al., 2013; Puranik et al., 2011), those children 

with higher levels of motor skills are more likely to be able to perform this task successfully. In 

this case, children with higher levels of fine motor skills and higher levels of self-regulation 

outperformed their lower-self-regulated peers on this word writing task.  

 

Of note regarding the story writing task is that there was not a wide distribution of 

children’s scores on this task: most performed at about the same level (i.e., scores of 2 or 3). 

Statistically speaking, it may be that an interaction between fine motor skills and self-regulation 

was not observed because there was not enough variation in the sample for an interaction to be 

observed. Equally probable is this task was simply too challenging for children, drawing upon 

composition skills they had not yet mastered. An interesting follow-up research question to these 

particular considerations is whether or not a motor skill/self-regulation interaction would 

 48 

observed using this same story-writing task in older or more-skilled samples, which would be in 

alignment with the theoretical interpretation of the results from this investigation.   

 

This study certainly contributes to the theoretical literature on early writing development, 

providing important context surrounding the complex interplay between children’s skill level, 

task difficulty, and the role of self-regulation in successful writing task performance. It also 

contributes to the public health literature, highlighting the importance of children’s fine motor 

skills in the context of not only physical literacy but also in the context of optimal cognitive and 

academic performance. The findings help to solidify and explain self-regulation’s role in young 

children’s writing development, aligning and extending theoretical frameworks of writing that 

include self-regulation (e.g., Berninger & Winn, 2006). Importantly, for young children the role 

of self-regulation is dynamic; it is available when the task is challenging. 

Implications for Practice 

 

Beyond advancing theory, however, these findings have considerable practical 

implications as well. While previous work has identified that even early writing is a complex 

task requiring children to enact multiple skills from cognitive, physical, and socioemotional 

domains (Gerde et al., 2012), the findings of this study reiterate the interrelations between these 

skills. Providing opportunities to exercise fine motor muscles and develop self-regulation will 

benefit children’s writing development. In fact, intervention work promoting the self-regulation 

of older writers with learning disabilities (Graham & Harris, 2003; Mathematica Policy 

Research, 2017) has demonstrated improvements in children’s writing. While writing is one way 

to engage these skills in tandem, multiple experiences for exercising small hand muscles and 

focusing attention should be available throughout the day. In addition, because children vary 

widely in their motor (Son & Meisels, 2006) and self-regulatory development across the early 

 49 

years (McClelland et al., 2007b), children should be given opportunities to write messages using 

any form of transcription (e.g., scribbles, drawing, letter-like forms), an idea that aligns with 

developmentally appropriate practices (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009) and early learning standards 

for writing (Tortorelli et al., under review). Further, because task difficulty plays a role in 

children’s use of skills, children should be provided a range of writing opportunities within the 

curriculum. Young children need opportunities to write their name, a practice often observed in 

preschool classrooms (Gerde et al., 2015). Also, however, children are capable of and need 

opportunities to write for a range of purposes (Duke et al., 2006; Gerde et al., 2012) including in 

their play (Bingham et al., 2018) and in their curricular opportunities like science experiences 

(Gerde et al., 2020). 

The findings of this study also highlight where strengths in one skill can support 

weaknesses elsewhere (Cameron et al., 2015; Chung et al., 2018). In a school setting, it is 

important for teachers to understand the ways in which children can leverage their strengths. 

Teachers who recognize when a child has the self-regulation skills to persist in a task may make 

better decisions regarding the types of supports they provide or when to let a child engage in 

productive struggle. In addition, it is important to recognize that children who may be less-

skilled at performing particular tasks – especially fine-motor-dependent tasks like writing – may 

be able to compensate for these deficits (i.e., through work to increase their levels of self-

regulation). These findings also underscore the tremendous value of occupational therapists and 

other professionals who aid in the development of children’s motor skills – as this work makes 

clear that physical skill development does not occur in a vacuum, and in fact may be an integral 

part of both cognitive and academic development. Finally, efforts to target fine motor skills, self-

 50 

regulation, or both – while keeping task difficulty in mind – could help to inform researchers in 

developing future educational interventions to improve children’s early writing. 

Public Health Significance 

 

When discussing the public health significance of the findings from this dissertation, it is 

helpful to consider a concept from the kinesiology literature known as “physical literacy.” The 

concept of physical literacy primarily includes movements associated with larger muscle groups 

(e.g., jumping, throwing, running, balancing) as opposed to smaller ones, but highlights the 

importance of mastering motor skills in the pursuit of optimal human development. Generally 

speaking, a physically literate person is considered to be one who moves with confidence in a 

variety of challenging situations and is able to adapt to and anticipate various situations based on 

their mastery of these foundational movement skills (Whitehead, 2001). For example, a 

physically-literate child will feel comfortable in a variety of situations, maybe being inclined to 

participate in sports or activities that promote engagement in physical activity and healthy social 

development. In much the same way, fine motor skills are perhaps equally as important as these 

larger, gross motor skills when it comes to optimizing all forms of development, cognitive and 

academic included. If children are given the opportunity to bolster their fine motor skills like 

writing when they are young, they will be set on a trajectory towards success in increasingly 

complex subject matter, from composing sentences to solving complex mathematics equations to 

performing experiments in a scientific laboratory. Just as physical education curricula in many 

schools focuses on developing children’s gross motor skills, evidence from this dissertation 

highlights the importance of providing continued opportunities to hone fine motor skills in the 

classroom as well. For example, interventions such as the Primary Movement Program (Brown, 

2010), which has been shown to improve children’s fine motor skills over the course of a school 

 51 

year, could be employed. Similarly, programs like the Children’s Health Activity Motor Program 

(CHAMP; Palmer et al., 2019) – which has been shown to significantly improve children’s gross 

motor skills after a period of just 5 weeks – could be designed to target fine motor skills instead 

of (or in addition to) the gross motor skills that are already included.  

Ensuring optimal development of self-regulation, too, is an important part of children’s 

overall well-being – and thus contributes to public health. Children with higher levels of self-

regulation in preschool are almost 50% more likely to have completed college by age 25 than 

their lower-self-regulated peers (McClelland et al., 2013). Research in young children also shows 

that toddlers with poorer self-regulation are at a higher risk of displaying behavioral problems 

later in school (Lonigan et al., 2017), and also at higher risk of becoming overweight/obese than 

are their more-highly-self-regulated peers (Graziano et al., 2010). Close to one-quarter of 

preschool children in the United States are overweight or obese (Ogden et al., 2015), with 

children from lower socioeconomic groups – such as those enrolled in Head Start programs, as 

were the children who participated in the present investigation – often at an even higher risk 

(Williams et al., 2018). Therefore, findings from this study add to a growing body of evidence 

underscoring the importance of bolstering children’s self-regulatory abilities as a part of their 

schooling – with downstream benefits spanning not only aspects of academic achievement like 

reading, writing, and math, but also educational attainment, behavior in the classroom, and even 

aspects of physical health.  

Limitations & Future Directions 

 

The present investigation provided evidence from a large, diverse sample of preschool 

children – using a range of transcription tasks spanning varying levels of writing skill – that self-

regulation and motor skills are related in the context of early writing performance. By examining 

 52 

performance at two distinct time points in the school year, this cross-sectional comparison 

allowed us to explore the ways in which self-regulation may differentially interact with fine 

motor skill proficiency based on children’s skill level and/or the difficulty of the task. 

Importantly, however, this study was not a longitudinal investigation – and future work should 

examine the ways in which the development of these skills relates to change in writing 

performance over time. Future work should also examine the trajectory over which these 

relationships persist: in other words, extending beyond samples of preschool children and into 

the early elementary school years, wherein writing proficiency continues to advance (e.g., in 

more-advanced areas than transcription such as composition). Such work with older children 

could establish whether there exists a ceiling (or, similarly, work with even younger children 

could test for the existence of a floor) – above or below which this interaction between self-

regulation and motor skills does not occur. It would seem consistent with the findings from this 

dissertation if for children whose motor skills were not-yet-developed-enough – or, conversely, 

too-well-developed – self-regulation did not play as central of a role in interacting with motor 

skills to influence task performance outcomes. Another interesting direction in which to take this 

research would be to examine whether this same interaction between fine motor skills and self-

regulation occurs in the context of subject areas other than writing – for example, in reading, 

mathematics, or science. Because writing is an academic subject area that is so inherently so 

dependent on fine motor skills, determining the task-dependent nature of this relationship in 

other domains – with perhaps less of an overt need for manual dexterity, such as reading – is 

certainly an area worth exploring. Finally, interventional studies – in which self-regulation 

and/or fine motor skills (or both) are targeted – would provide experimental evidence about this 

 53 

compensatory relationship, showing the ways in which improvement in each of these skills may 

impact writing performance.    

Conclusions 

 

Taken together, findings from this dissertation provide compelling evidence to clarify the 

nature of the complex interrelationship(s) between self-regulation and writing as initially 

investigated by Gerde et al., (2012), Puranik et al., (2019), & Zhang et al. (2017) – asserting that 

this relationship may, in fact, manifest via an interaction with children’s existing levels of fine 

motor skills. 

 

 

 

 54 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDICES 

 

 55 

APPENDIX A: IRB Approval Letter 

June 15, 2015

To:

Re:

Hope Gerde
552 W Circle Drive

IRB# x15-623e Category:  Exempt 2
Approval Date: June 15, 2015

Initial IRB
Application
Determination

*Exempt*

Development and Feasibility of the Improving Writing Resources and Interactions in

Title:
Teaching Environments through Professional Development (IWRITE PD) for Teachers of
Economically Disadvantaged Children (CGA 138194)

The Institutional Review Board has completed their review of your project.  I am pleased to advise
you that your project has been deemed as exempt in accordance with federal regulations.

The IRB has found that your research project meets the criteria for exempt status and the criteria for
the protection of human subjects in exempt research.  Under our exempt policy the Principal
Investigator assumes the responsibilities for the protection of human subjects in this project as
outlined in the assurance letter and exempt educational material. The IRB office has received your
signed assurance for exempt research.  A copy of this signed agreement is appended for your
information and records.

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Application for Permanent Closure.

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that may no longer meet the exempt criteria, a new initial application will be required.

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category of review, notify the IRB office promptly.  Any complaints from participants regarding the
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Good luck in your research.  If we can be of further assistance, please contact us at 517-355-2180 or
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Sincerely,

Harry McGee, MPH
SIRB Chair

 

 56 

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equal-opportunity employer.

 

APPENDIX B: Dissertation Funding Sources 

Dissertation Funding Sources 
 

1.  Grant R205A150210, Institute of Education Sciences 

U. S. Department of Education 
Awarded to Michigan State University  
Use: Study funding source. 
 

2.  Dissertation Completion Fellowship – 2020/2021 

The Graduate School, Michigan State University 
Funded - $7,000 
Use: Partial teaching release to allow time for analysis, writing, and defense 
preparation. 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 57 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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