Circle Around and Meet at the Top: Teaching Children Number Writing Using a Modeling and Vocal Rehearsal Strategy

Abstract

Abstract Writing letters and numbers is a critical skill that is commonly taught in preschool and kindergarten years. Writing is used in everyday life, making it fundamental in both academic and social contexts. Explicit instruction is a structured teaching format that often incorporates components such as modeling and rehearsal to teach children writing for skills such as word, sentence, or story (Archer & Hughes, 2011; McElroy et al., 2024). Although there have been evaluations of teaching learners’ writing skills, the overall research base lacks evidence for teaching children foundational number writing. Using a concurrent multiple baseline design across participants, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of an adapted modeling and vocal rehearsal procedure in the context of explicit instruction with children who presented with absent or impaired number writing skills. Results of the present investigation suggested the effectiveness of the procedures at establishing correct number writing across participants. Implications of the effectiveness of the procedure, the role of verbal mediation strategies in number writing, as well as recommendations for future research and practice are discussed.