Writing disorders and their relationship to reading-writing methods: a longitudinal study

This study was designed to investigate some writing disorders shown by children who have been taught by different methods of reading and writing. Methods differ in that some emphasize the processes of decoding bottom-up (e.g., syllabic and phonic method) while others stress top-down processes, that is, they put greater emphasis on meaning (e.g., global-natural method). A longitudinal study using a sample of 260 school children was performed. The children were of both sexes from public and private schools and from different socioeconomic backgrounds. It was found that the pupils who learn by a global-natural method make errors that relate more to reproductive aspects of information. In contrast, the pupils who learned by the phonic and syllabic methods made more errors of meaning.