Abstract
In Czech elementary schools there is a strong emphasis on the legibility and orthographic skills. Teachers observe writing acquisition (handwriting, ortography) during elementary education (i.e. 1st to 5th grade).
In a case of learning difficulties there is a diagnostics performed in the counselling centre and dysgraphia / dysorthography diagnosis determined. But the diagnostic process frequently forgets evaluate another stage of writing skills - "written expression" (DSM 5), the ability of the students to properly organise their thoughts and express them effectively.
This project describes the expressive writing skills from 3rd to 5th grade. We created the the test of written expression and verified the predictive value of the proposed written expression test from 3rd to 5th grade pupils and to compare pupils' performance in terms of gender, font pattern (cursive writing, manuscript writing) and the presence of specific learning difficulties.
We administered a battery of tests assessing writing skills and language skills which are related to the writting development. The results of our study showed significant differences in the area of the expressive writing in every grade.
The gender differences the results reveal that girls have better expressive writing skills. The size of written expression deficits in group of children with learning disabilies is discussed in more details.