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, the current study 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 fine 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 fine 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 fine motor skills but only for the simpler writing tasks and 2) for children with higher fine 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 fine motor skills may compensate for deficits in one or the other skill when children perform writing tasks.

学习写作对幼儿来说具有挑战性，因为他们必须将他们仍在发展的精细运动技能与对书面语言的理解结合起来，以产生有意义的标记。更复杂的是，孩子们经常被要求根据不同的任务需求制作各种书面产品（例如，写单个字母与组合这些字母以形成完整的单词或句子）。尽管写作的理论模型强调了自我调节和精细运动技能对写作的重要性，但我们目前对这两种结构如何相互作用以支持写作的理解仍然不完整。因此，当前的研究检查了自我调节在多大程度上调节精细运动技能和早期写作发展之间的关系——以及这种关系是否因写作任务难度而异。N  = 333) 和结束 ( N = 405) 学龄前儿童。进行分层回归分析以检查精细运动技能与早期写作技能的自我调节之间的潜在调节关联，每个写作任务都有单独的模型。在控制人口因素后，结果表明，在完成具有挑战性的写作任务时，对于精细运动技能水平较高的儿童来说，自我调节在年初很重要。在学年结束时，自我调节对于 1) 精细运动技能较低但仅适用于较简单的写作任务的儿童和 2) 对于在更具挑战性的写作任务中具有较高精细运动技能的儿童来说也很重要。