Too little, too much: A limited range of practice 'doses' is best for retaining grapho-motor skill in children

We tested how practice ‘dosing’ affects learning (within-session) and long-term retention of a grapho-motor skill in 7–8 year old children. In Experiment 1, participants practiced the production of a letter-form by connecting dots (Invented Letter Task, ILT) in a single session of 6-blocks, 12-blocks, or 24-blocks. Training on 24-blocks resulted in the fastest letter production at the end of the training session. By 4–5 weeks post-training, the 12-blocks group attained equally robust speed gains as the 24-blocks group, and was more accurate. No long-term gains were achieved after 6-blocks training. In Experiment 2, children who were afforded 6-blocks ILT practice on four consecutive days outperformed the single-session 24-blocks group by 4–5 weeks post-training. Overall, by 4–5 weeks post-training, the single-session 12-blocks practice group was most fluent and accurate. The results suggest that only a limited range of practice schedules may lead, efficiently to long-term gains in children's grapho-motor skill learning.