Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume focuses on writing development. Topics covered include: the psycholinguistics of writing and literacy acquisition; the cultural and historical aspects of reading and writing; and the neurolinguistic view of writing systems.

1. Studying writing and writing acquisition today: A multidisciplinary view; 2. Part I: Writing and literacy acquisition: Links between linguistics and psycholinguistics; 3. 1. On the relations between speech and writing (by Olson, David R.); 4. 2. The Unit of Written and Oral Language (by Blanche-Benveniste, Claire); 5. 3. The Word out of (Conceptual) Context (by Ferreiro, Emilia); 6. 4. Presschool Knowledge of Language: What Five year olds Know about Language Structue and Language Use (by Berman, Ruth A.); 7. 5. Explicit Word Segmentation and Writing in Hebrew and Spanish (by Tolchinsky, Liliana); 8. Part II: Writing and reading in time and culture; 9. 6. Orality/ Literacy, Languages and Alphabets. Examples from Jewish Cultures (by Sirat, Colette); 10. 7. The Notion of Orthography. A Latin Inheritance (by Desbordes, Francoise); 11. 8. Aspects of a History of Written Language Processing. Examples from the Roman world and the early Middle Ages (by Guenther, Hartmut); 12. 9. Orality in Literate Cultures (by Koch, Peter); 13. 10. The Graphic Space of the School Exercise Books in France in the 19th-20th century (by Hebrard, Jean); 14. Part III: Written language competence in monolingual and bilingual contexts; 15. 11. Production and Comprehension of Connectives in the Written Modality. A Study of Written French (by Fayol, Michel); 16. 12. Towards a Better Understanding of Biliteracy (by Luedi, Georges); 17. 13. Acquisition of Literacy by Immigrant Children (by Verhoeven, Ludo); 18. Part IV: Writing systems, brain structures and languages: a neurolinguistic view; 19. 14. Domain-Specificity and Fractionability of Neuropsychological Processes in Literacy Acquisition (by Cossu, Giuseppe); 20. 15. Reading difficulties among English and German Children. Same Cause - Different Manifestation (by Wimmer, Heinz); 21. 16. Neural Organisation and Writing Systems (by Butterworth, Brian); 22. Bibliographic references; 23. Analytic index