Linguistic Feature Development Across Grades and Genre in Elementary Writing

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Hall-Mills ◽  
Kenn Apel
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Expository Writing ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Grammatical Complexity ◽  
Lexical Density

Purpose As children develop skills in writing across academic contexts, clinicians and educators need to have a fundamental understanding of typical writing development as well as valid and reliable assessment methods. The purpose of this study was to examine the progression of linguistic elements in school-age children's narrative and expository writing development. Method Narrative and expository writing samples produced by 89 children in Grades 2 through 4 were analyzed at the microstructure and macrostructure levels. Measures of receptive vocabulary, word-level reading, and reading comprehension were obtained. Results Exploratory factor analyses revealed 4 microstructure factors (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical density) and 1 macrostructure factor (e.g., a combination of organization, text structure, and cohesion). Multivariate analyses of covariance with reading comprehension as a covariate showed that productivity and macrostructure were sensitive to grade-level and genre differences and that expository grammatical complexity was sensitive to grade-level differences. Conclusions Findings are discussed in light of grade-level standards for narrative and expository writing and current practices in writing assessment. Multiple suggestions are offered for clinical and educational implications, and specific directions are provided for future research.

scholarly journals Influence of Writing Instruction on Spanish Heritage Learners in Heritage-Only and Mixed Courses: A Longitudinal Study

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Irati Hurtado ◽  
Kacie Gastañaga
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Developmental Differences ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Heritage Language Learners ◽  
Heritage Learners ◽  
Composition Course ◽  
Lexical Density ◽  
Final Essay

University Spanish courses designed specifically for heritage language learners (HLLs) are becoming more common, and researchers have indicated that empirical research is needed to evaluate their effectiveness. This longitudinal study investigates the writing development of 24 HLLs as a result of instruction over the course of the semester. Nine were enrolled in a heritage-only section of a Spanish composition course, and the remainder were from mixed HL/L2 sections of the same course. Both section types were taught online. The major assignments the students produced were two 500-word essays, and students also completed bi-weekly forum posts. We examined the development of lexical density, sophistication, and diversity as well as syntactic complexity and accuracy by comparing each student’s first and final essay and forum posts. Findings indicate that there were significant differences between the scores received on the forum posts in comparison to the essays. However, there were no significant developmental differences in terms of group. Implications, avenues for future research, and pedagogical suggestions are discussed.

scholarly journals Do You Get the Picture? A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Graphics on Reading Comprehension

AERA Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 233285842090169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daibao Guo ◽  
Shuai Zhang ◽  
Katherine Landau Wright ◽  
Erin M. McTigue
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Flow Diagrams ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Mixed Format

Although convergent research demonstrates that well-designed graphics can facilitate readers’ understanding of text, there are select situations where graphics have been shown to have no effect on learners’ overall text comprehension. Therefore, the current meta-analytic study examined 39 experimental studies published between 1985 and 2018 measuring graphics’ effects on readers’ comprehension. We first quantified the overall effect on reading comprehension. Then, we considered interactions with learners’ characteristics, graphic types, and assessment formats. Our analysis revealed that the inclusion of graphics had a moderate overall positive effect (Hedges’s g = 0.39) on students’ reading comprehension, regardless of grade level. Regarding graphic type, we did not find a significant difference among pictures, pictorial diagrams, and flow diagrams. Only when compared to mixed graphics, pictures had a greater effect on comprehension. Additionally, compared with true and false assessments, graphics differentially benefited students’ comprehension on open-ended comprehension assessments and mixed format assessments. Implications for future research are presented.

scholarly journals Intermediate-Grade Students' Sensitivity to Macrostructure Intrusions

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Therese F. Smith ◽  
Amos L. Hahn
Keyword(s):  
Error Detection ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Intermediate Grade ◽  
Structure Information ◽  
Text Structures

Students' sensitivity to four top-level text structures was investigated using a methodology not used previously in this area of research—the error-detection paradigm. Forty-eight students in Grades 4, 6, and 8 read short paragraphs organized according to the following text structures: compare/contrast, description, enumeration, and sequence. An intrusion sentence which signalled an enumeration text structure was inserted in the compare/contrast, description, and sequence paragraphs. The enumeration paragraphs did not contain any intrusive text-structure information. Following the reading of each paragraph, students performed a recall and a recognition task. Oral recalls were assessed qualitatively according to the following criteria: (a) followed the text's structure, (b) followed the text's structure but included the intrusion, (c) followed the text's structure/recognized the intrusive information, and (d) did not follow the text's structure. Students' performance on the recognition task was assessed according to the following criteria: (a) did not recognize the intrusion, (b) recognized the intrusion after a prompt, and (c) spontaneously recognized the intrusion. Results of the study showed that task, text structure, and grade level differentially affected students' sensitivity to the four text structures. Implications for future research are proposed.

scholarly journals LANGUAGE EFFECTIVENESS AND FACTORS INFLUENCING SCIENTIFIC WRITING OF INDONESIAN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Saniago Dakhi ◽  
Horas Hutabarat
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Density Ratio ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Determinant Factors ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Grammatical Complexity ◽  
Lexical Density ◽  
Undergraduate Thesis

The linguistic feature distinction between written and spoken discourse, like scientific writing, narrative text, discussion text, oral speech, etc. has been a longstanding discussion among scholars. However, there is limited number of studies on Indonesian undergraduate thesis context. This article reports the language effectiveness, i.e. lexical density and grammatical complexity of undergraduate thesis using the Flesch�s Analysis of the Readability of Adult Reading Materials (1974) and the determinant factors influencing them. This descriptive study, applying online system application, was conducted in an Indonesian pseudonym university. Forty-two undergraduate theses were used as data source of lexical density and grammatical complexity, and four English lecturers participated on interview. Results showed that the average lexical density ratio was 42.14 and the grammatical complexity was 14.54. On the other hand, the determinant factors of academic writing holistically encompass; (1) psychological factors including identity awareness, motivation, and conceptual competency, (2) sociocultural factor covering personal experience, and (3) linguistic factors, namely linguistic awareness and application, and mechanical competency. To sum up, three important conclusions are drawn. Firstly, there is no exactly the same lexical density and grammatical complexity across chapters of the undergraduate theses. Secondly, the undergraduate theses are lexically acceptable, but grammatically are not as they are interpreted as American students� slick fiction product. Finally, variables affecting academic writing are not only linguistic factors, but also psychological and sociocultural ones.Keywords: lexical density; grammatical complexity; undergraduate thesis; Indonesian context; academic writing; language effectiveness.

Affix Meaning Knowledge in First Through Third Grade Students

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenn Apel ◽  
Victoria Suzanne Henbest
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Phonological Awareness ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Unique Variance ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Reading Measures ◽  
3Rd Grade

Purpose We examined grade-level differences in 1st- through 3rd-grade students' performance on an experimenter-developed affix meaning task (AMT) and determined whether AMT performance explained unique variance in word-level reading and reading comprehension, beyond other known contributors to reading development. Method Forty students at each grade level completed an assessment battery that included measures of phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary, word-level reading, reading comprehension, and affix meaning knowledge. Results On the AMT, 1st-grade students were significantly less accurate than 2nd- and 3rd-grade students; there was no significant difference in performance between the 2nd- and 3rd-grade students. Regression analyses revealed that the AMT accounted for 8% unique variance of students' performance on word-level reading measures and 6% unique variance of students' performance on the reading comprehension measure, after age, phonological awareness, and receptive vocabulary were explained. Conclusion These results provide initial information on the development of affix meaning knowledge via an explicit measure in 1st- through 3rd-grade students and demonstrate that affix meaning knowledge uniquely contributes to the development of reading abilities above other known literacy predictors. These findings provide empirical support for how students might use morphological problem solving to read unknown multimorphemic words successfully.

An Analysis of Lexical Chunks in Online Business Letters (OBL) and Business Letter Corpus (BLC): A Corpus-Based Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Hairul Azhar Mohamad ◽  
Muhammad Luthfi Mohaini ◽  
Pavithran Ravinthra Nath
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Sampling Method ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Frequent Type ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Lexical Collocations ◽  
Online Business ◽  
Lexical Density ◽  
Concordance Program ◽  
Corporate Business

This research investigated into the lexical density and frequencies of five types of lexical chunks located in 300 online business letters. Top 10 websites on business correspondence had been identified in terms of traffic visitors and bounce rate under one million web rankings worldwide. Criterion Sampling method was identified prior to extracting the sample letters from the websites. The data was then run with Antconc Concordance Program (ACP) for lexical density and frequency analysis. Top 15 lexical chunks in online business letters (OBL) were compared against those top 15 in Business Letter Corpus (BLC). Findings revealed that there was a total of 39 916-word tokens and 939 counts of lexical chunks found in this corpus. It was found that more lexical words do not imply more lexical chunks used in based on types of business letters.  All 5 types of lexical chunks were identified and ranked in descending order; Sentence Builders (SB) as the most frequent type, followed by Collocations (COL), Deictic locutions (DLs), Polywords (POLs) and Institutionalized Expressions (IUs) as the least frequent type of lexical chunk. Sub-divisional analysis indicated that Grammatical Collocations (GCs) were more common than Lexical Collocations (LCs). Majority of lexical chunks were formed more at sentence level than phrasal level. Comparative analysis between top 15 lexical chunks in OBL and BLC discovered that most top lexical chunks in online business letters are representative of those corporate business letters in BLC. Pedagogical implications in terms of the reliability of online business letters for academic reference and future research considerations are also addressed.

scholarly journals Reading for Comprehension in Individuals with Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development: Similar or Different Patterns of Ability?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 828
Author(s):  
Maja Roch ◽  
Kate Cain ◽  
Christopher Jarrold
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Reading Accuracy

Reading for meaning is one of the most important activities in school and everyday life. The simple view of reading (SVR) has been used as a framework for studies of reading comprehension in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). These tend to show difficulties in reading comprehension despite better developed reading accuracy. Reading comprehension difficulties are influenced by poor oral language. These difficulties are common in individuals with DS and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but they have never been compared directly. Moreover, the components of reading for comprehension have rarely been investigated in these populations: a better understanding of the nature of reading comprehension difficulties may inform both theory and practice. The aim of this study was to determine whether reading comprehension in the two populations is accounted for by the same component skills and to what extent the reading profile of the two atypical groups differs from that of typically developing children (TD). Fifteen individuals with DS (mean age = 22 years 4 months, SD = 5 years 2 months), 21 with ASD (mean age = 13 years 2 months, SD = 1 year 6 months), and 42 TD children (mean age = 8 years 1 month, SD = 7 months) participated and were assessed on measures of receptive vocabulary, text reading and listening comprehension, oral language comprehension, and reading accuracy. The results showed similar levels in word reading accuracy and in receptive vocabulary in all three groups. By contrast, individuals with DS and ASD showed poorer non-word reading and reading accuracy in context than TD children. Both atypical groups showed poorer listening and reading text comprehension compared to TD children. Reading for comprehension, investigated through a homograph reading accuracy task, showed a different pattern for individuals with DS with respect to the other two groups: they were less sensitive to meaning while reading. According to the SVR, the current results confirm that the two atypical groups have similar profiles that overlap with that of poor comprehenders in which poor oral language comprehension constrains reading for comprehension.

Technical Adequacy of the Positive Experiences at School Scale With Adolescents

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler L. Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
Grade Level ◽  
School Connectedness ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Technical Adequacy ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
Black African ◽  
Means Testing ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Scale Characteristics ◽  
Current Sample

The present study reports on an investigation of the generalizability of the technical adequacy of the Positive Experience at School Scale (PEASS) with a sample of students ( N = 1,002) who differed substantially in age/grade level (i.e., adolescents in middle school as opposed to children in elementary school) and ethnic identity (i.e., majority Black/African American as opposed to majority Latino/a) in comparison with the measure’s primary development sample. Findings from confirmatory factor analyses indicated the original latent structure of the PEASS was tenable in the current sample and that the measure was invariant across gender and grade level, with some small demographic differences identified via latent means testing. Additional psychometric findings regarding the technical adequacy of the PEASS with this sample, including its observed scale characteristics and simulated classification utility with criterion measures of academic self-efficacy and school connectedness, are also presented. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals Testing young foreign language learners’ reading comprehension: Exploring the effects of working memory, grade level, and reading task

2021 ◽  
pp. 026553222199148
Author(s):  
Tineke Brunfaut ◽  
Judit Kormos ◽  
Marije Michel ◽  
Michael Ratajczak
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Reading Test ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Comprehension Accuracy

Extensive research has demonstrated the impact of working memory (WM) on first language (L1) reading comprehension across age groups (Peng et al., 2018), and on foreign language (FL) reading comprehension of adults and older adolescents (Linck et al., 2014). Comparatively little is known about the effect of WM on young FL readers’ comprehension, and even less within testing contexts. Young FL readers are still developing their L1 reading skills and general cognitive skills (e.g., attentional regulation abilities). Completing FL reading tests might be particularly taxing on their WM, and differences in WM capacity – as well as other learner and task characteristics – might create construct-irrelevant variance in test performance. In this study we investigate the effects of WM, grade level, and reading task on young learners’ FL reading test performances. Ninety-four young English language learners (Grades 6–7) in Hungary completed the TOEFL® Junior™ Comprehensive’s reading test and a WM test battery. Our mixed-effects model predicted significantly higher comprehension accuracy among learners with higher WM capacity, and among learners in Grade 7 compared to learners in Grade 6. Reading task differences were not associated with significant comprehension accuracy differences. We discuss the implications of our findings for testing young learners’ FL reading comprehension.

Increasing Secondary Students’ Comprehension Through Explicit Attention to Narrative Text Structure

2021 ◽  
pp. 004005992110255
Author(s):  
Whitney Sommers Butler ◽  
Casey Hord ◽  
Susan Watts-Taffe
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Students With Learning Disabilities ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
School Students

In spite of the prevailing assumption that formal reading instruction is no longer needed once adolescents reach high school, students at the secondary level still benefit from explicit reading instruction to continue developing advanced literacy skills enabling them to access complex narrative texts. This article argues for the importance of teachers to scrutinize the texts they plan to teach to determine what instruction and supports are needed to promote reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities. Specifically, this article examines how nonlinear text structures can challenge adolescent reading comprehension and illustrates explicit text structure instruction with three exemplar texts which use unconventional narrative patterns. The article emphasizes the importance of considering the qualitative features of texts to inform instruction to support reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document