scholarly journals The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lénia Carvalhais ◽  
Teresa Limpo ◽  
Luísa Álvares Pereira

Writing is a foundational skill throughout school grades. This study analyzed the development of different levels of written language (word, sentence, and discourse) and explored the relationship between these levels and writing performance. About 95 Portuguese students from two cohorts—Grades 4–7 (n = 47) 6–9 (n = 48)—were asked to produce a descriptive text two times, with a 3-year interval. The produced texts were used to assess spelling, syntactic correctness and complexity, and descriptive discourse as well as text length and quality. The main results showed that there were improvements from Grades 4 to 7 and 6 to 9 in word- and sentence-level skills, along with increases in some dimensions of the descriptive discourse. Moreover, the older cohort performed better than the younger cohort in terms of spelling, syntactic complexity, and text quality, but not in terms of syntactic correctness, one dimension of the descriptive discourse, and text length. Regression analyses showed that writing performance was predicted by word and sentence levels in the younger cohort only, and by discourse-level variables in both cohorts. Overall, despite indicating a generalized growth in writing skills throughout schooling, this study also highlighted the areas that may need additional attention from teachers, mainly in terms of the descriptive features.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-18
Author(s):  
Tsvetanka Tsenova

This article focuses on the relationship between literacy methods applied at school and the emergence of serious difficulties in mastering reading and writing skills that shape the developmental dyslexia. The problem was analyzed theoretically and subjected to empirical verification. Experimental work was presented which aims to study the phonological and global reading skills of 4- th grade students with and without dyslexia. Better global reading skills have been demonstrated in all tested children, and this is much more pronounced in those with dyslexia than their peers without disorders. Hence, the need to develop a special, corrective methodology for literacy of students with developmental dyslexia consistent with their psychopathological characteristics.


2019 ◽  
pp. 136216881988540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muriel Gallego

This study discusses the impact of interactionist output-oriented approaches, specifically, the effects of collaborative text reconstruction on subjunctive recognition and production in the written modality by English-dominant Spanish second-language learners. It also examines whether students’ text length and text complexity increase after treatment. A total of 104 fifth-semester Spanish learners participated in the study and were assigned to three conditions: control ( n = 36), dictogloss ( n = 33) and dictogloss plus explicit instruction ( n = 35). In order to measure target form recognition and production as well as text quality, participants completed a pre-, post- and delayed-post-test that included a guided written task and a recognition task. Results indicated that participants in both treatment groups increased their production of the subjunctive mood in the written modality in expected contexts at similar rates, which was also maintained over time. Participants also increased recognition rates, irrespective of group, pointing to a lack of relationship between this type of collaborative text reconstruction and subjunctive recognition. Lastly, an effect of group and time was also observed for text length and syntactic complexity, as participants in the treatment groups produced significantly longer texts, as well as a higher number of complement clauses.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Cordeiro ◽  
São Luís Castro ◽  
Teresa Limpo

A growing body of scholarship in the field of writing research from a cognitive perspective suggests that girls tend to outperform boys in particular writing tasks. Still, our understanding about gender differences continues to evolve. The present study specifically focused on gender differences in writing between students from Grade 4 to Grade 9. We examined differences in handwriting and self-efficacy, as well as in three measures of written composition across two genres (viz., spelling, text length, and text quality in stories and opinion essays). Moreover, we tested whether there were differences in written composition above and beyond handwriting and self-efficacy. Findings suggest that girls consistently outperformed boys in handwriting, self-efficacy, spelling, text length, and text quality. These effects were moderated by neither students’ grade nor text genre. In addition, after accounting for handwriting and self-efficacy, females still performed better than males in the three measures of written composition. Overall, findings confirmed the gender difference typically found in writing and indicated that potential explanatory variables for it may be handwriting and self-efficacy.


1983 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis L. Newcomer ◽  
Mary A. Goldberg

This study was designed to: evaluate the performance of 107 gifted adolescents on a test of written language ability; compare the written expression of subgroups of superior and adequate readers drawn from the gifted sample; and examine the intercorrelations among written language components and reading. The results revealed that the gifted children did not evidence written language deficits but performed less well on measures of creative writing than they did on mechanical aspects. The superior readers in the sample performed significantly better than the adequate readers in all aspects of writing except handwriting. Finally, with the exception of word usage skills, areas of reading and components of writing do not appear to be highly interrelated.


1994 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 371-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winston J. Hagborg ◽  
Mary Aiello-Coultier

For a sample of 73 learning-disabled children, the relationship between scores on the Developmental Test of Visual-motor Integration—3rd Revision and teachers' ratings of writing skills was investigated. After statistically removing the contribution of socioeconomic status, achievement, and intelligence, only handwriting was significantly related to scores on Beery's test. Given the limited diagnostic information provided by the test, psychologists are urged to select other measures in assessing students' writing skills.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (48) ◽  
pp. 117-131
Author(s):  
Milica Bacic

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the syntactic level of promotional language in fiction and academic book blurbs. The overall research objective was to identify salient syntactic features and investigate the similarities and differences in the realization of this text-in-ternal aspect of thriller, romance, and linguistics blurbs in English. The analysis shows that their formulaic language exhibits genre-specific patterns and form-function correlations in its syntactic complexity. In order to provide a positive description of a book, blurb writers regularly employ structural parallelism, ellipsis, complex phrases with multiple modification, phrasal and clausal embedding, coordination, and other means of structural reduction. However, individual instantiations also display systematic variability in text-length values and frequency of salient features, with fiction blurbs mainly replicating the conciseness of spoken language and academic blurbs closely resembling formal written language. We conclude that the generic integrity of these texts involves a degree of controlled flexibility at the syntactic level depending on the book type/genre as the defining variable. Additionally, the research confirms that the study of linguistic profiles of genres is funda- mentally important for the study of language use, both from a theoretical and applied perspective. The increasing ‘generification’ of contemporary language, and particularly English as the global lingua franca, requires the adoption of a multidimensional genre-based framework in investigating the complex linguistic realities of the 21st century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2281-2292
Author(s):  
Ying Zhao ◽  
Xinchun Wu ◽  
Hongjun Chen ◽  
Peng Sun ◽  
Ruibo Xie ◽  
...  

Purpose This exploratory study aimed to investigate the potential impact of sentence-level comprehension and sentence-level fluency on passage comprehension of deaf students in elementary school. Method A total of 159 deaf students, 65 students ( M age = 13.46 years) in Grades 3 and 4 and 94 students ( M age = 14.95 years) in Grades 5 and 6, were assessed for nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary knowledge, sentence-level comprehension, sentence-level fluency, and passage comprehension. Group differences were examined using t tests, whereas the predictive and mediating mechanisms were examined using regression modeling. Results The regression analyses showed that the effect of sentence-level comprehension on passage comprehension was not significant, whereas sentence-level fluency was an independent predictor in Grades 3–4. Sentence-level comprehension and fluency contributed significant variance to passage comprehension in Grades 5–6. Sentence-level fluency fully mediated the influence of sentence-level comprehension on passage comprehension in Grades 3–4, playing a partial mediating role in Grades 5–6. Conclusions The relative contributions of sentence-level comprehension and fluency to deaf students' passage comprehension varied, and sentence-level fluency mediated the relationship between sentence-level comprehension and passage comprehension.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-107
Author(s):  
Melanie Boltzmann ◽  
Thomas Münte ◽  
Bahram Mohammadi ◽  
Jascha Rüsseler

Abstract. In Germany, 7.5 Million individuals between 18 and 64 years are considered to be functionally illiterate (Grotlüschen & Riekmann, 2012). Functional illiterates have only rudimentary literacy skills despite attending school for several years. Although they can use written language to a very limited extent, only few functional illiterates attend literacy courses for adults. In addition, most adult literacy courses primarily aim at promoting basic reading and writing skills. Offers specific to workplace literacy are scarce. This review gives an overview of the definition of functional illiteracy. Afterwards, a specific literacy program (AlphaPlus) and its effectiveness will be presented. The reviewed studies indicate that learning to read in adulthood is associated with structural and functional brain changes.


2016 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Mariana Giaretto ◽  
Victoria Naffa

ResumenEn este trabajo analizamos las relaciones entre tomas de tierras y Estado, en elAlto Valle de Río Negro en Argentina. En un contexto general de especulacióninmobiliaria, por la que se encarecen los precios de alquileres y terrenos, y depolíticas de vivienda selectivas y acotadas, los sectores populares acceden aun espacio en la ciudad mediante tomas de tierras. Frente a estos conflictos,el Estado, en sus diferentes niveles y poderes, despliega una forma deintervención basada en la criminalización de las luchas por tierra y vivienda.Al mismo tiempo, el poder ejecutivo nacional crea la Secretaría de Acceso alHábitat, para posibilitar la intervención política orientada a la regularizaciónde los asentamientos. Sin embargo, esta intervención tiende a reinscribir laproblemática habitacional en el campo político, para reducirla a un conflicto“entre partes”, eludiendo la responsabilidad estatal.Desde un enfoque metodológico cualitativo, seleccionamos como referenteempírico el caso del asentamiento de Villa Obrera en Fiske, Menuco (Gral.Roca), y las técnicas de recolección de datos se basan en fuentes secundarias,como expedientes judiciales y normativa, y en fuentes primarias como son losrelatos de los protagonistas mediante entrevistas individuales y colectivas.Palabras clave: tomas de tierras, Estado, criminalización de los conflictos.Conflicts caused by land occupation and modesof State intervention: analysis of an experience ofAlto Valle in Río Negro (Argentina)AbstractThis paper analyzes the relationship between State and land occupation,at Alto Valle in Río Negro, Argentina. In a general context of real estatespeculation, where rents and land prices are expensive, and a policy ofselective and limited housing, popular sectors can have access to a spacein the city through land occupation. In front of these conflicts, the Statein its different levels and powers, displays a form of intervention basedon the criminalization of struggles for land and housing. At the sametime, the national executive creates the Secretariat of Access to Habitat,oriented to allow political intervention for the regularization of settlements.However, this intervention tends to re-register the housing problems in thepolitical arena, reducing it to a conflict “between parties” and eluding theresponsibility of the State.From a qualitative methodological approach, we selected as empirical referencethe case of the settlement of Villa Obrera in Fiske, Menuco (GeneralRoca). The techniques of data collection are based on secondary sources, suchas policy and legal records, and primary sources as the stories of protagoniststhrough individual and collective interviews.Keywords: land occupation, State, criminalization of conflicts.Conflitos sobre ocupações de terras e modos deintervenção do estado: análise de uma experiênciado Alto Valle do Rio Preto (Argentina)ResumoEste trabalho analisa as relações entre a posse de terra e o Estado, no AltoValle do Rio Preto, na Argentina. Num contexto geral da especulaçãoimobiliária, por qual se encarecem os preços do aluguel e das terras, e depolíticas de habitação seletivas e limitadas, os setores populares acedem aum espaço na cidade através de ocupações de terras. Frente a estes conflitos,o Estado, em seus diferentes níveis e poderes, desenvolve uma forma deintervenção com base na criminalização das lutas pela terra e vivenda. Aomesmo tempo, o poder executivo nacional cria a Secretaria de Acesso àHabitat para possibilitar à intervenção política orientada a regularização dosassentamentos. No entanto, esta intervenção tende a registrar os problemasde habitação no campo político, para reduzi-la a um conflito “entre aspartes”, iludindo a responsabilidade do Estado.A partir de uma abordagem metodológica qualitativa, foi selecionado comoreferência empírica o caso do Assentamento de Villa Obrera em Fiske,Menuco (Gral. Roca), e as técnicas de recolecção de dados são baseados emfontes secundárias, como expedientes judiciais e normativos, e em fontes primárias como são as histórias dos protagonistas através de entrevistasindividuais e coletivas.Palavras-chave: tomada de terras, Estado, criminalização dos conflitos.


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