Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that primarily affects the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language. The aim of this study was to analyze pragmatics at macrotextual, microtextual and writing levels in persons with schizophrenia in order to ascertain the narrative characteristics and determine the nature of such pragmatics according to positive and negative symptomatology. Cross-sectional and quasi-experimental study was conducted on a sample of 41 individuals with schizophrenia. An analysis of textual pragmatics was performed using the participants’ summary of "The Tale of Landolfo Rufolo". Macrotextual coherence was functional in that it presented key plot information and respected the timeline of the story. Microtextual cohesion was characterized by repetitions, low lexical variation, low syntactic complexity and maintained morphology. The participants' writing was consistent with a generalized dysorthographic profile. In addition, the present work revealed significant differences according to symptomatology. Individuals with positive symptomatology showed lower macrotextual coherence, while microtextual cohesion entailed a greater number of words and therefore greater lexical variation. In contrast, those with negative symptomatology presented a greater dysorthographic profile. This study provides a functional overview of written language in persons with schizophrenia, highlighting the need for a multidisciplinary speech and language therapy intervention to enhance such individuals’ quality of life by favoring their social integration.

This study investigates the impact of peer orthographic revision using a self-reflection tool on orthographic performance in order to improve the understanding and applying of phonological, contextual and morphological rules in third-grade students. Children were assigned to one of three groups: two experimental groups (individual group, dyadic interaction group) and a control group. In the experimental training programme, a self-correction orthographic rubric was used, but while children in the individual group self-corrected the words, children in the dyadic interaction group did it in pairs and interacted in a way such that they should always reach an agreement on the correct spelling. The results showed that although both experimental groups decreased the number of misspellings in the post-test, the dyadic interaction group had the best results, differing significantly from the others, suggesting that self-correction strategies based on rubrics that explicitly display orthographical rules along with collaborative peer learning have a very positive impact on orthographic.

This study focuses on disciplinary literacy in primary craft education. Disciplinary literacy refers to the specialised ways of reading, writing, and speaking in a particular discipline. In Finland, crafts is an obligatory school subject, and pupils are supposed to conceive and manage a complete crafts process, including documentation. However, disciplinary literacy in crafts has rarely been studied, let alone at the primary level. In this study, we explored the quality of a sample of work descriptions produced by third-graders. The data included digitally produced work descriptions (N=79) written by 42 third-grade pupils in a Finnish primary school. Based on a qualitative analysis, six main dimensions of work descriptions as a textual genre emerged: word count, crafts vocabulary, structure, spelling, multimodality, and self-assessment. The quality of work descriptions was analysed quantitatively according to scoring criteria based on these dimensions. A cluster analysis indicated that there were three groups of work descriptions with respect to their level of disciplinarity: limited, emerging, and advanced descriptions. The results show that the structure of the disciplinary texts develops first, and subject-specific vocabulary stabilises after that. The paper discusses the foundation for disciplinary literacy in primary craft education.

In this study, we investigated which spelling cues are used in word-medial consonant spelling by learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Previous research has shown that native speakers of English rely on different cues to decide whether a single (“diner”) or double consonant (“dinner”) needs to be used in word-medial consonant spelling. These cues include phonology, orthography, morphology and lexical frequency. We investigated whether these cues play a similar role in Dutch spellers who are EFL learners, next to similarity of the English target to Dutch. We analyzed dictation task data that was part of an unsupervised digital learning environment for EFL learning. The error analyses revealed that novice EFL spellers mainly used phonological and cross-linguistic cues in consonant doubling. In contrast, more proficient spellers relied less on phonological cues, and relied on morphological cues instead. The EFL spellers did not rely on orthographic cues. Furthermore, spelling difficulty was influenced by the frequency of a word and its similarity with the native-language equivalent, in terms of cognate status (non-cognate/cognate) and consonant doubling. Together, our findings indicate that a higher number of converging cues facilitates spelling for EFL spellers and that their reliance on cues changes as spelling proficiency increases.

The book Spelling and Writing Words: Theoretical and Methodological Advances, edited by Cyril Perret and Thierry Olive (2019), is an insightful and thorough state-of-the art of the research on written word production and spelling. The works included in this volume are based on the premise that investigating cognitive processes extends our understanding of lexical writing skill. For this purpose, the editors have brought together various researchers that explore many aspects of written word production, so as to provide the reader with updated and in-depth insights on this topic.

Twictée, a portmanteau of Twitter and dictée (French for dictation), is a collaborative method for teaching spelling that promotes the metacognitive reasoning needed to understand and assimilate the morphosyntactic features of French spelling. The present study evaluated Twictée’s impact on spelling performance in 40 classes of 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students (N = 893 students). Mixed-model analyses showed a significant improvement in global spelling performance over time, but the impacts of the interaction between time and condition reached significance for only four specific aspects of spelling performance. Nevertheless, further analyses showed that Twictée’s overall impact on spelling performance was significantly greater in schools in disadvantaged urban areas and in large classes. We discuss these results in the light of previous qualitative analyses carried out on this corpus

Phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge are commonly considered the most powerful literacy predictors at the beginning of schooling. Our aim was to analyse the contribution of invented spelling in kindergarten to reading and spelling in Grade 1 beyond the effects of those two variables. Participants were 92 Portuguese 5-year-old children. Phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and invented spelling were assessed in kindergarten and were used to predict word reading and spelling at the end of first grade, using correlation statistics, sequential regression analyses, and path analysis models. General cognitive ability and parents’ educational level were control variables. The results showed that invented spelling predicted reading and spelling performance beyond phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge, with a statistically significant improved prediction in both cases. Alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness influenced invented spelling, which in turn influenced reading and spelling results in the first year of primary school. Additionally, alphabet knowledge directly influenced reading and spelling. Phonological awareness also had a direct influence on spelling but its effect on reading was only mediated by invented spelling. These results are in line with those of other linguistic contexts and provide insightful findings towards the importance of invented spelling at the onset of literacy learning.

This paper examines whether use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and non-standard informal written language therein harms youths' literacy skills.An experiment was conducted with 500 Dutch youths of different educational levels and age groups to assess if social media use affects their school writings.It was measured if chatting via WhatsApp directly impacts youths' performance on a narrative writing task, in terms of writing quality and spelling, or their ability to detect and correct deviations from the standard language in a grammaticality judgement task.WhatsApp use had a direct effect on the story writing task, but only on participants' spelling: adolescents who were primed with WhatsApp immediately beforehand produced significantly fewer misspellings in their narratives.The present study thus gives no cause for concern about negative transfer from social media to school writing: if anything, CMC use may provide youths with greater orthographic awareness and positively affect their spelling performance.

Theoretical models of early writing support the importance of discourse knowledge to writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Berninger & Winn, 2006). However, there is limited research on the relationship between discourse knowledge and writing among beginning writers. This study explored whether fall, spring, and change in discourse knowledge predicted first-graders' end-of-year writing. Three hundred eighty first-graders were given a discourse knowledge interview in the fall and spring assessing knowledge of writing production procedures, substantive processes, story elements, and writing motivation. Additional fall assessments included handwriting fluency, spelling, reading, and vocabulary. Students' narrative and descriptive writing was assessed at the end of the year. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that fall discourse knowledge and knowledge gain variables were not consistent predictors for writing outcomes. However, a more consistent relation was found between spring discourse knowledge and writing achievement, where production procedures predicted writing in both genres while substantive processes and story elements only predicted narrative writing. This study extended findings from earlier research by examining the discourse knowledge and writing achievement of young students.

Corpus linguistic methods can provide detailed and statistically robust information about how children's written language develops as they progress through their education. Such data can inform both models of written language development and curricular policies and practices. To this end, the current paper focuses on subordination as a key site of syntactic complexity. Using a corpus of 240 texts written by children aged 6 to 16 in England as part of their regular school work, it quantifies how the most common type of subordinate clause (the adverbial clause) varies across year groups and genres in terms of frequency, internal complexity and semantic function. A complex developmental picture emerges with length and frequency of finite vs. non-finite clauses changing in distinct ways across primary vs. secondary education. These patterns are found to be closely related to discipline- and genre-specific developments in the main functions for which adverbial clauses are used.

All writing involves complex linguistic knowledge and thoughtful decision-making. But where do students acquire the linguistic tools needed to write effectively? Many students come from diverse backgrounds and may need additional support and/or instruction in language and grammar. In order to better understand this situation, we conducted a qualitative multiple-case study to examine the experiences of 12 students in a first-year university-level composition course to understand the extent of their diverse learning backgrounds and language needs and expectations. We synthesized information from surveys, interviews, and written texts into narratives about each student's attitudes toward language and writing and also examined the actual language in their texts. The findings reveal wide diversity in linguistic backgrounds and experiences and that students need and want attention to their language skills in first-year writing. Findings further suggest that instructors should consider the backgrounds and abilities of individual student writers and listen carefully to students' perceptions about their own writing and language needs in order to build students' writing self-efficacy levels.

This article introduces a Special Issue that gathers a collection of effective tools to promote the teaching and learning of writing in school-aged and university students, across varied contexts. The authors present the theoretical rationale and technical specificities of writing tools aimed at enhancing writing processes (e.g., spelling, revising) and/or at providing writers with automated feedback to improve the implementation of those processes. The tools are described in detail, along with empirical data on their effectiveness in improving one or more aspects of writing. All articles conclude by indicating future directions for further developing and evaluating the tools. This Special Issue represents an important contribution to the field of technology-based writing instruction, in a moment in which online teaching and learning tools have shifted from being an instructional asset to a necessity. We hope that in the future the validation of each tool can be expanded by reaching out to different populations and cultural contexts.

The interest in computer-assisted interventions to promote literacy has increased over the years. In this study, we developed the Portuguese version of the GraphoGame Fluent and tested its effects on reading, spelling, and phonological awareness. Second graders struggling to read were randomly assigned to two groups: GraphoGame Fluent group (n = 15), which received a computer-assisted remedial reading intervention, or GraphoGame Math group (n = 15), which received a computer-assisted numeracy intervention. An additional, non-playing group, composed by second graders without reading difficulties, was formed (business-as-usual group, n = 15). Results showed clear benefits of GraphoGame on spelling and phonological awareness. After the intervention and one month later, the GraphoGame Fluent group displayed spelling and phonological awareness skills similar to the business-as-usual group, and above the GraphoGame Math group. Overall, these findings indicate that Portuguese struggling readers benefit from computer-assisted interventions that combine letter-sound correspondences with more complex orthographic patterns.

It is widely assumed that by identifying spelling errors and suggesting replacement words, spellcheck allows writers to revise spelling errors even if they do not have the necessary spelling knowledge. However, there have been no studies evaluating the efficacy of modern spellcheck tools for students with spelling difficulties, such as dyslexia. In fact, the very limited and dated research into use of spellcheck by writers with dyslexia indicated that, even when using spellcheck to revise spelling errors, this group left many misspellings in their texts. The current study is the first to investigate whether a modern spellcheck program allows college students with dyslexia to produce texts that are as free from misspellings as texts by their peers, and whether this affects the quality of the text in other ways.College students with dyslexia (n=18) and a control group of peers (n=18) wrote two short essays using Microsoft Word, one with spellcheck active and one without spellcheck active. Spelling accuracy and overall quality of the texts were measured. Without spellcheck, students with dyslexia made more misspellings than the control group, however, with spellcheck active students from both groups left almost zero misspelled words in their texts. Text quality was not affected. Results demonstrate that spellcheck helps college students with dyslexia to overcome the limitations that poor spelling knowledge imposes. Importantly, results indicate that spellcheck does not lead to improvements in text beyond spelling accuracy, or lead to poorer quality texts, indicating that it is suitable for use in exam conditions.

This paper provides an overview of how analyses of linguistic features in writing samples provide a greater understanding of predictions of both text quality and writer development and links between language features within texts. Specifically, this paper provides an overview of how language features found in text can predict human judgements of writing proficiency and changes in writing levels in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. The goal is to provide a better understanding of how language features in text produced by writers may influence writing quality and growth. The overview will focus on three main linguistic construct (lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and text cohesion) and their interactions with quality and growth in general. The paper will also problematize previous research in terms of context, individual differences, and reproducibility

This paper extends our research into a novel Story-Writing-Coding engine, where Primary School children produce animated stories through writing computer code. We first discuss the theoretical basis of our engine design, drawing on Systemic Functional Grammar, embodied cognition and perceived animacy. This design aims to help children draw on the appearances of characters, props and scenery to evoke linguistic constructs leading to the emergence of stories. The second part of this paper reports on an empirical study where we aim to answer two research questions. First can compositions so produced be seen as valid compositions? To answer this question we conducted a linguistic analysis of coded stories and those written in an English classroom, and also using teacher ratings of these stories. Results indicate that while there are no significant linguistic differences between coded and English stories, coded stories are impoverished and should be seen as a first-draft to be revised in the English classroom. The second question was to probe our observation that while coding, children spontaneously told stories. Here we draw upon theories of embodied cognition and of perceived animacy. Our analysis suggests that these theories, taken together, help to explain the spontaneous emergence of stories.

This study introduces GAMET, which was developed to help writing researchers examine the types and percentages of structural and mechanical errors in texts. GAMET is a desktop application that expands LanguageTool v3.2 through a user-friendly, graphic user interface that affords the automatic assessment of writing samples for structural and mechanical errors. GAMET is freely available, works on a variety of operating systems, affords document batch processing, and groups errors into a number of structural and mechanical error categories. This study also tests LanguageTool’s validity using hand-coded assessment for accuracy and meaningfulness on first language (L1) and second language (L2) writing corpora. The study also examines how well LanguageTool replicates human coding of structural and mechanical errors in an L1 corpus as well as assesses associations between GAMET and human ratings of essay quality. Results indicate that LanguageTool can be used to successful locate errors within text. However, while the accuracy of LanguageTool is high, the recall of errors is low, especially in terms of punctuation errors. Nevertheless, the errors coded by LanguageTool show significant correlations with human ratings of writing and grammar and mechanics errors. Overall, the results indicate that while LanguageTool fails to flag a number of errors, the errors flagged provide an accurate profile of the structural and mechanical errors made by writers.

This preliminary study examines the rating behavior of five composition and five ESL writing teachers while evaluating a text from a university-level non-native (L2) English speaking student. Using an eye tracker, we measured raters’ dwell times and reading behaviors across four areas of interest—rhetoric, organization, vocabulary, and grammar. Results indicate that raters with differing disciplinary backgrounds read the text differently. L2 writing teachers tended to spend more time on and re-read the rhetorical, lexical, and grammatical features of the text while skipping over more of the grammar errors, while composition teachers read the text more deliberately. The findings suggest L2 writing teachers were more prone to skim and scan for information on which to base a grade while composition teachers delayed rating decisions until after reviewing the entire text, which is corroborated in previous research. These findings can expand our understanding of how disciplinary background can influence rating processes, which can inform rater training procedures, especially in disciplinary writing contexts where L2 writing is judged by individuals with and without expertise in composition or second language writing. Moreover, it demonstrates the utility of eye-tracking methods to examine the cognitive processes associated with reading and scoring student writing.

The purpose of the present study was to examine students’ metaknowledge of Procedural Knowledge (effective writing procedures) and Declarative Knowledge (knowledge of the characteristics of effective writing) with community college students through two open-response questions. Additionally, we examined common patterns of writing metaknowledge among responses to determine how these impacted their writing, utilizing the results from Coh-Metrix analyses of their writing samples. A total of 249 students from a large community college in Southwestern United States participated in the study.Analysis of their results showed participants reported commonly acknowledged ideas regarding metaknoweldge of effective writing in terms of Procedural and Declarative knowledge. Students focused on goal setting/planning, establishing purpose, writing, and revising when discussing Procedural Knowledge of writing and clarity, audience, grammar, and spelling when discussing Declarative Knowledge. A Latent Class Analysis (LCA) of a smaller group, consisting of 146 L1 English students, showed that students’ responses regarding Procedural and Declarative Knowledge did not significantly affect written performance, leading us to question students’ consistent application or understanding of writing metaknowledge. Instructional implications include encouraging students to examine their metaknowledge of writing and how it directly relates to the written product, to identify misuse or misconceptions and focus instruction.

This study explored the effects of transcription on translation products and processes of adolescent students in grades 4 to 9 with and without persisting specific language disabilities in written language (SLDs-WL). To operationalize transcription ability (handwriting and spelling) and transcription mode (by pen on digital tablet or by standard US keyboard), diagnostic groups contrasting in patterns of transcription ability were compared while composing autobiographical (personal) narratives by handwriting or by keyboarding: Typically developing students (n=15), students with dyslexia (impaired word reading and spelling, n=20), and students with dysgraphia (impaired handwriting, n=19). They were compared on seven outcomes: total words composed, total composing time, words per minute, percent of spelling errors, average length of pauses, average number of pauses per minute, and average length of language bursts. They were also compared on automaticity of transcription modes-writing the alphabet from memory by handwriting or keyboarding (they could look at keys). Mixed ANOVAs yielded main effects for diagnostic group on percent of spelling errors,, words per minute, and length of language burst. Main effects for transcription modes were found for automaticity of writing modes, total words composed, words per minute, and length of language bursts; there were no significant interactions. Regardless of mode, the dyslexia group had more spelling errors, showed a slower rate of composing, and produced shorter language bursts than the typical group. The total number of words, total time composing, words composed per minute, and pauses per minute were greater for keyboarding than handwriting, but length of language bursts was greater for handwriting. Implications of these results for conceptual models of composing and educational assessment practices are discussed.

This study investigates Grade 12 students’ global and local strategies for writing from the Internet. Analysis of screen captures, think-aloud protocols, and interviews showed two global writing strategies: 1) Students created mediating planning documents; they alternated between researching online and creating mediating planning documents, then drafted a text, and then revised. 2) Students created no (or almost no) mediating documents; they wrote directly from the source documents, alternating frequently between researching, drafting, and revising. Each global strategy comprised several sub-ordinate strategies (e.g., search using a combination of content and rhetorical keywords; take hard copy notes; draft a text out of the sequence in which it appears in the final text; use automatic spelling and grammar checkers to guide review). Some of these strategies are similar to those used in print-based writing from sources. However, using the Internet also resulted in new researching and writing strategies. We argue that writers created task environments and used strategies that maximized the affordances of the Internet, electronic writing medium, and internal cognition, and minimized their constraints. This work extends classical cognitive work on writing as well as more recent work on writing from sources.

The purpose of this study was to examine how six middle-school students used Automated Essay Evaluation (AEE) technology to revise their writing. Students in a combined 7th and 8th grade Literacy class at one school participated in two in-depth think alouds and semi-structured interviews as they used AEE technology to revise their writing on two separate writing tasks. Constant-comparative analysis of data, including think alouds, semi-structured interviews, and student writing along with a separate quantitative analysis of student revisions revealed themes in three areas: (a) student use of AEE feedback to make revisions; (b) student motivation to revise their writing when using AEE technology; (c) and student understanding and application of AEE feedback during revision. Findings indicated that students who received low scores used AEE feedback to prompt non-surface revisions whereas students with high scores did not. Further, students who used AEE feedback to prompt non-surface revisions made more overall non-surface revisions, revised for different reasons, made more t-unit level revisions, and had more revisions rated as major successes than students who did not use the feedback. Students who used the AEE feedback, MY Editor, were often confused by the grammar and punctuation feedback and had a low success rate using it. However, students were more successful with the spell checker only feedback. In addition, findings show that students were motivated to revise because of the numerical scores the technology assigned their writing. Moreover, knowledge that they would receive a score prompted students to do extensive revising prior to submitting their writing for scoring. Finally, student understanding of the AEE feedback was varied. Implications for classroom use of AEE technology and directions for future research are discussed.

It has been established that in the Netherlands, as in other countries, a majority of students do not attain the desired level of writing skills at the end of elementary school. Time devoted to writing is limited, and only a minority of schools succeed in effectively teaching writing. An improvement in the way writing is taught in elementary school is clearly required. In order to identify effective instructional practices we conducted a meta-analysis of writing intervention studies aimed at grade 4 to 6 in a regular school setting. Average effect sizes were calculated for ten intervention categories: strategy instruction, text structure instruction, pre-writing activities, peer assistance, grammar instruction, feedback, evaluation, process approach, goal setting, and revision. Five of these categories yielded statistically significant results. Pairwise comparison of these categories revealed that goal setting (ES = 2.03) is the most effective intervention to improve students’ writing performance, followed by strategy instruction (ES = .96), text structure instruction (ES = .76), peer assistance (ES = .59), and feedback (ES = .88) respectively. Further research is needed to examine how these interventions can be implemented effectively in classrooms to improve elementary students’ writing performance.

Although handwriting is typically taught during early childhood and keyboarding may not be taught explicitly, both may be relevant to writing development in the later grades. Thus, Study 1 investigated automatic production of the ordered alphabet from memory for manuscript (unjoined), cursive (joined), and keyboard letter modes (alphabet 15 sec) and their relationships with each other and spelling and composing in typically developing writers in grades 4 to 7 (<i>N</i> = 113). Study 2 compared students with dysgraphia (impaired handwriting, <i>n</i>=27), dyslexia (impaired word spelling, <i>n</i>=40), or oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) (impaired syntax composing, <i>n</i>=11) or controls without specific writing disabilities (<i>n</i>=10) in grades 4 to 9 (<i>N</i>=88) on the same alphabet 15 modes, manner of copying (best or fast), spelling, and sentence composing. In Study 1, sequential multilevel model regressions of predictor alphabet 15 letter production/selection modes on spelling and composition outcomes, measured annually from grade 4 to grade 7 (ages 9 to 13 years), showed that only the cursive mode <i>uniquely</i>, positively, and consistently predicted both spelling and composing in each grade. For composing, in grade 4 manuscript mode was positively predictive and in grades 5-7 keyboard selection was. In Study 2 all letter production modes correlated with each other and one's best and fast sentence copying, spelling, and timed sentence composing. The groups with specific writing disabilities differed from control group on alphabet 15 manuscript mode, copy fast, and timed sentence composing. The dysgraphia and dyslexia groups differed on copying sentences in one's best handwriting, with the dysgraphia group scoring lower. The educational and theoretical significance of the findings are discussed for multiple modes and manners of letter production/selection of the alphabet that support spelling and composing beyond the early grades in students with and without specific writing disabilities.

We examine the explanatory weight of child-related and contextual factors on first graders’ achievements in spelling and separation between words. The participants were 215 kindergartners, 113 boys and 102 girls (M = 5 years 4 months, SD = 4 months) from both monolingual and bilingual communities in Spain. They were native speakers of Spanish in the monolingual communities and bilingual Spanish/Catalan or Spanish/Basque speakers in the bilingual communities and had Catalan and Basque, respectively, as the language of instruction. The three languages have shallow orthographies. Children were first examined in kindergarten in a number of literacy related abilities (e.g., knowledge of letters, writing) to detect predictors of spelling and separation between words that were, in turn, evaluated at the end of first grade of elementary school. All the participants were assessed in their language of instruction. The best explanatory models were those including interactions among child-level factors and between these factors and contextual variables. Only knowledge of writing in kindergarten appeared as the common explanatory factor for first graders’ attainments. Attainments in spelling were predicted by children’s level of literacy and knowledge of letters moderated by parent’s education; performance in word separation was predicted by phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge moderated by parental education. Teaching practices affected spelling performance but not learning to separate between words.

Various authors argue that invented spelling activities with preschool-age children help them to analyse the oral segments of words and to discover the relations between those segments and the corresponding letters. Several studies have shown the impact of invented spelling programmes on early spelling, but few experimental ones have looked at the impact of invented spelling on early reading. Our aim was to assess the impact of an invented spelling programme on children’s early spelling and reading. We worked with 108 five-year-old Portuguese children who were not able to read or write. Their initial cognitive ability, knowledge of letters and phonological awareness were controlled. Children were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. They were evaluated in a pre- and a post-test in which they were asked to write and read a set of words. The experimental group participated in a 5-week invented spelling programme. We expected the experimental group to have better post-test scores than the control group. Data analysis showed statistically significant differences between the two groups, with the experimental one having better results in spelling and reading than the control group, supporting the idea that the acquisition of spelling and reading may be mutually facilitative.

The contribution of linguistic, reading, and transcription processes to writing in kindergarten English as a second language (ESL) children and their native-English speaking peers (EL1) were examined. ESL and EL1 performed similarly on one of the two measures of phonological awareness (PA) and on measures of early reading, spelling, and writing. EL1 outperformed ESL on a pseudoword repetition task and on the English vocabulary and syntactic knowledge tasks. ESL outperformed EL1 on a writing fluency measure. Correlation and hierarchical regression results varied as a function of the writing tasks (procedural or generative) and language status. Across language groups, writing tasks that captured children's developing graphophonemic knowledge were associated with a breadth of cognitive, linguistic, and early literacy skills. PA, reading, and transcription skills, but not oral vocabulary and syntactic knowledge contributed the most variance to writing irrespective of language status. The results suggest that parallel component skills and processes underlie ESL and EL1 children's early writing when formal literacy instruction begins in kindergarten even though ESL children are developing English oral and literacy proficiency simultaneously.

This study of 29 teachers from four states in the US investigated teachers' orientations towards writing and the influences on their beliefs. Through interviews about writing instruction, the researchers found significant differences between teachers in high and low-income schools. While teachers in high-income schools valued rhetorical style, developing voice, and reading-writing connections, teachers in low-income schools focused on grammar, mechanics and sentence structure. Teachers in high-income schools appear to be exercising more choice in curricular materials and valuing quality of writing beyond grammar and mechanics, whereas teachers in low-income schools are using specific curriculum mandated by the districts. Influences on teachers' orientations included school context, programs and materials, and assessments. The study raises concerns that students in low-income schools are missing out on authentic, challenging, and meaningful writing opportunities since the focus is on skills-based instruction. The findings point to the need for teachers to provide all students with opportunities to develop rhetorical style, voice, and reading-writing connections in addition to grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure.

This study examined the role of word-level reading proficiency and verbal working memory in grade 4 and 5 students’ (N = 42; 23 boys) performance on a curriculum-based measure of narrative writing. Two outcomes were measured: correct minus incorrect word sequences (CMIWS; accurate-production of spelling and grammar in-text), and composition quality. CMIWS scores were moderately correlated with the holistic quality score. Word reading proficiency predicted CMIWS above and beyond the variance accounted for by gender, grade, handwriting automaticity, and working memory. Word reading proficiency also predicted composition quality controlling for gender and handwriting automaticity. Working memory, as measured by an updating task, was not a significant unique predictor of CMIWS or composition quality. Grade (5 > 4) and gender differences (girls > boys) were also found for CMIWS scores. Although handwriting automaticity was correlated with CMIWS scores and writing quality, it was not a unique predictor of either measure. The results provide further evidence of the sensitivity of the CMIWS index. They also highlight the importance of considering reading proficiency and handwriting automaticity when assessing children’s writing abilities and planning instruction for children with writing difficulties. Keywords: written expression; curriculum-based measures; reading; handwriting; gender

Error analysis involves detecting and correcting discrepancies between the ‘text produced so far’ (TPSF) and the writer’s mental representation of what the text should be. While many factors determine the choice of strategy, cognitive effort is a major contributor to this choice. This research shows how cognitive effort during error analysis affects strategy choice and success as measured by a series of online text production measures. We hypothesize that error correction with speech recognition software differs from error correction with keyboard for two reasons. Speech produces auditory commands and, consequently, different error types. The study reported on here measured the effects of (1) mode of presentation (auditory or visualtactile), (2) error span, whether the error spans more or less than two characters, and (3) lexicality, whether the text error comprises an existing word. A multilevel analysis was conducted to take into account the hierarchical nature of these data. For each variable (interference reaction time, preparation time, production time, immediacy of error correction, and accuracy of error correction), multilevel regression models are presented. As such, we take into account possible disturbing person characteristics while testing the effect of the different conditions and error types at the sentence level. The results show that writers delay error correction more often when the TPSF is read out aloud first. The auditory property of speech seems to free resources for the primary task of writing, i.e. text production. Moreover, the results show that large errors in the TPSF require more cognitive effort, and are solved with a higher accuracy than small errors. The latter also holds for the correction of small errors that result in non-existing words.

This article reports on the use of the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus as a source for developing test items for the Grammar and English Usage section of the Warwick English Language (WELT) test in 2007. A key feature of this newly designed multiple choice grammar test was its use of student-generated writing. The extracts used for the re-designed test were derived directly from the BAWE corpus, as opposed to text books, published sources or indeed, simulated extracts of academic writing devised by test developers, which had been the case previously. The rationale for using the BAWE corpus for language test design is outlined, with a particular focus on the attributes of the students’ writing within the corpus, and the inclusion of both first and second language writing. The challenges involved in developing grammar test items based on BAWE corpus data are also presented. While the procedures set out in the paper were undertaken within a specifically British higher education setting, it is hoped that the research will be of interest to test developers and/or researchers in writing skills in other academic settings worldwide.

The trend towards using English as an academic lingua franca has undoubtedly increased the awareness of a need for specific EAP writing instruction and inroads into researching student writing have been made. However, systematic improvements for a theory-informed teaching practice still require more detailed knowledge of the current state of student academic writing, which also takes into account local practices and requirements. Extended genre analysis provides such a means of researching student writing in specific settings. This is an innovative methodology which expands on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) genre analysis (cf. Bhatia, 1993, 2004; Swales, 1990, 2004) to systematically integrate corpus linguistic tools into the analysis and to take into account the special status of student genres. A special advantage of this methodology is that it can be applied easily and successfully to small-scale purpose-built corpora.This paper presents an application of extended genre analysis to a corpus of 55 student paper conclusions produced by non-native speakers in the initial phase of their studies. Findings suggest systematic differences in structure between student and expert genres, as well as a more complex set of differences in lexico-grammar, and especially the use of formulaic language, between research articles and non-native student papers. The implications of these findings as well as of the proposed methodology of corpus-based genre analysis for teaching practice are also discussed.

The present longitudinal study aims to explore possible syntactic complexity differences between oral and written story retellings produced by Spanish speaking children at the end of the 1st and 2nd grades of primary education. It is assumed that differences between oral and written modalities can be found due in part to the cognitive demands of low level writing skills. Indeed, it has been observed that written texts produced by children are shorter and of lower quality than oral ones (Berninger, et al., , 1992; Berninger &amp; Swanson,1994). However, how the transcription skills might constrain the syntactic complexity of children's written texts is not well established.The children (N=163) that participated in this study were attending three different schools located in Córdoba Province, Argentina. The children were examined at the end of the 1st and 2nd year of primary education. The oral and written retellings were analyzed using Length, T- unit number and Syntactic Complexity Index (SCI) (Hunt, 1965; 1970). The analysis of children's productions showed differences between grades and modalities. The differences between modalities were found in text Length and T-unit, but not in SCI. These results suggest that transcription skills do not affect syntactic performance. Nevertheless, a more detailed analysis revealed differences between groups. Possible restrictions of the original text on children's performance were also observed. The implications and the scope of the SCI and units used for the analysis are furthered discussed.

The aim of this study was primarily to investigate the effects of morphological strategies training on students with and without spelling difficulties in English as a foreign language (EFL), but also to assess the feasibility of morphological strategies training in a classroom context. The intervention was piloted in the sixth grade of a Greek primary school: 23 Greek-speaking students, aged 11-12, were assigned to the treatment group receiving explicit teaching on inflectional and derivational morphemic patterns of English words. The control group, composed of 25 Greek-speaking students of the same age, attending a different classroom of the same school, was taught English spelling in a conventional (visual-memory based) way. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to gain insights: a pre- and post-test, an observation schedule, a student questionnaire and a teacher interview. The pre- and post-test results indicated that the metamorphological training yielded specific effects on targeted morpheme patterns. The same results were obtained from a sub-group of nine poor spellers in the treatment group, compared to a sub-group of six poor spellers in the control one. The observation data revealed that the metamorphological training promoted students' active participation and the questionnaire data indicated that students got satisfaction from their training. Finally, interview data highlighted that teachers considered the intervention as a feasible way of improving students' morphological processing skills in spelling.

Our aim in this study was to test two programmes designed to lead preschool children to use conventional letters to spell the initial consonants of words. These programmes differed in terms of the characteristics of the vowels that followed those consonants. The participants were 45 five-year-old Portuguese children whose spelling was pre-syllabic - they used strings of random letters in their spelling, making no attempt to match the oral to the written language. They were divided into two experimental and a control group. Their age, level of intelligence, and phonological awareness were controlled. Their spelling was assessed in a pre- and a post-test. In-between, children from the experimental groups participated in two programmes where they had to think about the relationships between the initial consonant and the corresponding phoneme in different words: In Experimental Group 1, the initial consonants were followed by an open vowel, and in Experimental Group 2, these same consonants were followed by a closed vowel. The control group classified geometric shapes. Experimental Group 1 achieved better results than Experimental Group 2 following open vowels, being more able to generalize the phonological procedures to sounds that were not taught during the programmes. Both experimental groups used conventional letters to represent several phonemes in the post-test whereas the control group continued to produce pre-syllabic spellings.

Children (aged 10 to 12) with spelling disability (related to dyslexia) or with good spelling ability performed 2 fMRI nonverbal working memory tasks of comparable difficulty across groups in and out of the scanner-judging whether a pictured sea creature appeared two trials earlier (2-back) or was a target whale (0-back).The 2-back versus 0-back contrast captures ability of working memory to track changes over time. On this contrast, the good spellers and disabled spellers showed significant BOLD activation in many and generally the same brain regions. On group map comparisons, the good spellers never activated more than the disabled spellers, but the disabled spellers activated more than the good spellers in selected brain regions. Of most interest, 2 clusters of BOLD activation (distributed across brain regions) were observed in good spellers but 5 clusters were observed in disabled spellers. Within these clusters the good and disabled spellers differed in three regions (bilateral medial superior frontal gyrus, orbital middle frontal gyrus, and anterior cingulated), which are associated with cognition, executive functions, and working memory and were correlated with a behavioral spelling measure. Thus working memory is best described as a distributed architecture rather than a single mechanism; and good and poor spellers engage working memory architecture differently. We propose that spelling is an executive function for translating cognition into language (sounds and morphemes) and then into visual symbols rather than a mere transcription skill for translating words in memory into written symbols in external memory.

This study aimed to assess the extent to which the acquisition of number agreement in written French is influenced by the cognitive cost of processing demands associated with (a) the handwriting activity itself, (b) the lexical spelling complexity of the words and (c) the complexity of the sentences to be written. Children from grades 5 and 6 were asked to write dictated sentences in various conditions: they were either asked to write whole sentences, or to write only a word (noun, adjective or verb) within a sentence, or to only complete the endings of words within a sentence. Results showed that children are sensitive to these three factors: (1) children correctly marked more agreements when they were required to complete the endings of words than when they were required to write whole words; (2) children correctly marked more agreements for simple nouns, adjectives and verbs than for complex ones; (3) children were more successful at agreeing the verb when the sentence structure was simple than when it was complex. More precisely, low-level spelling children were more sensitive to these three factors than high-level spelling children. The study shows that the way children made nouns, verbs or adjectives agreements depends on the cost of simultaneous processing demands such as the handwriting activity, the lexical spelling complexity of the words or the sentence complexity.