Recent research has established that 5- to 6-year-old typically developing children in a left-right writing culture spontaneously reverse left-oriented characters (e.g., they write a [reversed J] instead of J) when they write single characters. Thus, children seem to implicitly apply a right-writing rule (RWR: see Fischer & Koch, 2016a). In…

This paper aims to advance our understanding of how children's use of vocabulary in writing changes as they progress through their school careers. It examines the extent to which a model of lexical sophistication as use of low-frequency, register-appropriate words adequately captures development in vocabulary use across the course of compulsory…

We examined how raters and tasks influence measurement error in writing evaluation and how many raters and tasks are needed to reach a desirable level of 0.90 and 0.80 reliabilities for children in Grades 3 and 4. A total of 211 children (102 boys) were administered three tasks in narrative and expository genres, respectively, and their written…

Morphological skills have previously been found to reliably predict reading skill, including word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, less is known about how morphological skills might contribute to writing skill, aside from its well-documented role in the development of spelling. This correlational study examines whether…

There were two goals of the present study. The first was to create a scoring scheme by which 9-year-old Chinese children's writing compositions could be rated to form a total score for writing quality. The second was to examine cognitive correlates of writing quality at age 9 from measures administered at ages 6-9. Age 9 writing compositions were…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of implementing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of instruction (Graham & Harris, 2005; Harris & Graham, 1996) on the writing skills and knowledge of six first grade students. A multiple-baseline design across participants with multiple probes (Kazdin, 2010) was…

The writing skills of 286 children (157 female and 129 male) were studied by comparing name writing and letter writing scores from preschool to kindergarten with letter and word reading scores over the same time period. Two rubrics for scoring writing were compared to determine if scores based on multiple components (i.e., letter formation,…

The purpose of this study was to concurrently examine the development of written language across different writing tasks and to investigate how writing features develop in preschool children. Emergent written language knowledge of 372 preschoolers was assessed using numerous writing tasks. The findings from this study indicate that children…

During fMRI imaging, 12 good and 8 poor writers aged 11 wrote a newly taught pseudoletter and a highly practiced letter. Both letters were formed from the same components, but the pseudoletter had a novel configuration not corresponding to a written English letter form. On the first fMRI contrast between the newly taught pseudoletter and highly…

Explores emergent knowledge of genre-specific characteristics of 20 kindergartners and 20 first graders when composing three types of genre stories, personal letters, and shopping lists. Finds that stories and letters were associated with conventional writing systems--genre characteristics probably determined patterns of association. Highlights…

Studies use of cohesion in written stories of normally developing and language-learning disabled elementary children using Cohesive Harmony Analysis. Finds the proportion of words in chains (cohesive density) and chain interaction (cohesive harmony) was consistent across the elementary years. States that children with language-learning…

Examines relations between different word categories and reading/writing performances in 20 nine-year-old children. States that for Norwegian (less regular than Finnish but more regular than English), the length and frequency of words and their interaction are factors substantially related to children's reading, writing speed, and spelling…

Compares written stories of normally achieving and learning disabled (LD) children in grades 1-3. Tests receptive language, figure copying, and spelling. Finds that groups differed on figure copying, spelling, and written productivity, but not receptive language. Finds that non-LD grade level groups differed on two components of the handwriting…

Provides descriptive information about use of morphologically complex words in story writing of second and third graders, some with learning disabilities. Examines how commonly and accurately children used inflections, derivations, and compound words spontaneously in writing. Shows significant differences between grades and groups in frequency of…

Declares that invented spelling ability reflects young children's developing awareness of the internal structure of words. Examines effects of an instructional approach that emphasized integration of language analysis teaching into the whole-language kindergarten curriculum. Finds that children who received instruction were representing all the…