The present study examined the components of end of kindergarten writing, using data from 242 kindergartners. Specifically of interest was the importance of spelling, letter writing fluency, reading, and word- and syntax-level oral language skills in writing. The results from structural equation modeling revealed that oral language, spelling, and…

This article reports on a case study of a young child (aged five) at a very early stage of his journey as a writer, evidencing "pre-alphabetic tendencies", who has not yet internalised the construction of his name. Analysis of a "baseline" piece of Daniel's writing demonstrates his awareness that the production of random…

This study investigated 2- and 3-year-olds' personal interests as a possible source of variation in preschool writing activities. Structured observations of the play behaviors of 11 preschool children in a childcare classroom were conducted one to two days per week for one school year. These data were analyzed to determine choices of play…

Many theories of spelling development claim that before children begin to spell phonologically, their spellings are random strings of letters. We evaluated this idea by testing young children (mean age = 4 years 9 months) in Brazil and the United States and selecting a group of prephonological spellers. The spellings of this prephonological group…

The writing performance of many school-aged children is consistently below levels necessary to produce positive outcomes. Early intervention frameworks are designed to help remedy this problem before it becomes more severe, but a key feature of early intervention frameworks--the use of data for targeting interventions--has not been sufficiently…

The study describes an adapted form of "interactive writing" (McCarrier, Pinnell, & Fountas, 2000) and examines its effectiveness as an approach to beginning writing instruction for young children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Systematic videotape analysis was used to document the content of 45 adapted interactive writing lessons across an…

This study examined whether attitude toward writing is a unique and separable construct from attitude toward reading for young beginning writers. Participants were 128 first-grade children (70 girls and 58 boys) and 113 third-grade students (57 girls and 56 boys). We individually administered to each child a 24-item attitude measure that contained…

This study examined the composing process and communication of students aged 5-8 identified with intellectual disabilities. An open-ended writing activity called Big Paper was implemented at least once every 2 weeks for a 6-month period. Qualitative methods were utilized to analyze writing samples, videotapes of writing sessions, and transcripts…

In order to better understand how to use assessment productively in the basic writing classroom, I asked the question "How do basic writers perceive the assessment process?" The research reported on in this dissertation led to the conclusion that basic writers at Dona Ana Community College perceive and value each part of the assessment…

Early writing interventions can help students develop the writing skills they need to experience positive educational and postsecondary outcomes, but effective intervention requires instructionally relevant assessment data. Shapiro's curriculum-based assessment (CBA) model integrates related yet distinct CBA approaches into a model that informs…

The principle that emergent writing is supported by talk, and that an appropriate pedagogy for writing should include planned opportunities for talk is well researched and well understood. However, the process by which talk becomes text is less clear. The term "oral rehearsal" is now commonplace in English classrooms and curriculum policy…

The instructional level is helpful when identifying an intervention for math or reading, but researchers have yet to investigate whether the instructional-level concept can be applied to early writing. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous research by examining technical features of potential instructional-level criteria…

This study examined technical features of slopes produced from curriculum-based measures (CBM) of beginning writing. Eighty-five first-graders completed weekly sentence copy, picture-word, and story prompts for 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, testing revealed alternate-form reliability and criterion validity of CBM scores generally similar to those…

Many students struggle with writing, which impacts their school and lifelong success, but early identification and intervention can help prevent long-term writing problems. Reliable and valid assessment tools are needed for early identification of struggling writers, as well as to monitor their progress and evaluate the effects of early…

This research examines differential participation in three specific classroom literacy activities over an academic school and their relationship to progress on school-based measures of literacy progress in one urban kindergarten linguistically diverse classroom. Exploring the experiences of three kindergarten beginning English language learners…