Assessing children's writing products: the role of curriculum based measures

Written cohesion in children with and without language learning disabilities

“…These findings demonstrate that expository is a more complex writing endeavour than narrative, a consensus across studies (Beers and Nagy , Dockrell et al . , Hall‐Mills and Apel , ).…”

“…The authors attributed this to their sample having more experience with narrative writing and the challenges posed by expository writing, something that has been observed across studies (e.g., Koutsoftas and Gray , Dockrell et al . , Scott and Windsor ).…”

“…Narrative and expository writing are important considerations because children are expected to produce these genres throughout compulsory education. Research has demonstrated genre effects in intermediategrade children whereby expository writing poses more of a challenge than narrative across a variety of measures (Beers and Nagy 2011, Dockrell et al 2015, Hall-Mills and Apel 2012, Scott and Windsor 2000. Hall-Mills and Apel (2012) compared 12 adolescents with LLD on narrative and expository writing samples to elucidate the effects of genre on writing.…”

Assessing children's written texts: a framework for equity

“…Now, nearing a fifth of the way through the millennium, matters are no better. Two research projects about writing assessment illustrate the competing paradigms that create tensions for teachers of writing – one, a quantitative study, starting from a position of “the inability of students to produce sustained, accurate and competent writing” (Dockrell et al , p. 575); the other, an extended action research project, which explores the relationship between assessment criteria, curriculum and pedagogy (Gardner ). Drawing on the “simple view of writing” (Berninger and Amtmann ; Berninger et al ), the study by Dockrell et al uses a curriculum‐based measure of writing (CBMW) designed to gauge the writing productivity (total words produced; correct word sequences; number of punctuation marks and sentences produced) and text accuracy (proportion of words spelled correctly, correct word sequences and punctuation marks) of students aged 7–11 years in two short writing tasks (5 min).…”

“…Drawing on the “simple view of writing” (Berninger and Amtmann ; Berninger et al ), the study by Dockrell et al uses a curriculum‐based measure of writing (CBMW) designed to gauge the writing productivity (total words produced; correct word sequences; number of punctuation marks and sentences produced) and text accuracy (proportion of words spelled correctly, correct word sequences and punctuation marks) of students aged 7–11 years in two short writing tasks (5 min). The findings were that the CBMW would be a useful tool among a repertoire of methods of assessing pupils' writing and as a potential tool for targeting intervention for students struggling with writing but that it would not lead to improvements in teaching for struggling writers (Dockrell et al ).…”