Writing attainment in 9- to 11-year-olds: some differences between girls and boys in two genres

Beard, Roger; Burrell, Andrew

doi:10.1080/09500782.2010.502968

Cited by 36 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The lack of a significant group effect of gender on writing is at odds with some studies (Beard & Burrell, 2010;Bourke & Adams, 2011) although consistent with others (Cameron et al, 1995;Williams & Larkin, 2013). Although both fluency and quality are considered important in children's writing gender differences in writing fluency appear more robust (Berninger & Fuller, 1992;Williams & Larkin, 2013) and have been presumed to arise from boys' difficulty with the mechanics of handwriting (Daly, 2003).…”

Section: Elusive Gender Differencescontrasting

confidence: 39%

“…Explanation beyond description of the poor performance of some boys requires a more fine-grained analysis of factors which underpin individual differences in writing development. We concur with others (Beard & Burrell, 2010;Williams & Larkin, 2013) that there is a need for a systematic exploration controlling factors such as the age of the writers and the precision of writing aspects assessed across a range of genres and writing environments to understand how the writing products and processes of boys and girls may differ.…”

Section: Elusive Gender Differencesmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Large within-gender variation (Berninger & Fuller, 1992) and the differential distributions of the genders with males over-populating the extremes (Jones & Myhill, 2007) suggest that simply focussing on the disparity between average scores may obscure our understanding of what differs in the writing development of boys and girls (Beard & Burrell, 2010;Marinelli, Horne, McGeown, Zoccolotti & Martelli, 2014) moreover as this study shows may conceal more nuanced differences between boys and girls.…”

Section: Relationships Between Writing and Memorymentioning

confidence: 83%

“…For example, Bourke & Adams (2011) found a significant advantage for girls at even the very earliest stages of writing development (aged 4-5 years) both when rated on a number of educationally relevant criteria and on the linguistic features of texts. Beard & Burrell (2010) assigning ordinal scores for ratings in categories such as purpose and organisation, grammar, spelling and handwriting to the texts of 9-10 year-old children also revealed a significant advantage for girls. Comparisons of the overall quality of the written product have not always identified gender differences though (Cameron, Lee, Webster, Munro, Hunt & Linton, 1995;Williams & Larkin, 2013).…”

Section: Gender Differences In Writing Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An increased sample size would also allow additional cognitive measures to be contrasted within the regression analyses, for example the contribution of reading, spelling and vocabulary skills to writing fluency and quality (Sumner et al, 2014). It is also important to extend these findings to consider how the text genre (Beard & Burrell, 2010) and assessment metrics applied (Berninger, Whitaker, et al, 1996;Malecki & Jewell, 2003) may affect the conclusions drawn about the relative skills of boys and girls.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring relationships between working memory and writing: Individual differences associated with gender

Adams

Simmons

Willis

2015

Learning and Individual Differences

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Gender differences in the relationships between working memory (short-term storage and combined storage and processing) in both the visuo-spatial and verbal domains and children's alphabet transcription and text writing abilities were investigated. Data from 81 children (43 males) aged between 5;2 to 8;5 revealed no significant group differences between boys and girls in working memory or writing performance. However, individual differences analyses demonstrated variation associated with age and gender in the memory skills underpinning writing. Regression analyses revealed that verbal short-term memory abilities predicted the alphabet transcription skills of boys but not girls. Although visuo-spatial short-term memory predicted writing quality in both genders, predictors of writing fluency differed with verbal working memory skills predicting boys' writing fluency and visuo-spatial short-term memory predicting writing fluency in girls. The need to consider gender differences more critically from the perspective of individual differences in cognitive skills underpinning writing development and the strategic application of these skills during writing is discussed.

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Section: Elusive Gender Differencescontrasting

confidence: 39%

Section: Elusive Gender Differencesmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Relationships Between Writing and Memorymentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Gender Differences In Writing Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Exploring relationships between working memory and writing: Individual differences associated with gender

Adams

Simmons

Willis

2015

Learning and Individual Differences

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show abstract

Language and Gender in Educational Contexts

Menard–Warwick¹,

Mori²,

Williams³

2014

The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality

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Playful punctuation in primary children’s writing

Burrell¹,

Beard²

2022

British Educational Res J

Self Cite

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The writing of three attainment groups of 10‐ to 11‐year‐old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of an advertisement for a new dessert. Framed within a consideration of language play in general, and children’s use of punctuation in particular, the investigation revealed the ways in which primary children use playful punctuation in order to achieve their persuasive aims. There were clear differences between the attainment groups in both the content and range of these uses. The findings suggest that such uses—like language play as a whole—warrant further attention in educational research. Children use playful punctuation in distinctive ways without being prompted to do so. Future work needs to identify the writing tasks that enable the use of playful punctuation to flourish.

show abstract

Writing attainment in 9- to 11-year-olds: some differences between girls and boys in two genres

Cited by 36 publications

References 19 publications

Exploring relationships between working memory and writing: Individual differences associated with gender

Exploring relationships between working memory and writing: Individual differences associated with gender

Language and Gender in Educational Contexts

Playful punctuation in primary children’s writing

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