Writing fluency and quality in kindergarten and first grade: the role of attention, reading, transcription, and oral language

Abstract

In the present study, we examined the influence of kindergarten component skills on writing outcomes, both concurrently and longitudinally to first grade. Using data from 265 students, we investigated a model of writing development including attention regulation along with students’ reading, spelling, handwriting fluency, and oral language component skills. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that a model including attention was better fitting than a model with only language and literacy factors. Attention, a higher-order literacy factor related to reading and spelling proficiency, and automaticity in letter-writing were uniquely and positively related to compositional fluency in kindergarten. Attention and higher-order literacy factor were predictive of both composition quality and fluency in first grade, while oral language showed unique relations with first grade writing quality. Implications for writing development and instruction are discussed.

Toward an understanding of dimensions, predictors, and the gender gap in written composition.

“…Attention was another cognitive skill that was hypothesized to be important for writing (Berninger & Winn, 2006), and it was related to writing quality and CBM writing in the present study, confirming previous findings in first grade and in kindergarten (Kent et al, 2014; Kim et al, 2013). Interestingly, once children’s gender was accounted for, attentiveness was not related to writing quality although its relation remained for the CBM writing outcome.…”

“…Attention, in particular, has been shown to be related to writing for children in first and second grade (Hooper et al, 2002, 2011; Kent et al, 2014; Kim et al, 2014). Additional evidence underscoring the importance of attention in writing comes from studies with children who have Attention Deficits or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); converging evidence suggests that students with ADHD made more spelling and grammatical errors (Casas, Ferrer, & Fortea, 2013; Gregg, Coleman, Stennett, & Davis, 2002; Re, Pedron, & Cornoldi, 2007), made more content errors or digressions, and demonstrated weaker text structure features than children without ADHD (Casas et al, 2013).…”

Kindergarten predictors of third grade writing

“…We found that word reading and spelling were both highly related in kindergarten, which is convergent with previous studies with beginning readers and spellers (Ahmed et al, 2014; Kim, 2011; Kent et al, 2014 a ; Byrne & Fielding- Barnsley, 1993; Ehri, 2000; Juel et al, 1986). As transcription skills are necessary and release cognitive resources for high-order processes, its impact on both writing quality has been hypothesized in developmental models of writing (e.g., Berninger & Winn, 2006; Juel et al, 1986).…”

“…However, it should be noted that the writing outcome in Hooper’s study was not written composition, but was composed of letter writing automaticity, writing fluency (i.e., writing words related to a topic), and sentence combining tasks. In our previous study, we found that children attention using a teacher-rated SWAN measure was concurrently related to writing for children in grade 1 (Kent et al, 2014). Furthermore, children’s attention in kindergarten has been shown to be predictive of their writing in grade 1 (Kim et al, 2014 b ).…”

Examining the transcription-writing link: Effects of handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy on writing performance via planning and translating in middle grades

“…Anytime a student stopped writing he or she was prompted once to continue. Brief 5-minute writing tasks have been used extensively in prior writing research (Berninger et al, 1996;Connelly, Dockrell, Walter, & Critten, 2012;Graham et al, 1997;Kent, Wanzek, Petscher, Al Otaiba, & Kim, 2014), including curriculum-based measurement research (Espin et al, 2000), with proven validity (Dockrell, Connelly, Walter, & Critten, 2015;Lembke, Deno, & Hall, 2003). To control for potential prompt effects, half of the classes wrote the essay without planning to the prompt "Do you think teachers should give students homework every days?"…”