We examined the relations of language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension, and oral retell), transcription skills (spelling and handwriting fluency), and domain-general cognitions/executive functions (working memory and attentional control) to writing quality for English-Spanish emergent bilingual children in Grade 1. Data were from a convenience sample of 211 children (57% girls; 82% Hispanic, 9.5% White, 4% Asian American children) who were assessed on written composition, vocabulary, listening comprehension, oral retell, and spelling in English and Spanish; handwriting fluency and working memory in English; and attentional control rated by their teachers. Confirmatory factor analysis results showed that writing quality in English and Spanish in narrative and opinion genres was best described as a unidimensional skill. Structural equation model results showed that English oral language, English spelling, and Spanish spelling skills, but not Spanish oral language skill, were independently related to writing quality, after controlling for gender, English learner status, Hispanic status, and enrollment in dual immersion program. The relations of working memory and attentional control to writing quality were indirect, mediated by oral language and transcription skills. These results are discussed in light of theory and in the context of emergent bilingual children in primary grades.

Abstract: We investigated spelling errors in English and Spanish essays by Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 1, 2, and 3 (N = 278; 51% female) enrolled in either English immersion or English-Spanish dual immersion programs. We examined what types of spelling errors students made, whether they made spelling errors that could be due to crosslinguistic influence, and whether errors were associated with instructional program, English learner status, and grade level. Compositions were transcribed and coded using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software. Spelling errors were suggestive of crosslinguistic influence that was mostly unidirectional from one language to the other rather than bidirectional. Spelling errors were related to instructional program such that students in Spanish-English dual immersion made more English spelling errors in English compositions due to Spanish influence, and students in English immersion made more spelling errors in Spanish compositions due to English influence. Students in higher grades also made less English spelling errors in English compositions due to Spanish influence than students in lower grades. These findings suggest that dual language learners acquire spelling patterns in one language influenced by instruction and home language, which transfers to spelling in the other language.

Purpose

Children's ability to adjust one's language according to discourse context is important for success in academic settings. This study examined whether second graders vary in linguistic and discourse features depending on discourse contexts, that is, when describing pictures in contextualized (describing the picture to an examiner while looking at it together) and decontextualized (pretending to describe the picture to a friend while sitting in front of the examiner) conditions.

Method

A total of 330 English-speaking second graders in the United States (M _age = 7.33 years; 53% boys; 55% Caucasian children, 35% African American children) described three pictures in contextualized and decontextualized conditions. Children's picture descriptions were transcribed verbatim and coded for linguistic (e.g., elaborated noun phrase) and discourse (e.g., proper character introduction, degree of decontextualization) features.

Results

Type-token ratio was higher in the contextualized condition than in the decontextualized condition, whereas certain types of elaborated noun phrases (e.g., simple descriptive noun phrase, noun phrase with postmodification), coordinating conjunctions, and nonclauses occurred more frequently in the decontextualized condition, controlling for total productivity and student demographics. The proportion of proper character introduction was higher in the decontextualized condition, whereas higher degrees of decontextualization and complex perspective-taking were found in the contextualized condition.

Conclusion

Various linguistic and discourse cues illustrated the extent to which primary grade students employ their discourse knowledge when producing oral language.

We investigated the contributions of multiple strands of factors-individual characteristics (struggling reader status, working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, knowledge-based inference, theory of mind, comprehension monitoring), a text feature (narrative vs. expository genre), and question types (literal and inferential)-to one's performance on discourse comprehension in oral language (listening comprehension), using data from 529 second graders. Results from explanatory item response models revealed that substantial variance in listening comprehension was attributable to differences between items, texts, and children, respectively. Narrative versus expository genre distinctions explained almost all of the variance attributable to text differences. In contrast, literal versus inferential question distinctions did not explain item responses after accounting for text and reading comprehension status. However, there was a moderation between struggling reader status and question type such that struggling readers had a slightly higher (2%) probability of getting inferential questions right compared to typically developing readers, after accounting for individual and text factors. Struggling readers have a lower probability of accurate item responses than typically developing readers, but the difference disappeared once language and cognitive skills (e.g., working memory, vocabulary) were taken into consideration. The effects of text genre and question type on item responses did not differ as a function of children's language and cognitive skills. Overall, these results underscore the importance of considering individual, text, and assessment factors for children's performance in listening comprehension.

It is widely recognized that individuals with dyslexia have difficulties with word reading and spelling, and individuals with reading comprehension difficulties have low vocabulary knowledge. However, little is known about the extent to which spelling and vocabulary are informative of reading difficulties. In the present study, we investigated whether information on students' spelling and vocabulary in kindergarten increases the precision of identifying students with reading difficulties, using longitudinal data from kindergarten to Grade 2. The sample was composed of 247 kindergartners (55% boys; 56% White children, 35% African American children, and 5% mixed-race children; 72% from low SES) who were followed to Grade 2. Spelling improved the accuracy of identifying students who experienced word reading difficulties in kindergarten and Grade 1. In contrast, vocabulary did not improve the accuracy of identifying students with reading difficulties over and above word reading and spelling. These results indicate the importance and utility of including spelling, in addition to word reading, as an integral part of accurately identifying children with reading difficulties as early as kindergarten. In addition, although vocabulary did not contribute additional predictive power, it is likely to exert its influence at a later phase of reading development.

This study examined the extent of perspective taking and language features represented in secondary students’ text-based analytical writing. We investigated (1) whether perspective taking is related to writing quality, accounting for language features in writing; (2) whether students’ English learner status is related to perspectives represented in their writing; and (3) whether the relation between perspective taking and writing quality differs by the level of language features (e.g., syntactic diversity, appropriate word usage, and tone). Secondary students’ text-based analytical essays (N= 195, Grades 7–12) were coded for perspective taking and language features and analyzed using multiple regression. There was a higher frequency of own-side perspectives than dual perspectives. Dual perspective was related to writing quality after accounting for student demographics and grade levels. However, the relation was no longer statistically significant when language features were accounted for. English learners exhibited significantly less own-side perspectives compared to their English-only counterparts, but there was no difference in dual perspectives, which might be due to overall low frequency of dual perspectives represented in students’ text-based analytical writing. The findings suggest the roles of both perspective taking and language features in quality writing.

Perspective taking, one's knowledge of their own mental and emotional states and inferences about others' mental and emotional states, is an important skill for writing development. In the present study, we examined how perspective taking is expressed in writing and how it is related to overall writing quality. We analyzed seventh graders' source-based analytical essays (N = 195) to investigate (1) the extent to which students incorporated perspective taking in their essays, (2) how the extent of perspective taking in essays differ by students' sex and English learner status, and (3) the extent to which perspective taking in writing is associated with overall writing quality. Findings revealed that students wrote more from their own perspective than that of others. Moreover, the results of multi-level analyses suggested that female students exhibited more varied perspectives but there was no meaningful difference by English learner status. Lastly, greater extent of perspective taking, particularly that of higher level of perspectives (i.e., dual perspective), was associated with better writing quality, after accounting for students' demographic backgrounds (e.g., sex, poverty status, English learner status) and essay length. These results underscore the importance of writing from multiple perspectives on writing quality.

Researchers have identified sources of individual differences in writing across beginning and developing writers. The aim of the present study was to further clarify the sources of this variability by investigating the extent to which there are differences in genetic and environmental factors underlying the associations between lexical diversity, syntactic knowledge, and semantic cohesion knowledge in relation to writing. Differences were examined across two developmental phases of writing: beginning (i.e., elementary school) and developing (i.e., middle school). Participants included 262 twin pairs (Mage = 10.88 years) in elementary school and 247 twin pairs (Mage = 13.21 years) in middle school. Twins were drawn from the Florida Twin Project on Reading, Behavior, and Environment. Biometric models were conducted separately for subgroups defined by phase of writing development. Results indicated significant etiological differences in writing components across the two phases, such that effects associated with genes and non-shared environment were greater while effects associated with shared environment were lower in developing writers as compared to beginning writers. Furthermore, results showed that child-specific environment was the largest contributor to individual differences in writing components and their covariation for both beginning and developing writers. These results imply that even direct instruction about writing in schools may be having different effects on children based on their unique experiences.

We examined the relation of morphological awareness with language and literacy skills, namely phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, vocabulary, word reading, spelling, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension. We also examined potential moderators of the relations (grade level, orthographic depth of language, receptive vs. productive morphological awareness, inflectional vs. derivational vs. compound morphological awareness, and L1/L2 status). After systematic search, a total of 232 articles (965 unique samples, N = 49,936 participants, and 2,765 effect sizes in 17 languages) met inclusion criteria. Morphological awareness was, on average, moderately related to phonological awareness (r =.41), orthographic awareness (r =.39), vocabulary (r =.50), word reading (r =.49), spelling (r =.48), text reading fluency (r =.53), and reading comprehension (r =.54). Importantly, morphological awareness had a stronger relation with word reading in orthographically deep languages (.52) than in orthographically shallow languages (.38). The relation with vocabulary was stronger for upper elementary grades than for primary grades. The magnitude of the relation also varied by the nature of morphological awareness: productive morphological awareness had a stronger relation with phonological awareness and vocabulary than receptive morphological awareness; derivational morphological awareness had a stronger relation with vocabulary and word reading compared to inflectional morphological awareness; and compound morphological awareness had a weaker relation with phonological awareness but a stronger relation with vocabulary compared to inflectional morphological awareness. These results underscore the importance of morphological awareness in language and literacy skills, and reveal a nuanced and precise picture of their relations.

This article provides three major contributions to the literature: we provide granular information on the development of student argumentative writing across secondary school; we replicate the MacArthur et al. model of Natural Language Processing (NLP) writing features that predict quality with a younger group of students; and we are able to examine the differences for students across language status. In our study, we sought to find the average levels of text length, cohesion, connectives, syntactic complexity, and word-level complexity in this sample across Grades 7-12 by sex, by English learner status, and for essays scoring above and below the median holistic score. Mean levels of variables by grade suggest a developmental progression with respect to text length, with the text length increasing with grade level, but the other variables in the model were fairly stable. Sex did not seem to affect the model in meaningful ways beyond the increased fluency of women writers. We saw text length and word level differences between initially designated and redesignated bilingual students compared to their English-only peers. Finally, we see that the model works better with our higher scoring essays and is less effective explaining the lower scoring essays.