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The Effects of Sentence-Combining Instruction on the Writing of Fourth-Grade Students With Writing Difficulties

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Abstract

One area of writing that may be particularly problematic for less skilled writers and writers with learning disabilities is constructing well-formed sentences. In this single-subject design study, sentence-combining practice with a peer-assistance component was used to improve the writing ability of 6 fourth-grade students with and without learning disabilities. The results support the use of sentence-combining practice to increase sentence construction ability. Furthermore, sentence-combining instruction led to gains in story quality and writing complexity.

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... Darüber hinaus vermuten sie indirekte positive Effekte auf die Revisionskompetenz von Schüler*innen über die Lesekompetenz, der im dynamischen Schreibprozess, der als Alternation von Phasen des Schreibens, Lesens und Überarbeitens (Hayes & Flower, 1980;Hayes, 2012) charakterisiert werden kann, eine bedeutende Rolle zukommt (Tong & McBride, 2016, S. 1282. Vor diesem Hintergrund überrascht es nicht, dass schreibdidaktische Interventionen, die syntaktische Bewusstheit über das Verknüpfen einfacher Sätze zu komplexen Satzgefügen in den Mittelpunkt stellen, positive Effekte auf die Schreibkompetenz von Schüler*innen erzielen (Saddler & Graham, 2005;Saddler et al., 2008). Einige Studien deuten auch darauf hin, dass syntaktische Bewusstheit gemeinsam mit morphologischer Bewusstheit in den höheren Schulstufen an Bedeutung gewinnt, wohingegen phonologische Bewusstheit zunehmend in den Hintergrund tritt (Bowey, 1988;Cummins, 2000;Carlisle, 2003;Sun et al., 2018). ...
... Implizit spielt das Konstrukt allerdings in vielen interpunktionsdidaktischen Ansätzen (zusammenfassend: Esslinger & Noack, 2020) eine Rolle, in denen davon ausgegangen wird, dass Schüler*innen ein Verständnis für syntaktische Muster und Relationen aufbauen müssen, um die Interpunktion (nicht nur) des Deutschen sicher beherrschen zu können. Ebenfalls implizit spielt das Konstrukt in der amerikanischen Schreibinterventionsforschung eine Rolle, und zwar unter dem Begriff sentence combining (Saddler & Graham, 2005;Saddler et al., 2008;Walter et al., 2021). Bei diesem Ansatz, der den Metaanalysen von Andrews et al. (2006) und Graham und Perin (2007) zufolge mittlere Effekte auf die Schreibkompetenz erzielt, lernen Schüler*innen, wie sie einfache Sätze zu komplexeren Sätzen verbinden können. ...
... Methodisch enthält die Fördermaßnahme neben Übungseinheiten auch Phasen des Modelllernens, in denen die Lehrkraft die Möglichkeiten der Satzverbindung vorexerziert, Diskussions-und Reflexionsphasen sowie Tandemlernsettings, in denen die Schüler*innen abwechselnd in die Rolle von Tutor*innen schlüpfen. Den Interventionsstudien von Saddler et al. (2008) und Walter et al. (2021) zufolge ist sentence combining auch für die Förderung besonders schwacher Schreiber*innen geeignet. ...
... Notably, the combined sentences in those stories were created almost exclusively with "but" as a coordinating conjunction and "because" as a subordinating conjunction, rather than with multiple varied dependent clauses. Saddler, Behforooz, and Asaro (2008) extended this work by applying the sentencecombining technique to six students who were identified by their teachers as either having a learning disability or as demonstrating weak writing skills. This study was a multiple-baselineacross-participants design. ...
... Thus, previous work on sentence combining has demonstrated its effectiveness with school-age writers when it has included multiple target structures, such as embedding adjectives and/or adverbs (Saddler & Graham, 2005), adding prepositional phrases (Saddler et al., 2008), and increasing the use of the conjunctions "and," "but," and "because" (Saddler & Graham, 2005). The main aim of the current study was to extend this previous work on sentence combining by specifically targeting the use of the conjunctions "before," "while," "until," "if," and "unless" to create complex written sentences. ...
... The use of these conjunctions would contribute to varied sentence structure, which students are expected to use as they produce high-quality written work. Similar to Saddler and Graham (2005) and Saddler et al. (2008), this study treated students identified by their teachers as weak writers, and it used a multiple-baseline-across-participants design, where each student served as his or her own control (Alnadi, 2015). Dependent measures included performance on the Sentence Combining subtest of the Test of Written Language-Fourth Edition (TOWL-4; Hammill & Larsen, 2009), which was administered pre-and posttreatment, and the number of complex sentences in written samples produced during the baseline, treatment, and posttreatment phases of the study. ...
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This study used a multiple-baseline-across-participants design to measure the effect of sentence-combining treatment provided to 6 school-age students who were identified by their teachers as being weak writers. The treatment aimed to increase the number of complex sentences in written samples by instructing students to combine simple sentences using specific conjunctions (e.g., before, while, if, until, unless). Students completed a standardized subtest of sentence combining from the Test of Written Language–Fourth Edition ( Hammill & Larsen, 2009 ) pre- and posttreatment. Data on the number of complex sentences were collected from written samples produced during the baseline, treatment, and posttreatment phases. Results indicated that 3 of the 6 students earned higher scores on the standardized subtest of sentence-combining posttreatment, whereas the other 3 did not. Five of the 6 students showed positive, albeit generally weak, treatment effects for the number of complex sentences written. These results suggest that sentence-combining treatment may have the potential to increase the use of complex syntax in writing for some students identified as weak writers, though individual responses to treatment varied considerably.
... Writers must consider lexical, syntactical, grammatical, mechanical (e.g., punctuation), and rhetorical choices for each sentence they construct (Fayol, 2016); because this process is so complex and cognitively demanding, researchers contend that composing a sentence is akin to the process required to plan and organize an entire composition (Furey, Marcotte, Wells, & Hintze, 2017;Saddler, 2013). Because struggling writers and SWSLD typically lack the linguistic skills required to produce complete, interesting, and varied sentences, their compositions are often less coherent and less complex, which negatively impacts overall writing quality (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008). Therefore, it is important to improve the sentence construction skills of struggling writers and SWSLD not only to increase their writing fluency but also to improve the quality of their written compositions (Datchuk & Kubina, 2013;Saddler et al., 2008). ...
... Because struggling writers and SWSLD typically lack the linguistic skills required to produce complete, interesting, and varied sentences, their compositions are often less coherent and less complex, which negatively impacts overall writing quality (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008). Therefore, it is important to improve the sentence construction skills of struggling writers and SWSLD not only to increase their writing fluency but also to improve the quality of their written compositions (Datchuk & Kubina, 2013;Saddler et al., 2008). ...
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Purpose The purpose of this narrative review of the literature is to provide a description of intensive interventions for elementary grade students with dyslexia, students with learning disabilities, and students with intensive reading and writing needs. Method First, we provide a brief overview of response to intervention. Second, we explain our theoretical framework for the review. Third, we describe evidence-based interventions, which are divided into predominantly reading or writing interventions. Fourth, we explain data-based individualization for these programs based on a taxonomy of intensity, and we provide an illustrative case study. Conclusion We conclude by describing a set of links to websites and technical assistance resources that may be helpful for speech-language pathologists, teachers, and other interventionists to stay current with this research base and to lead professional learning communities.
... Further evidence of the role of oral language skills in writing comes from studies involving children with oral language impairment (Bishop & Clarkson, 2003;Dockrell, Lindsay, Connelly, & Mackie, 2007). In addition, the effectiveness of instruction in syntax for enhancing writing performance among elementary grade students underscores the significance of grammatical skills for writing development (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008;Saddler & Graham, 2005). Longitudinal evidence regarding the contribution of oral language skills to writing is limited. ...
... This is aligned with the idea that children have to be trained more extensively in self-regulation skills in order to manage written composition (Altemeier et al., 2008;. Such training may be crucial, as evidence exists that enhancing syntactic complexity of written composition positively impacts on overall compositional quality (Saddler & Graham, 2005;Saddler et al., 2008). Furthermore, although there is a general lack of syntax-focused instruction in current writing curricula (Beers & Nagy, 2009), our findings demonstrate that children do progress significantly on the syntactic complexity of written narratives in the upper elementary grades. ...
Article
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The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of transcription skills, oral language skills, and executive functions to growth in narrative writing between fourth and sixth grade. While text length and story content of narratives did not increase with age, syntactic complexity of narratives showed a clear developmental progression. Results from path analyses revealed that later syntactic complexity of narrative writing was, in addition to initial syntactic complexity, predicted by oral grammar, inhibition, and planning. These results are discussed in light of the changes that characterize writing development in the upper elementary grades. More specifically, this study emphasizes the relevance of syntactic complexity as a developmental marker as well as the importance of executive functions for later writing development.
... Les activités issues du dispositif 3 ont pour objectif de « [permettre] la pratique dirigée et réfléchie de manipulation et de réécriture de phrases simples en phrases syntaxiquement plus matures [complexes] et variées »(Saddler, 2005, cité dans Quevillon Lacasse et al., 2018. Adaptée de l'activité de « sentence combining »(Saddler, 2019;Saddler et al., 2008), qui a montré des effets positifs significatifs en écriture(Graham et Perrin, 2007), l'activité de combinaison de phrases propose aux élèves de construire, à partir de quatre ou cinq PSynt courtes et simples, une seule PGraph contenant toutes les informations des PSynt. Après l'étape de composition individuelle et le choix par l'enseignant·e d'une ou deux phrases à analyser, une discussion à caractère métalinguistique guidée par l'enseignant·e permet de nommer les procédés qui ont permis de combiner les PSynt en une seule PGraph, qu'il s'agisse de coordination, de subordination, d'ajout de compléments ou de groupes nominaux (« densification du GN »), ou d'autres procédés(Nadeau et al., 2020c). ...
Article
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Les textes des élèves du primaire et du secondaire montrent une forte proportion d’erreurs à l’écrit relevant de la ponctuation (Boivin et Pinsonneault, 2018, entre autres). Or, l’enseignement de la ponctuation n’offre souvent aux élèves que des possibilités limitées d'améliorer leur contrôle de l’usage des signes en contexte d'écriture (Riverin et Dufour, 2018). Cet article présente une étude de type quasi-expérimental impliquant 16 classes de français de 3e cycle du primaire et de 1er cycle du secondaire au Québec (10 à 13 ans). Les élèves des groupes expérimentaux ont réalisé une séquence de 20 activités mettant en œuvre trois dispositifs didactiques innovants, conçus au cours d’une première phase de la recherche, en concertation avec les enseignantes et enseignants. Ces dispositifs visent à améliorer la ponctuation et la syntaxe à l’écrit. Nous présenterons les résultats tirés de l’analyse de courts textes écrits au prétest et au posttest (deux textes à chaque temps: un descriptif et un narratif) dans le groupe expérimental et le groupe contrôle en lien avec des variables de réussites dans la segmentation en phrases graphiques (majuscule-point) et dans la ponctuation à l’intérieur des phrases graphiques et des phrases syntaxiques (sujet + prédicat (+ complément(s) de phrase)), pour quelques règles d’usage de la virgule.
... The activities stemming from device 3 aim to "[provide] direct, mindful practice in manipulating and rewriting basic or kernel sentences into more syntactically mature or varied forms" (Saddler, 2005, p. 468). Adapted from the "sentence combining" activity (Saddler, 2019;Saddler et al., 2008), which has shown significant positive effects on writing skills (Graham & Perin, 2007), the sentence combining activity proposes that students construct, from four or five short, simple SyntS, a single GraphS containing all the information from the series of given SyntS. After the individual combining step, and the teacher's choice of one or two combined sentences for whole-group analysis, a teacherguided metalinguistic discussion allows the students to name the processes that were used to combine the SyntS into a single GraphS, be they coordination, subordination, adding complements to a noun phrase ("densification of the noun phrase"), or other processes (Nadeau et al., 2020c). ...
Article
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The texts of primary and secondary school students show a high proportion of written errors related to punctuation (Boivin and Pinsonneault, 2018, among others). Yet punctuation instruction often offers students only limited opportunities to improve their control of sign usage in a writing context (Riverin and Dufour, 2018). This article presents a quasi-experimental study involving 16 French classes from cycle 3 of primary school and cycle 1 of secondary school in Quebec (age 10 to 13). Students in the experimental groups carried out a sequence of 20 activities implementing three innovative didactic devices, designed during a first phase of the research, in collaboration with the participating teachers. The aim was to improve punctuation and syntax in writing. We will present results drawn from the analysis of short texts written at pre-test and post-test (two texts at each time: one descriptive and one narrative) in the experimental and control groups, in relation to success variables in segmentation into graphic sentences (capital letter & full stop), and in punctuation within graphic sentences and syntactic sentences (clauses, i.e. subject + predicate (+ sentence adverbial(s)), for some comma usage rules.
... Sentence combining exercises are a mainstay of several intervention protocols reviewed in the previous section and are often featured in programs designed to improve student writing (Saddler et al., 2008;Scott & Nelson, 2009). When compared to other writing instruction protocols, sentence combining ranked fifth out of 11 programs in a meta-analysis where the rank of each program was determined by a weighted effect size calculation (Graham & Perin, 2007). ...
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Purpose In this article, we present key concepts pointing to the importance of targeting complex sentences for school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorders (DLD). Drawing on current treatment research, we argue that the sentence is a crucial but often neglected piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding relationships between DLD and academic outcomes. We provide detailed suggestions for how clinicians can focus on complex sentence structures in natural academic contexts to bridge this gap. Method Background information on sentence complexity is presented, along with a rationale for targeting complex sentences with school-age children and adolescents with DLD. Intervention methods from a variety of studies targeting multiclausal sentences are discussed in relation to current accounts of language learning and language processing models. We provide a robust catalog of suggested strategies for targeting sentence complexity in a manner that is aligned with research findings to date and integrated into real academic contexts. Conclusions Complex sentence structures are a key challenge for students with DLD as they tackle discipline-specific language and academic tasks. Sentence complexity treatment programs employ one or more treatment methods including priming, modeling, recasting, contextualization, metalinguistic instruction, and sentence combining. While studies have consistently shown a measurable improvement in complex sentence production on proximal outcomes regardless of treatment approach, evidence of durable, functional changes for students with DLD remains sparse. We encourage new treatments that target comprehension and production of complex sentences in real-life academic contexts in clinical practice and research. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23969103
... Further, as they improve on their ability to write their ideas, they often produce run-ons that may link more closely to their oral language productions but lack appropriate mechanics for written language such as punctuation. Sentence combining is an effective and evidence-based approach that can improve students' sentence production, sentence clarity, and writing quality (Graham et al., 2012;Saddler et al., 2008;Strong, 1985Strong, , 1986. In sentence combining, two or more simple sentences are combined to form a longer sentence that, depending on the combination, can be a compound or complex sentence (see Table 4 for an example). ...
Article
The purpose of this paper is to explain how teachers can build on children's oral language resources to support writing. Thus, we offer recommendations and specific examples for classroom applications that connect oral language with written expression. Specifically, we provide examples on the transition from phonemic awareness to phonics to word writing to sentence writing, and to oral and written responses that address genre expectations. Specifically, we address sentence rehearsals, sentence expansion, and sentence combining that teachers can model and collaboratively conduct so learners use oral language as a vehicle for written production and communication with readers.
... Furthermore, their inadequacy in the field of literacy negatively affects their success and performance. When we investigated in depth the related literature, we found that researchers focused students' reading (Baydık, 2002;Bingöl, 2003;Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler 2002;Fidan & Akyol, 2011;Gilbert, Williams, & Mclaughlin 1996;Görgün & Melekoğlu 2019;Özmen, 2005;Sezgin & Akyol 2015) and writing skills (Akçin, 2009;Hallenbeck, 2002;İlker & Melekoğlu 2017;Kaya, 2016;Maki, Vauras, & Vainio 2002;Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008;Saddler, 2006;Temur, Şahin, & Özdemir, 2019). The students with learning disabilities experience reading and writing problems and other areas of disciplines such as math, reading comprehension, social skills, and generalization of the concepts (Therrien, Taylor, Hosp, Kaldenberg, & Gorsh, 2011). ...
Article
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This study aimed to develop a science experiments guidebook (based on discussion method and enriched worksheet) for fourth grade mainstreamed students with learning disabilities and to investigate its effect on their conceptual understanding of the "Matter and its Nature", "Living Things and Life", "Physical Events" and "Earth and The Universe" learning domains. Furthermore, mixtures, sieving, filtration, magnetism (Matter and its Nature), recycling (Living Things and Life), simple electrical circuit (Physical Events), and fossil (Earth and The Universe) concepts/issues were determined. Since the aim is to investigate the conceptual understanding of five 4th grade students with learning disabilities, the case study method was used. Conceptual understanding tests, drawing tests, and semi-structured interviews were used as data collection tools. The science experiments guidebook was presented to the students in worksheet format. Besides, worksheets were enriched with avatar images, mobile applications (QR codes), hands-on experiments, and active learning techniques (brainstorming, buzz 22, aquarium, and snowball). As a result of the research, it can be said that the science experiments guidebook had a positive effect on the conceptual understanding of students with learning disabilities.
... It started to rain so we ran inside. and are taught how to combine the kernel sentences into a longer sentence, sometimes using a specific conjunction like "and," "but," or "because" (Saddler & Graham, 2005;Saddler et al., 2008). For example, an educator may present the two kernel sentences, "The ice cream was chocolate" and "The ice cream was delicious" and model how to combine them into one sentence, "The chocolate ice cream was delicious." ...
Article
Fluent production of a variety of grammatically correct sentences is essential to overall writing quality across genres. Sentence-production skills become increasingly important as students prepare to transition from the elementary grades to middle-school. Many students in the upper-elementary grades, however, struggle with sentence production skills-especially writers with a learning disability. This paper provides useful information for educators focusing on improving the quality of sentence-level writing skills for students with learning disabilities in Grades 3-5. Specifically, guidance is provided for using (a) assessment to inform sentence-level intervention and (b) a sequence of instructional practices for improving foundational sentence-level production skills.
... SC has a big study base (Scott, 2009) which has made SC the most frequently suggested syntax and writing interventions (Eberhardt, 2013). SC was reported to enhance simplified (a) phrase building (Scott, 2009), (b) syntactic strength (O'Hare, 1973), and (c) submitted performance (Saddler, Asaro, & Behforooz, 2008). Researchers have also considered SC a legitimate procedure for the written assessment, development and documentation of development (Nelson, 2013). ...
... In Sessions 6 and 7, the focus was on the use of inter-sentential links (connectives and pronominal references) and the construction of complex (main plus subordinate) sentences. As in sentence combining (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008;Saddler & Graham, 2005), the games were aimed at increasing students' awareness of the logical meaning of connectives and their ability to use them (as well as pronominal references) to integrate information from different sentences. ...
Article
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Text generation-the mental translation of ideas into language at word, sentence, and discourse levels-involves oral language abilities. However, oral language skills are rarely a target of writing interventions. We ran an intervention to improve fifth and 10th graders' written production through the development of oral sentence generation (grammatical and syntactic) skills. One hundred and fifteen students-68 fifth graders (four classrooms) and 47 tenth graders (four classrooms)-participated in a stepped-wedge cluster-randomized controlled trial. Two fifth-grade classrooms (n = 35) and two 10th-grade classrooms (n = 20) received nine 90-min sessions (3 weeks, three sessions a week) of oral language intervention immediately after the pretest (experimental groups); the two other fifth-(n = 33) and 10th-grade classrooms (n = 27) received business-as-usual writing instruction and received a delayed oral language intervention after the posttest (waiting list group). The intervention consisted of team-based games to improve oral sentence generation and sentence reformulation skills. We assessed written sentence generation, written sentence reformulation, written text quality (macrostructure and language), and text writing fluency before (pretest) and after (posttest) the intervention and 5 weeks after the intervention (follow-up). The results showed that training on oral sentence generation skills can lead to significant gains in both sentence generation and sentence reformulation skills and text macrostructural quality. Improvement at the sentence level was, however, significant only for the younger writers (fifth graders).
... Such activities are known to improve syntactic maturity in students' texts and have been experimented since the 1970s in the U.S. (e.g. O'Hare, 1973), but they have recently regained interest in research showing their positive effect at different school levels (Graham & Perrin, 2007;Saddler et al., 2008;Limpo & Alves, 2013). To our knowledge, sentence-combining has not yet been experimented in a French-speaking context. ...
Article
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The notion of sentence may seem clear to many, but in French L1 writing, students at the end of elementary school or at the beginning of secondary school experience some difficulties in punctuation, and their sentences often lack syntactic complexity. These areas of writing production are particularly important for students to gain control over sentence construction. During the first phase of a research project, we developed new teaching devices to address this problem through collaborative work with teachers and teacher consultants, which led to the creation of a sequence for students aged 10 to 14. In this paper, we will first explain why the notions of phrase syntaxique (literally 'syntactic sentence') and phrase graphique (literally 'graphic sentence') were chosen as key grammar concepts to talk about and justify syntactic and punctuation phenomena in French L1 writing. We will then demonstrate how these two notions were introduced to students in the sequence, through a first teaching device, and how they were mobilised to support whole-group metalinguistic discussions within two other teaching devices, which focused on punctuation and syntax.
... It is not uncommon that they put vocabulary words in a random order to form a sentence, which is usually considered ungrammatical. Saddler, Behforooz, and Asaro (2008) pointed out that the problems with writing may be caused by students' insufficient knowledge of English sentence patterns, and it is quite often that EFL students make grammatical errors and have problems producing compound or complex sentences. In order to promote EFL students' writing ability, nurture their global perspective, and motivate them to learn English, the researcher propose to make use of different learning programs online to create a framework of basic English sentence patterns, to which students can apply to create their own short stories. ...
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This study aims at providing Taiwanese students at different levels of study with a cloud language learning tool. The design of the learning tool can be divided into three stages. The first stage is the design of the curriculum. It combines paper learning log sheet with a simple computer program to help students write short essays and “tell” the stories. Findings of this study showed that students were highly motivated to make use of the computer learning tool to practice English sentence patterns and to create short essays. In the second stage, the researcher developed a cloud English learning tool that can be used in different types of computer facilities. This learning tool aims at helping students practicing English sentence patterns and at providing teachers with tools to monitor students learning process and performance. In the third stage, the researcher applied this computer learning tool to vocational high school students. The participants were two classes of high school seniors in New Taipei city, with 34 students in each class. One of the two classes was assigned as the experimental group and the other class the control group. The experimental group practiced English sentence patterns, using the cloud English learning tool. The control group was provided with paper handouts and was taught in a traditional way. The results showed a significant difference in performance between the two groups of students, with an F value 4.563 (p<.05). The experimental group had higher mean scores than the control group had. We may conclude that the cloud English learning tool can improve vocational high school students’ English writing skills. In the three-stage study, the researcher found that students at different levels of study used different types of computer facilities, for example, senior high school students used smart phones or notebooks, junior high school students used desktops in the computer lab, and elementary school students used learning log sheets to learn. Therefore, the researcher integrated HTML 5 and jQuery into a learning system and provided teachers with learning logs forms to download. That is, teachers can apply this learning system to students of different levels of study. The goal of this learning tool is to help students write short English essays.
... The sentence combining intervention is used at the sentence writing level. The study conducted by Datchuk,et al.,in [15] and Saddler,et al.,in [19] applied sentence-combining interventions to students with learning difficulties and students at risk in grades 3 and 4. Sentence-combining interventions are interventions to address difficulties in developing sentences and story. Sentence combining includes re-writing activities and revising the writing to be more effective and interesting. ...
... While the importance of sentence level skills have been emphasised in this study, further research is required to determine how to best translate this knowledge into practice. There is evidence that students benefit from sentence level work to improve overall writing quality (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008), further highlighting the importance of sentence level skills. A series of small-scale interventions to improve sentence construction in middle school students has also had some success with sentence construction (Datchuk, 2016) and provides the basis to develop future work. ...
Article
Conceptualising the difficulties experienced by struggling writers in middle elementary school is of both theoretical and practical importance. To further our understanding of the problems experienced by struggling writers we aimed to identify the writing measure which best discriminated struggling writers from their peers, and the proximal and distal factors which contributed to performance. The performance of 96 students (Mean age 10; 4), 39 of whom were independently identified as struggling writers using a norm referenced standardised test, was examined at word, sentence, and text level. Standardised measures of transcription, oral language and working memory were collected. The extent to which independent product and process writing measures accurately identified the students was tested using ROC analyses. The skills which underpinned performance were examined using regression analyses and path analysis. Written sentence generation was the most sensitive and specific measure to identify struggling writers at this point in development and, was concurrently predicted by both oral sentence level skills, handwriting fluency and listening span. Path models demonstrated that oral language contributed both directly and indirectly to sentence level writing. Implications for developmental models of writing and support for struggling writers are discussed.
... No replication studies evaluated a math intervention. Interestingly, one affiliated team of researchers, S. Graham, K. Harris, and researchers they had trained, produced five of the seven writing studies (e.g., Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008;Sexton, Harris, & Graham, 1998). The 12 academic focused interventions involved a balance of experimental methods. ...
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Replication is a critical aspect of scientific inquiry that presents a variety of challenges to researchers, even under the best of conditions. We conducted a review of replication rates in special education journals similar to the review conducted by Makel et al. in this issue. Unknowingly conducting independent reviews allowed for an unexpected opportunity to examine how two teams of researchers attempted to replicate a previously published study and explore similarities and differences between the outcomes. In our review, we identified 70 replication studies published between 1997 and 2013, indicating that 0.41% of published articles in special education journals are replication studies. Similar to findings reported by Makel et al., our review indicates that most replications are successful and that successful replications are more likely when author overlap occurs. Although there are similar patterns in the two data sets, an examination of exact agreement on article inclusion revealed an agreement rate of 15.2%. Possible explanations for the discrepancy and implications for future directions are provided.
... Yazma güçlükleri ile ilgili olarak uluslararası literatürde; yazma güçlüklerinin önlenmesi (Graham, Harris, & Fink, 2000;Graham, Harris, & Larsen, 2001;Saddler, Moran, Graham, & Harris, 2004), şiddetli yazma güçlüğü çeken ilköğretim öğrencileri için yansıtıcı yazım stratejileri ile ilgili vaka incelemesi (Mäki, Vauras, & Vainio, 2002), cezaevi mahkûmlarının okuma-yazma güçlükleri (Samuelsson, Herkner, & Lundberg, 2003), yazma güçlüğü olan ve olmayan öğrencilerin karşılaştırılması (Rosenblum vd., 2004), el yazısı sorunları olan çocuklarda algısalmotor fonksiyon bozukluğu ve bilişsel planlama problemlerinin el yazısının kalitesine veya hızına etkisinin belirlenmesi (Volman, van Schendel, & Jongmans, 2006), öz-düzenlemeli strateji geliştirme modelinin davranış bozukluğu ve yazma güçlüğü bulunan ikinci sınıf öğrencilerinin yazma performansına etkileri (Lane vd., 2008), cümle birleştirme eğitiminin yazma güçlüğü bulunan dördüncü sınıf öğrencilerine etkileri (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008), yazma güçlüğü olan öğrenciler için etkili yazma öğretimi (Santangelo & Olinghouse, 2009), yazma güçlüğü bulunan öğrenciler için öz-düzenlemeli strateji geliştirme eğitimi (Mason, Harris, & Graham, 2011), öğrenme ve yazma güçlüğü bulunan öğrencilere verilen cümle düzeyinde yazma becerisi eğitiminin incelenmesi (Datchuk & Kubina, 2012) ile ilgili çalışmaların yer aldığı görülmektedir. ...
... Consistent with prior single-subject research, each assessment score for individual participants was plotted on a graph, with trends and changes examined and documented (German, 2002;Hapstak & Tracey, 2007;Saddler et al., 2008;Tankersley et al., 2008;Tawney & Gast, 1984). Visual inspections were conducted for each individual participant to identify and describe any observable differences between the two experimental conditions. ...
Thesis
Inclusion of students with learning disabilities (LD) in foreign language courses has been challenging, particularly as educational institutions and statewide educational policies have included graduation requirements involving successful completion of foreign language courses. LD students experience individualized dysfunction of the central nervous system (CNS) which often creates obstacles to acquiring vocabulary in any language. CNS dysfunction and disruption of working memory often requires that multi-sensory strategies be employed to support students in academic content areas. Previous research has explored the impact of multi-sensory strategies to support LD students in foreign language courses and has often focused upon course completion, as opposed to the relationship of particular strategies to specific domains of language learning. Accordingly, the present study investigated the impact of a researcher-designed, multi-sensory instructional strategy called Guided Visual Vocabulary Practice (GVVP) on concrete Spanish nouns. Consistent with the individualized nature of special education, the study employed a single-subject, reversal design involving eight participants over a ten-week period. Student vocabulary learning was assessed by tabulating the number of Spanish words correctly identified from thematic groups and by examining performance on a comprehensive post-assessment. Individual performance was analyzed by visual inspection and comparison of mean for baseline and treatment periods. Overall effect size for the sample was computed using Cohen???s d, which indicated a moderate effect size for the total sample. The greatest impact for GVVP occurred among the three middle school participants included in the sample. Suggestions for future replication studies and further research involving GVVP have been provided.
... For a writing intervention, the components often include methods of the general education classroom but with more explicit examples from the teacher, frequent feedback, and student practice (Foorman, 2008). The following are some research-based intervention activity examples: reviewing published authors' texts for analysis and discussion (Shaywitz, 2003); the writers' workshop model for generating a first draft, reviewing and discussing it with others, making revisions, and publishing a final copy (Calkins, & Martinelli, Kessler, & Gillette, 2006;Fletcher, & Portalupi, 1998;Graves, 1983); practicing spelling (Hargett & Anderson, n.d.;Powell & Aram, 2006); doing sentence-making activities and adding descriptive words to make them more elaborate (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008); and incorporating art media as a means to represent and plan story ideas (Ernst, 1993;Olshansky, 1994). ...
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For a struggling writer, step-by-step instruction can be a helpful means to manage organizing and producing elaborate text. This mixed-methods project offered four struggling writers a mnemonic strategy called Ask, Reflect, Text (ART) in 45-minute sessions over 22 days. The second- and fourth-grade students attended a public school in the US Pacific Northwest. As a parallel component to the project, the students’ teachers and intervention specialist met with the author for 4 one-hour sessions to discuss: 1) the children’s intervention programming and progress, and 2) the paradigm of response to intervention (RTI) and their thoughts about its feasibility in classrooms. The end-of-project assessment data demonstrated that the children made progress with writing skills, but the teachers and intervention specialist felt that support personnel would be needed to manage RTI-type intervention programming in general education classrooms.
... That is, the children in the sentence combination group improved in writing quality and revising ability after the training process. Similar results were reported in another study in fourth graders with and without learning disabilities (Saddler et al. 2008). That is, sentence combination practice improved children's ability in sentence construction, leading to gains in story quality and writing complexity. ...
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This research aimed to explore the relation between syntactic awareness and writing composition in 129 Hong Kong Chinese children. These children were from a ten-year longitudinal project. At each year, a number of measures were administered. The 129 children's data of nonverbal reasoning at age 4, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge at age 8, reading comprehension at age 12 and syntactic awareness and writing composition skills at ages 11 and 12 were included in this study. Syntactic awareness was longitudinally and uniquely predictive of Chinese children's writing composition, and children's performance in early writing composition was uniquely associated with their later syntactic skills, even when controlling for the contributions from age, nonverbal and verbal abilities, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness. The relationship between syntactic awareness and writing composition was mediated by children's performance in reading comprehension. These findings may suggest a reciprocal relation between syntactic awareness and writing composition, and this association may vary with ability in reading comprehension in Chinese children.
... Struggling writers also tend to be poor spellers (Saddler, Behforooz, & Asaro, 2008). Managing the alphabetic principle for reading can apply for writing too. ...
Chapter
Learning to compose a variety of effective sentences is an important element within the writing process and one of the first tasks writers take on when learning to communicate in writing. Although creating a sentence may seem simple, for many writers it can be quite challenging. To improve sentence construction skills, writers need to develop an ability to place clear ideas into a variety of sentence formats using a style that is pleasing to the reader. One well-research method to teach sentence construction skills is sentence combining. In this chapter sentence combining is introduced and situated within the writing process. Additionally, the theoretical benefits and practical applications are reviewed along with recent empirical studies. Finally future directions for research are suggested.
Article
This study involved a pretest-posttest control-group design in which four multimedia writing programs were tested with secondary students across a school year. These programs were based on strategic instruction and focused on the skills of writing complete sentences, paragraph writing, and theme writing. Measures included scores on practice activities and quizzes, time spent, knowledge tests about writing skills, sentence-construction scores, complete sentences scores, planning scores, paragraph-organization scores, theme-organization scores, and satisfaction ratings. All of the students who used the multi-media writing programs met mastery on all of the practice activities, quizzes, and planning and writing samples. Significant and substantial differences were found between the posttest scores of the writing students and students who received other academic instruction, as well as between the writing students’ posttest scores and posttest scores of a normative comparison group.
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Bu araştırmanın amacı, sınıf öğretmenlerinin yazma güçlüğüne ilişkin görüşlerini belirlemektir. Araştırmada nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden olgubilim kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu ilkokullarda görev yapan 33 sınıf öğretmeni oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma verileri sınıf öğretmenlerinden, elektronik ortamda, oluşturulan açık uçlu sorularla toplanmıştır. Öğretmenlerden elde edilen veriler betimsel analiz tekniği ile incelenmiştir. Bu kapsamda elde edilen veriler araştırmacı tarafından kodlanmış ve temalara ayrılarak, sınıf eğitimi alanında doktora yapan bir araştırmacının ve bir sınıf öğretmeninin görüşüne sunulmuştur. Güvenirlik Miles ve Huberman tarafından geliştirilen formülle hesaplanmıştır. Değerlendiriciler arası güvenirlik 0.83 olarak belirlenmiştir. Araştırma sonuçlarına göre öğretmenlerin yazma güçlüğünün tanımı ve içeriği hakkında yeterli bilgiye sahip olmadıkları, yazma güçlüğü gösteren öğrencilerin benzer harflerde sorun yaşadıkları, yazma güçlüğünün nedenlerinin farklılık gösterdiği belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca sınıf içi ve sınıf dışı çalışmaların yazının daha çok mekanik yönüne yönelik olduğu, yazma güçlüğü gösteren öğrencilerin aileleri ve akranları ile olan iletişimlerinin genellikle iyi düzeyde olduğu belirlenmiştir. Son olarak öğretmenler pandemi sürecinin yazı çalışmalarını olumsuz yönde etkilediğini ve bu konuda desteğe ihtiyaç duyduklarını belirtmişlerdir.
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This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional provisions for composing, spelling, and handwriting in key instructional sections within each curriculum: (1) genre writing, (2) grammar, and (3) reading instruction. Lessons for coding were sampled from the beginning, middle, and end of each program, comprising 12 weeks of instruction. Results indicated that, although variable across curricula, there were several features of writing instruction that aligned with evidence-based guidelines. All curricula included daily writing lessons and activities, along with provisions for teaching the writing process and basic writing skills (i.e., sentence construction, spelling, handwriting). However, instruction in basic writing skills were often isolated and support for these skills was rarely embedded within the context of children’s own written compositions. In addition, children had relatively less opportunities to independently write their own compositions in genre writing compared to teacher modeling writing or using shared writing. Results of this study could inform efforts to revise or develop curricula to better facilitate the writing development of kindergartners.
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The study aims to describe the students’ ability to change the monotonous story to be interesting by using sentence varieties. The researchers used qualitative descriptive method and the subjects were the fifteen fifth semester students of English Education Department at Alauddin State Islamic University of Makassar (UIN Alauddin Makassar), especially PBI 3-4. Writing test and interview guidelines were used as the research instrument in which the students were asked to rewrite the texts based on the texts given to them and their opinion about sentence varieties used in the story. The findings of students’ tests indicated that majority of students used all kind of sentences, while, minority of students used three types sentences in the stories. Two students used all types, except compound sentence in the first story, compound-complex sentence in second story and compound-complex sentence in both of the stories. The findings of students’ interview showed that five students felt that the stories which only contained simple sentence were not interesting, four students felt the stories look bored to read, two students felt the stories were monotonous, two students said the stories not better to read, one student felt the stories too easy to read because like child’s stories and one student said the stories which contained sentence varieties were comfortable to read by the students in university. In conclusion, the data showed majority of students’ used sentence varieties in their stories and majority of students felt boring to read the story which contained simple sentences.
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Children who struggle with writing are a heterogeneous group and may experience difficulties in a range of domains, including spelling, reading, and oral language. These difficulties are reflected in their writing and may influence their responsiveness to writing interventions. The effectiveness of a targeted sentence-combining intervention to improve the writing skills of 71 struggling writers, aged 7 to 10 years, was compared with a spelling intervention and a business as usual (waiting list) control condition. Some struggling writers also performed poorly on measures of reading and oral language. Children's performance on a range of writing measures were assessed at baseline ( t 1), immediate post-test ( t2) and delayed post-test ( t 3). Children receiving the sentence-combining intervention showed significant improvements in the sentence combining measure at t 2 and t 3 compared to both the spelling intervention and waiting list controls. Exploratory regression analyses found that children in the sentence-combining intervention, with a low t 1 sentence combining score, low reading skills or better t 1 spelling skills, were more likely to show improvements at t 2. Findings indicate that when devising interventions for struggling writers, specific profiles of skills should be considered. Specifically, sentence combining may be more appropriate for SWs whose primary area of difficulty is reading, rather than poor spelling or oral language.
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This study attempted to investigate the effectiveness of genre-based oral academic lectures on male and female TOEFL learners' writing achievement. The researcher chose 60 males and female TOEFL students and randomly divided and placed them into four separate classes of equally the same size and then he tested the homogeneity of the groups through a test of TOEFL iBT. All of the participants in the experimental groups took a pre-test followed by the treatment. The treatment duration was six sessions and each session was one hour, the researcher chose six academic lectures for the experimental groups and all of them were selected from 'Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Tests' by Phillips (2007) and then the experimental groups sat for the post-test. After the post-test, the researcher carried out a two-way ANOVA The results showed a significant difference in the scores of the experimental groups and the control groups. The experimental groups outperformed the control groups. In addition, in genre-based oral academic lectures, the females outperformed the males.
Article
The purpose of this study was to determine whether struggling adolescent writers could learn sentence and paragraph writing skills from a software program. Nine junior-high and nine senior-high struggling writers participated in a multiple-probe across-students design that was replicated six times. Instructional procedures within the software program were based on methods previously found to be successful in teaching learning strategies to adolescents. Measures included scores on practice activities, time spent working through the program, quiz and knowledge test scores, a sentence-construction score, a complete sentences score, a paragraph-organization score, a planning score, satisfaction with the software program, and satisfaction with personal writing skills. All of the students met mastery on all of the activities and quizzes in the program. Significant differences representing large effect sizes (range of Cohen’s d = 1.42 to 2.39) were found between baseline and post-instruction scores in the multiple-probe design on the Complete Sentence and Paragraph-Organization measures. Students indicated that they were satisfied with the software program and their own writing.
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Executive summary Single‐case research designs are critically important for understanding the effectiveness of interventions that target individuals with low incidence disabilities (e.g., physical disabilities, autism spectrum disorders). These designs comprise an important part of the evidence base in fields such as special education and school psychology, and can provide credible and persuasive evidence for guiding practice and policy decisions. In this paper we discuss the development and use of between‐case standardized mean difference effect sizes for two popular single‐case research designs (the treatment reversal design and the multiple baseline design), and discuss how they might be used in meta‐analyses either with other single‐case research designs or in conjunction with between‐group research designs. Effect size computation is carried out using a user‐friendly web application, scdhlm, powered by the free statistical program R; no knowledge of R programming is needed to use this web application.
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La combinación de oraciones, o sentence combining, es un ejercicio de construcción de frases complejas a partir de cortas oraciones dadas que permite desarollar la madurez sintáctica de los alumnos. Ampliamente experimentado en Estados Unidos en los años 1970 (cf O’Hare, 1973), este dispositivo didáctico ha suscitado un interés renovado en investigaciones más recientes que demuestran resultados positivos con alumnos de varios niveles de enseñanza (Graham et Perrin, 2007; Saddler et al., 2008; Limpo y Alves, 2013). Sin embargo, según nuestro conocimiento, la combinación de oraciones no ha sido el objeto de investigaciones en contexto escolar francófono hasta ahora. Las características innovadoras del dispositivo presentado en esta comunicación son: 1) el énfasis en la discusión metalingüística guiada por el enseñante (Nadeau y Fisher, 2014; Myhillet al., 2013) durante la ejecución de este tipo de ejercicio; 2) el recurso a las herramientas de la « nueva » gramática escolar por los alumnos para que puedan identificar los procedimientos de combinación que utilizan de manera implícita, proceso que los lleva al terreno de los conocimientos explícitos (Fontich y Camps, 2014); 3) el ajuste necesario a la realidad del aula (Goigoux y Cèbe, 2009), por medio de una fase exploratoria de concertación entre investigadores y enseñantes (observaciones participativas en clase y encuentros periódicos). Según un diseño de investigación casiexperimental, una secuencia de ejercicios de combinación de oraciones ha sido experimentada en 17 aulas en niveles de primaria (10-12 años) y de secundaria (12-14 años), todas en entornos desfavorecidos. Cada alumno escribió cuatro textos: dos antes de prueba y dos después de prueba, de los mismos géneros. En esta comunicación, presentaremos el dicho dispositivo experimentado, así como los resultados observados sobre la madurez sintáctica en las producciones escritas en comparación a los textos de clases del grupo control.
Chapter
Assistive Technology (AT), in the domain of special education, is defined as both tools and services. This chapter provides a description of this definition, what recent national and international writing assessment results indicate, what the characteristics of struggling writers are, and how AT can help these children improve and manage the complex and interdependent task of creating prose, story writing in particular. Key examples of AT services are Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD: a step-by-step process for teaching a student a strategy) and mnemonic strategies (the use of keywords to help a child retain the steps in managing a task such as story writing). In the context of writing, AT can range from a pencil grip to a complete computer system with writing-assistance software. Furthermore, the author reviews his own research studies about story writing and how integral AT is to helping these children. Finally, the need for students' pre-requisite practice with AT is emphasized.
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Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine whether sentence combining with an explicit metalinguistic approach in comparison to typical science instruction was effective in improving written expression and understanding of comparison/contrast in science for eighth-grade students who struggle with literacy. Method Eighty-four eighth-grade students who struggle with literacy participated in this study. The experimental group (n = 36) received the writing intervention of metalinguistic sentence combining (MSC) during their science class for a total of 400 min (20 intervention sessions, 20 min each), while the comparison group (n = 48) participated in their typical science instruction. Total science instruction time was held constant for both groups. All students completed pretests and posttests to determine an increase in (a) syntactic factors of academic science text such as longer sentence length and use of syntactic forms of connectives, targeted connectives, left embeddedness, and agentless passive voice when responding to a science compare and contrast writing prompt; and (b) listing similarities and differences between two science concepts on a graphic organizer. Results Treatment was effective in improving the experimental group's score in listing similarities and differences between two science concepts on a graphic organizer. There were no significant differences between the two groups in their use of syntactic factors typical of academic text when responding to a science compare and contrast writing prompt. Conclusions MSC was effective in improving the experimental student's ability to demonstrate understanding of comparison and contrast in science. Modifications to the MSC intervention may yield better results in the experimental group's posttreatment writing in future studies. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12735950
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Research indicates that sentence-combining instruction is effective for improving writing outcomes (e.g., Graham & Perin, 2007); however, no studies to date have examined the effects of sentence-combining instruction on the writing skills of Spanish-speaking language-minority (LM) students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of explicit sentence-combining instruction that focused on correct adjective use when used with Spanish-speaking LM students with poor sentence construction skills. Across two studies, seven Spanish-speaking LM children in third to fifth grade participated in sentence-combining interventions designed to teach adjective placement. Results indicated that there was a functional relation between the introduction of sentence-combining instruction and student performance on sentence writing probes. Additionally, the intervention led to an improvement in number of correct writing sequences on the sentence-writing probe.
Article
The effects of an interactive multimedia (IM) software program for teaching comma strategies to students with learning disabilities (LD) were determined with regard to the students’ sentence-editing and sentence-construction skills. Students with LD at the middle-school and high-school levels were randomly selected in their intact cohorts for the experimental and control groups. Results showed that the experimental students completed the software program and readily learned information about and mastered the comma strategies. Additionally, experimental students at both school levels significantly outperformed the control students with regard to the percentage of correct commas inserted in an editing task. Moreover, they inserted significantly fewer incorrect commas. They also outperformed the control students with regard to the construction of complete sentences containing correct comma usage when prompted to write certain kinds of sentences while writing about a topic. Furthermore, both cohorts of experimental students with LD significantly outperformed their corresponding age groups of students who participated in validating the editing task. Therefore, this study indicates that students with LD can learn and generalize complex writing skills through the use of an IM program at a high level of quality.
Article
An interactive multimedia software program was developed for teaching punctuation strategies and then tested with middle‐school and high‐school students with learning disabilities. Students at each school level were randomly selected into an experimental or control group. Results showed that experimental students at both school levels performed similarly by earning significantly higher scores on a test of punctuation usage than the control students. Additionally, experimental students in both school cohorts inserted significantly fewer incorrect punctuation marks than the controls. Furthermore, the experimental students generalized their use of the strategies to a test where they wrote their own sentences. Thus, this study shows that students with LD can learn punctuation strategies at a high level of mastery and can generalize their skills to sentence editing and sentence construction tasks when taught through interactive multimedia.
Article
Elementary students are expected to engage in written expression that is handwritten and typed. One critical skill of written expression is sentence construction: the composition of multiple words that follow rules of semantics and syntax. Unfortunately, many students with disabilities struggle to successfully handwrite or type complete sentences. In the present study, we investigated effects of a supplemental writing intervention that taught simple sentence handwriting and typing. Participants included three elementary students with high-incidence, academically related disabilities. Overall results were mixed with all students showing a gradual increase in sentence typing accuracy and speed as measured by writing sequences on 3-min sentence construction probes. Findings are discussed within the context of multimodal writing development and fluency-based writing interventions.
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This study examined the effects of a novel computer software program, Reading RACES (Relevant and Culturally Engaging Stories), on the oral reading fluency and comprehension of three urban first graders who were English language learners (ELLs) and showed reading/special education risk. The individually administered intervention consisted of repeated readings of culturally relevant passages delivered through computer software. A multiple baseline across participants revealed that after intervention, the participants increased their oral reading fluency and comprehension of novel culturally relevant (CR) passages, and to a slightly lesser extent, generalized these skills to AIMSweb (non-culturally relevant, NCR) passages. These findings are discussed relative to study effects for ELLs and the usefulness of this technology in urban classrooms.
Article
Researchers have found that students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD) typically struggle during all stages of the writing process and they are the most under-researched category of writers. A promising new approach to teaching sentence writing is Sentence Instruction. The present study investigated the effects of Sentence Instruction on students at-risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. A single case, multiple probe design across three students was used. The intervention led to an increase in complete sentences and percent of correct word sequences. Advisors: Michael Hebert and John Maag
Article
Syntactic complexity has been recognized as an important construct in writing by numerous previous studies. However, there was no consensus on the precise and salient syntactic complexity measures (SCMs) to examine syntactic complexity. This is because most previous studies examined SCMs manually using a small sample size with few SCMs. In the current study, the author seeks to address these gaps using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to test a hypothesized model of 28 SCMs and four latent variables (Sentence Pattern, Sentence Length, Sentence Connector, Sentence Sophistication). The data was analyzed using 1,029 eighth-grade, argumentative essays that were scored using an automated text analysis tool, Coh-Metrix, version 3.0. A refinement of the hypothesized model using 16 SCMs and the same four latent variables produced a good fit using CFA. The four latent variables were then used as input predictor variables together with a student-type indicator variable to examine the relationship with writing quality as reflected in writing scores of the eighth-grade, automatically scored formative assessment data for writing. A multiple linear regression (MLR) model was used to examine this relationship, and the findings indicated a modest positive relationship between each of the four latent variables and writing quality. Furthermore, this relationship significantly varied between at-risk and not-at-risk student types with increased use of the four latent variables having a greater impact on writing quality for at-risk students compared to not-at-risk students. The findings of this study will have important implications for methodology, writing assessment, and writing instructions on sentence-construction skills.
Article
The Language and Writing strands of the Common Core State Standards place a heavy emphasis on sentence-level conventions including syntax/grammar and mechanics. Interventions targeting these foundational skills are necessary to support struggling writers, as poorly developed sentence construction skills inhibit more complex writing tasks. This study examined the effects of a supplemental intervention on the writing skills of 4th-grade students identified as struggling writers. The intervention used explicit instruction and the self-regulated strategy development framework to teach students a sentence construction strategy along with self-regulation procedures. We used a regression discontinuity design to test whether students included in the intervention group outperformed their predicted scores on assessments of writing conventions and story quality. Results indicated that the intervention was successful at improving struggling writers’ ability to use accepted orthographic and grammatic conventions during composition. The intervention was not effective for improving the broader domain of story quality.
Chapter
Struggling writers and students with disabilities tend to have difficulties with multiple aspects of the writing process. Therefore, in this chapter, we describe Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD; Harris, Graham, Mason, and Friedlander, 2008). SRSD is a writing intervention with extensive research demonstrating its effectiveness for improving the writing quality of struggling writers and students with disabilities when implemented by both teachers and researchers in a variety of educational settings. We also describe an ineffective writing practice, stand-alone grammar instruction. Although this type of grammar instruction is explicit, it is removed from an authentic writing context, and decades of research have demonstrated its negative effects on students' writing quality. We close the chapter with recommendations for future research on SRSD as well as general suggestions for teachers who provide writing instruction to struggling writers and students with disabilities.
Chapter
Assistive Technology (AT), in the domain of special education, is defined as both tools and services. This chapter provides a description of this definition, what recent national and international writing assessment results indicate, what the characteristics of struggling writers are, and how AT can help these children improve and manage the complex and interdependent task of creating prose, story writing in particular. Key examples of AT services are Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD: a step-by-step process for teaching a student a strategy) and mnemonic strategies (the use of keywords to help a child retain the steps in managing a task such as story writing). In the context of writing, AT can range from a pencil grip to a complete computer system with writing-assistance software. Furthermore, the author reviews his own research studies about story writing and how integral AT is to helping these children. Finally, the need for students' pre-requisite practice with AT is emphasized.
Article
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Students' use of technology for writing is becoming increasingly required with the Common Core State Standards and tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). State and NAEP assessments indicate that a large number of students, as many as 75%, cannot write at a basic level. The US and other countries have implemented response to intervention (RTI) in public schools to address the needs of students who struggle with core skills such as writing. With RTI-type interventions, struggling writers have the opportunity to improve and return to general-education programming. As part of an intervention for writing, the author developed STORY as a mnemonic-strategy to help children better manage planning and text generation. In a mixed-methods design format, two intervention specialists provided second-, third-, and fourth-grade struggling writers (N=8) with 31 sessions of intervention programming (45 minutes per session). All students improved with story content but quality lagged in comparison. The author also met with the general education teachers and two writing intervention specialists in four 1-hour sessions to discuss students' progress with the intervention activities as well as the application of RTI components to their school and classrooms.
Article
Writing, as a critical academic skill, is receiving national attention - joining the ranks of reading, mathematics, and science. The focus on increased writing performance standards for all students has implications for students with learning disabilities (LD), as these students are most likely to struggle with basic writing skills, and with expressing their ideas and demonstrating knowledge through written expression. Fortunately, research-based practices have been established for teaching students with LD across writing dimensions. In this chapter, instructional approaches for writing instruction, and current and future trends for addressing standards, are described.
Article
Educators often use mnemonic strategies as a prime method to help children who struggle with writing. This study analyzed 12 fourth-grade students' stories during their participation in one of three groups. The first group learned the Ask, Reflect, Text (ART) mnemonic strategy with art media in the pre-writing/planning phase. The second group used Think-Talk-Text (T3) to verbalize aloud their story ideas before encoding text. The control group participated only in general education classroom instruction. The results indicated significant differences between the ART and T3 groups for story content; T3 also was significant different for story quality. The effect size scores indicated that ART students performed better with story content and number of words written. T3 students had the largest effect size for story quality.
Article
Dual language and bilingual education programs are increasing in number and popularity across the country. However, little information is available on how to teach children to read and write in Spanish. This article explores some of the similarities and differences in vocabulary and sentence structure in Spanish and English and considers the resulting implications for teaching emergent Spanish literacy. Understanding linguistic aspects of both languages enables teachers to better support the development of biliteracy and bilingualism.
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Single-subject research plays an important role in the development of evidence-based practice in special education. The defining features of single-subject research are presented, the contributions of single-subject research for special education are reviewed, and a specific proposal is offered for using single-subject research to document evidence-based practice. This article allows readers to determine if a specific study is a credible example of single-subject research and if a specific practice or procedure has been validated as "evidence-based" via single-subject research.
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Mastering sentence-construction skills is essential to learning to write. Limited sentence-construction skills may hinder a writer's ability to translate ideas into text. It may also inhibit or interfere with other composing processes, as developing writers must devote considerable cognitive effort to sentence construction. The authors examined whether instruction designed to improve sentence-construction skills was beneficial for more and less skilled 4th-grade writers. In comparison with peers receiving grammar instruction, students in the experimental treatment condition became more adept at combining simpler sentences into more complex sentences. For the experimental students, the sentence-combining skills produced improved story writing as well as the use of these skills when revising. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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This study examined the role of executive control in the revising difficulties of 5th- and 6th-grade students with writing and learning problems. Procedural support was provided in carrying out executive processes by teaching students to use a routine that ensured that the separate elements of the revising process were coordinated and occurred in a regular way. The processing burden involved in revising was further reduced by limiting the types of evaluative and tactical decisions students made. In comparison to their normal approach to revising, procedural support made the process of revising easier for the participating students and increased the number of nonsurface revisions that improved text. Students' difficulties with revising, however, were not due solely to problems with executive control; they were generally indifferent to the possible concerns of their audience, overemphasized form, and struggled with the separate elements underlying revising. Implications for instruction were addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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A review of research on the structure of writing processes shows that writing is goal directed, that goals are hierarchically organized, and that writers use 3 major processes—planning, sentence generation, and revision. The planning process is outlined in terms of the representation of knowledge, the source of the writing plan, and the use of strategic knowledge. Differences between average and expert writers in the sentence generation process are noted, and the nature of the revision process is described in terms of experts' ability to attend to global problems, writers' difficulty in detecting faults in their own text, the cues that initiate revision, and the detection and diagnosis of text problems. The importance of understanding the cognitive processes underlying writing and the value of a process-oriented approach to instruction are emphasized. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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This study investigated the effects of a peer teaching procedure, combined with student letter-writing activities, on the acquisition and generalization of capitalization skills. Three students, aged 9 years, obtained instruction from peer partners that included (a) an introduction and review of capitalization rules, (b) feedback on each participant's previous capitalization work, and (c) guided and independent practice on sentences that required capitalization. All three students demonstrated acquisition of the capitalization rules after participating in the teaching sessions with one or two peer partners. In addition, there were increases in capitalization accuracy in participants' letters to peers who did not serve as teaching partners, thus demonstrating a measure of across-peer (stimulus) generalization. Mixed results were obtained on a response generalization task (sentence writing). Finally, sentencing-writing activities also showed that two of the peer partners substantially improved their use of capitalization skills as a result of teaching the target students.
Chapter
This chapter focuses on the methods of teaching how to write to students with Learning Disabilities (LDs) and the processes involved in effective writing. Students with LDs often have difficulty finding enough to say when they write. Their papers are inordinately short, containing little detail or elaboration. Once an idea is generated, they are very reluctant to discard it. Many students with LDs struggle with the mechanics of writing, producing papers full of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and handwriting miscues. An important goal in writing instruction for students with LDs is to help them develop the knowledge, skills, and strategies used by more skilled writers. Methods for fostering motivation for writing and sharpening self-efficacy are also important, as children are less likely to engage in the types of mental activities that epitomize skilled writing if they do not value writing or if they overestimate their abilities. An essential tactic in preventing writing difficulties is to provide exemplary writing instruction right from the start, beginning in first grade and continuing through high school. A critical element in providing effective writing instruction to students with LDs is to tailor instruction, so that it is responsive to their needs. Teachers need to devote more attention to teaching handwriting, phonics for spelling, and punctuation and capitalization skills to weaker writers than to average writers.
Article
This article describes procedures recently employed for the quantitative synthesis of single-subject research literature in special education. First, the need for objective, systematic review procedures is discussed. Second, previous approaches for quantitative evaluation of outcomes of single-case research designs are reviewed. Third, procedures employed by the present authors are outlined using examples from recent synthesis efforts. Finally, implications for future reviews of single-subject research are described.
Article
The purpose of this article is to describe downward and upward extensions of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) in reading, which was originally developed for Grades 2-6. Extensions have occurred for kindergarten, first grade, and high school. We begin by describing our rationale for the development of PALS. Then we provide an overview of the Grades 2-6 PALS program and illustrate why additional PALS activities were required to address younger and older students' developmental needs. Finally, we describe the PALS extensions.
Article
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teacher training in the NWP model on student writing. The sample consisted of 383 students, in junior and senior high school at the time of the study, with ten essays each gathered over three years. Teachers responded to a questionnaire of practices in teaching composition. Results favored the treatment group at the junior high level. The highest mean score was achieved by senior high students of trained teachers. Statistically significant differences were found between trained and nontrained teachers for four instructional practices and for the amount of interaction with other professionals.
Article
Multiple-baseline and probe procedures are combined into a “multiple-probe” technique. The technique is designed to provide a thorough analysis of the relationship between an independent variable and the acquisition of a successive-approximation or chain sequence. It provides answers to the following questions: (1) What is the initial level of performance on each step in the training sequence? (2) What happens if sequential opportunities to perform each next step in the sequence are provided before training on that step? (3) What happens when training is applied? (4) What happens to the performance of remaining steps in the sequence as criterion is reached in the course of training each prior step? The technique features: (1) one initial probe of each step in the training sequence, (2) an additional probe of every step after criterion is reached on any training step, and (3) a series of “true” baseline sessions conducted just before the introduction of the independent variable to each training step. Intermittent probes also provide an alternative to continuous baseline measurement, when such measurement during extended multiple baselines (1) may prove reactive, (2) is impractical, and/or (3) a strong a priori assumption of stability can be made.
Article
Summarizing the wealth of recent research on sentence combining as an effective method of teaching students to tighten and vary their written sentences, this booklet explains how and why sentence combining works. The first half of the booklet provides background information on sentence combining, exploring the basis for the claim that sentence combining enhances sentence writing by drawing on built-in linguistic competence, and arguing for a much broader definition of sentence combining. This section also discusses seven instructional issues concerning the use of sentence combining, and lists ten assumptions that seem to underlie the sentence combining approach. The second half of the booklet outlines many ways to use sentence combining in the writing class. This section first deals with cued sentence combining, of the kind popularized by F. O'Hare, then shows how open exercises might be introduced and used in a middle school classroom. It also deals with such practical matters as orchestrating in-class projects, handling "mistakes," and creating various types of sentence combining. The focus then shifts to a variation of pattern practice that may help special students, topics such as grammar, usage/mechanics, and sentence economy. Finally the section moves into arenas more explicitly rhetorical--style, recombining, and generative exercises, the problem of context, and analytic activities of different kinds. (HTH)
Article
This article reviews the literature pertaining to the written composing ability of students with learning disabilities that was published primarily in the decade from 1980 to 1990. The papers included are either reports of research or discussions of instructional procedures that are based on research. The topics addressed include story composition, expository writing, training/intervention research, and rationales/procedures for instruction.
Article
This study was conducted to determine if self-instructional strategy training would improve learning disabled students' writing. Students were taught a strategy designed to facilitate the generation, framing, and planning of argumentative essays. Training effects were investigated using a multiple-baseline across-subjects design, with multiple probes in baseline. Strategy instruction had a positive effect on students' writing performance and self-efficacy. Effects were maintained over time and transferred to a new setting and teacher. Evidence for generalization to a second genre, story writing, was also obtained. The students and their special education teacher recommended the use of the strategy with other students.
Article
This study compares the written expression of 48 students with learning disabilities (LD) and 48 normally achieving (NA) students (Grades 4, 8, and 11). Productivity, syntactic maturity, vocabulary, and mechanics were examined using writing samples obtained in response to a standard stimulus. Results indicate that, compared to their NA peers, students with learning disabilities write fewer words and sentences, write more words per sentence, produce fewer words with seven letters or more and fewer sentence fragments, and have a higher percentage of capitalization and spelling errors. No group differences were found for the number of T-units produced or the number of morphemes per T-unit. Comparison of group differences at each grade level and differences by groups across the grades reveals persistent written expression difficulties and signals a need for a careful review of current instructional practices and how they can be improved.
Article
This past decade has witnessed an increasing number of studies attending to vocabulary and language maturity. Some of these studies analyzed oral language or written language, while a few included oral and written discourse. Several of the studies that looked at spontaneous oral language were directly related to this research (Ciani 1974, Fox 1970, O'Donnell, Griffin, & Norris 1967). There was a question however whether the findings with normal children would be generalizable to a population of learning disabled children. In a population sample of learning disabled children what is the developmental trend in their language? How does it compare to the trend found in studies with normal children? Are the findings the same when measured by different instruments? Findings are summarized as follows. (1) A syntactic developmental pattern existed as measured by the number of T-units (one main clause and all subordinated clauses) and the word length per T-unit. (2) A comparison of the syntactic developmental trend of learning disabled and normal children revealed that normal children experience periods of rapid growth, while learning disabled children exhibit gradual control of syntax across the four age levels. (3) A vocabulary developmental pattern exists as measured by the corrected type-token ratio and the number of different words spoken. (4) A comparison of the vocabulary developmental trend of normal and learning disabled children revealed that vocabulary increases for both groups with advancing age.
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