Grant Closed

Test of Emergent Writing Skills

NCER

Program: Education Research Grants

Program topic(s): Early Learning Programs and Policies

Award amount: $1,133,667

Principal investigator: Cynthia Puranik

Awardee:

University of Pittsburgh

Year: 2008

Project type:

Measurement

Award number: R305A090622

Purpose

Writing is a challenging activity for most school-age children as noted from children's performance on national assessments. Hence, early identification of children who may be at risk for writing difficulties could be just as imperative as the early identification of children at risk for reading difficulties. The purpose of this project is to design, develop, and validate an assessment instrument designed to examine emergent writing in preschool children, with the ultimate goal of producing an assessment protocol that can be used by classroom teachers and educators working with young children to identify those at risk for later writing difficulties.

Project Activities

The research team is developing and validating an instrument to measure emergent writing in preschool children. A companion screener/progress monitoring version will also be developed that teachers or educators can use for assessment of emergent writing skills or to monitor children's progress.

Structured Abstract

Setting

The study will be conducted in private preschools, child care centers, public pre-kindergarten, and Head Start classes serving low, middle and upper income families.

Sample

Participants for the study will include preschool children three- to five-years of age. Children will be recruited to be representative of the nation as a whole with respect to age, gender, and ethnicity, and will include a mix of children from different types of preschools and family socioeconomic backgrounds.

Intervention

The product from this study will be a fully developed and validated instrument to measure emergent writing in preschool children. A companion screener/progress monitoring version will also be developed that teachers or educators can use for assessment of emergent writing skills or to monitor children's progress.

Research design and methods

The proposed project involves five overlapping studies for development and refinement of the subscales to be included in the measure using Item Response Theory analyses, obtaining short-term and long-term concurrent, predictive, and incremental validity of the instrument, development of a screening and progress monitoring version of the proposed instrument for use by teachers and educators, and standardization of a comprehensive assessment of children's emergent writing skills.

Key measures

The protocol will include researcher-developed writing assessments. Instruments used for establishing validity of the proposed assessment include standardized tests of phonological awareness, reading, writing, reasoning, and math. The measurement battery will include the Block Design and Matrix Reasoning subtests of the Weschler Preschool and Primary Intelligence Scale (WPPSI-III), the Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL), Letter-Word Identification and Applied Problems subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement (WJ-III), the Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised (WRMT-R), and the Test of Early Written Language-2 (TEWL-2).

Data analytic strategy

Analytical methods will vary depending on the research questions for each of the proposed five studies. Overall, these analytical methods will include descriptive, correlational, and polynomial regression analyses for analyzing normative data, item response theory (IRT) analysis to select and refine items for the assessment protocol, and confirmatory factor analyses to address questions regarding validity.

People and institutions involved

IES program contact(s)

Elizabeth Albro

Commissioner of Education Research

NCER

Products and publications

Products: The product from this study will be a fully developed and validated instrument to measure emergent writing in preschool children.

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Book chapter

Puranik, C., Wagner, R., Kim, Y., and Lopez, D. (2012). Multivariant Assessment of Processes of Elementary Students' Written Translation. In M. Fayol, D. Alamargot, and V. Berninger (Eds.), Translation of Thought to Written Text While Composing: Advancing Theory, Knowledge, Research Methods, Tools, and Applications (pp. 249-274). New York: Psychology Press.

Journal article, monograph, or newsletter

Puranik, C., and Al Otaiba, S. (2012). Examining the Contribution of Handwriting and Spelling to Written Expression in Kindergarten Children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25(7): 1523-1546.

Puranik, C., and Apel, K. (2010). Effect of Assessment Task and Letter Writing Ability on Preschool Children's Spelling Performance. Assessment for Effective Instruction (Special Issue on Spelling), 36(1): 46-56.

Puranik, C., and Lonigan, C. (2012). Early Writing Deficits in Preschoolers With Oral Language Difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 45(2): 179-190.

Puranik, C., and Lonigan, C. (2012). Name-Writing Proficiency, not Length of Name, is Associated With Preschool Children's Emergent Literacy Skills. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27(2): 284-294.

Puranik, C., and Lonigan, C. (2014). Emergent Writing in Preschoolers: Preliminary Evidence for a Theoretical Framework. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4): 453-467.

Puranik, C., Lonigan, C., and Kim, Y. (2011). Contributions of Emergent Literacy Skills to Name Writing, Letter Writing, and Spelling in Preschool Children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26(4): 465-474.

Puranik, C., Petscher, Y., and Lonigan, C. (2012). Dimensionality and Reliability of Letter Writing in 3- to 5-Year-Old Preschool Children. Learning and Individual Differences, 28: 133-141.

Puranik, C., Petscher, Y., and Lonigan, C. (2014). Learning to Write Letters: Examination of Student and Letter Factors. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 128: 152-170.

Puranik, C.S., Schreiber, S., Estabrook, E., and O'Donnell, E. (2013). Comparison of Name-Writing Rubrics: Is There a Gold Standard?. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 40(1): 16-23.

Additional project information

Previous award details:

Previous award number:

R305A080488

Previous awardee:

Florida State University

Questions about this project?

To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.

Test of Emergent Writing Skills

Purpose

Project Activities

Structured Abstract

Setting

Sample

Research design and methods

Key measures

Data analytic strategy

People and institutions involved

IES program contact(s)

Elizabeth Albro

Products and publications

Additional project information

Previous award details:

Questions about this project?

Questions about this project?

You may also like

Data Science Methods for Digital Learning Platform...

Meta-Analysis Training Institute (MATI)

Bayesian Longitudinal Data Modeling in Education S...