Henrietta Rema Sawyerr December 2nd 2015
ECED 702 Annotated Bibliography
Akdal, D. & Sahin, A. (2014). The effects of intertextual reading approach on the development
of creative writing skills. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 54, 171-186.
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of an
intertextual reading approach on the improvement of writing skills among elementary school
fifth grade students. According to this article intertextuality is the sharing of text with others.
Intertextuality is based on three factors. The writer of the text, the reader of the text, and the
content. A pre-test post-test experimental research design was used in this study. Forty two
students took part in this study. A creative writing rubric was designed to collect data. The
creative writing rubric had eight sub-dimensions. These include originality of ideas, fluency of
thoughts, flexibility of thoughts, vocabulary richness, organization, writing style and grammar.
The students were divided into two groups, a control group and a treatment group. The first
group was instructed using the intertextual approach. Students in this group used an intertextual
approach and were able to make connections with other written texts about the same subjects.
Students in the second group also received the same instruction and read the same text. After
completing each text students were instructed to write a narrative essay about the subject of the
text. The results showed that originality of ideas and the vocabulary richness scores of the
students from the test group to whom the intertextual reading approach had been applied, had
higher scores than students in the control group. Results also indicate that by using activities
during the creative writing skill development process original idea generation was established
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and also there was a significant difference in terms of word selection. Thus students learned new
words and could use them with different meanings as well. The results indicated that using the
intertextual reading approach created a significant difference in the vocabulary richness
especially in relation to richness of word meanings, and appropriate usage of words (Akdal &
Sahin, 2014).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study is relevant because the intertextual reading approach was used to enhance
vocabulary knowledge. The authors provided a detailed description of what writing entails and
also explained the creative writing process and the intertextuality reading approach. This study
utilized the intertextual reading approach as a strategy for creative writing. Even though the
authors defined and explained the intertextual reading approach, I wonder how this process
actually works when teaching students. I also wondered what assessments were used in
measuring the skills developed through the use of the intertextual reading approach and how the
authors analyzed the result in this study. I also thought that the authors should have provided
more information regarding this approach and should have also given an example of how this
approach was used in this study.
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Babayigit, S. (2014). Contributions of word-level and verbal skills to written expression:
Comparison of learners who speak English as a first language (L1) and second language
(L2). Reading and Writing, 27(7), 1207-1229. doi: 10.1007/s11145-013-9482-z
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
The purpose of this study was to examine the role of word level and verbal skills to
written expression between students who spoke English as their first language and those that
spoke English as their second language. The author mentions that there has be an increase in the
number of English language learners in our classrooms. As a result of this increase, there is a
gap in the writing development of minority language learners who have to learn how to write in a
majority language at schools. Research on school children focus on transcription (spelling and
handwriting), verbal working memory, and vocabulary skills. As a result there is a relationship
between word recognition, spelling and writing skills (Babayigit, 2014). The author identified
the various components of the simple view of writing which entails text generation, transcription
and executive function and noted that often times, children do not engage in executive
functioning skills which entails planning and revising written text. The study focused on text
generation which involved the generation of ideas, verbal skills and word level skills. A total of
one hundred and sixty eight students participated in this study (Babayigit, 2014). The students
who took part in this study were from cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds and spoke
different languages including Swahili, Somali, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Punjabi.
Students were tested on their vocabulary skills, working memory, semantic fluency, word
reading, spelling and writing. The results indicated that students who spoke English as their first
language had an advantage and did perform better in writing than students who spoke English as
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their second language The results also indicated that vocabulary was the strongest correlate of
writing quality and children who do not speak English as their first language may not have
literacy experiences at homes that focus on vocabulary development as their peers who speak
English as their first language. The results also indicate that spelling was related to the writing
performance of both groups. (Babayigit, 2014).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study was a quantitative study. The author did not provide a detailed description of
the measures and assessment tools that was used in this study, especially since this study took
place in England. The author did not describe the assessment tools and the procedures where not
that clear. For example the author did not inform readers what the British Picture Vocabulary
Scale was and could have provided some information on what this assessment was and how it
was administered. In general, even though the author provided some information about the
assessments, the information provided was not enough and so I ended up going online to get
some information about these assessments in order to fully understand what they entailed.
Secondly, the results section for very confusing. The author did provide tables and figures to
illustrate the findings. However the information in the tables were not that clear and was more of
a combination of results instead of separating data for those students who spoke English as their
first language and then for the other students who spoke English as their second language. Even
though the simple view of writing entails handwriting skills, handwriting was not part of the
study. Selling was part of the study but I assumed that when students have good vocabulary
skills, often times when they are asked to spell words they could do that orally or actually write
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that so it was difficult to tell whether the spelling assessment required students to write the words
out and if it did then was that considered as the handwriting portion of it or not.
Kim, Y. S., Otaiba, S. A. Puranik, C., Folsom, J. S., & Gruelich, L. (2014). The contributions of
vocabulary and letter writing automaticity to word reading and spelling for
kindergarteners. Reading and Writing, 27, 237-253. doi: 1007/s11145-013-9440-9
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
According to Kim (2014), the purpose of this study was to examine the contributions of
letter writing automaticity to early literacy acquisition and also to examine the relation of
semantic knowledge with word reading and spelling in relation to phonological awareness and
alphabet knowledge. Two hundred and forty two students took part in this study. The
participants were tested using the Woodcock Johnson third edition, the sight word efficiency and
phoneme decoding efficiency assessments. The participants also had to complete a spelling
assessment. The spelling task included five real decodable words including dog, man, plug,
limp, and tree. The task also included sight words such as one, said, blue, come, and went. The
children’s vocabulary knowledge was assessed by expressive and receptive task and the
participants also completed a test on phonological awareness. The children did complete a task
in which they had to identify the letters of the alphabet as well as writing the letters of the
alphabet in the correct order. The results indicated that letter writing automaticity was
moderately related to alphabetic knowledge fluency and vocabulary was positively related to
word reading and spelling (Kim et al., 2014).
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An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This article provided detailed information on the role of letter writing automaticity in
early literacy acquisition as well as the role of semantic knowledge in early literacy acquisition.
Students were assessed using various assessment instruments. Some of the assessment
instruments such as the Picture Vocabulary Test of the Kaufman brief IQ test were not familiar
to me and I think that the author should have provided detailed descriptions of the assessment
tools that was used for the study for readers to understand the assessment procedures better.
Writing samples should have included. Writing samples were not provided in the study and so it
was difficult to understand children’s achievement based on the measures used. I think that this
article is relevant because it focuses on the role of vocabulary instruction in improving writing.
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Lee, S. H. (2003). ESL learners’ vocabulary use in writing and the effects of explicit vocabulary
instruction, System 31(4), 537-561. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2003.02.004
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
According to Lee (2003), research has shown that lack of vocabulary contributes to
writing difficulty for foreign language learners and that vocabulary is one of the most important
features that determine writing quality. According to this article, there are different ways in
which lexical competence has been categorized and these include receptive vocabulary and
productive vocabulary. This articles points out that receptive vocabulary which is also known as
recognition vocabulary is classified as passive whereas productive vocabulary is classified as
active. According to this article, students L2 receptive vocabulary developed to a higher extent
than their productive vocabulary and this is attributed to lack of production tasks that elicits and
provides practice for using recognized or new vocabulary and emphasizes the importance of
converting learner’s receptive vocabulary into productive vocabulary by getting learners to
actively use recognized and new words. Emphasis is placed on providing explicit vocabulary
instruction. According to this article, previous research has indicated that there is no empirical
evidence to show the possible relationship between explicit vocabulary teaching and
improvement in the lexical quality of writing. Secondly, while the role of systematic vocabulary
instruction in reading has been emphasized in the literature, what compromises systematic
vocabulary instruction has not been clearly defined. Lee (2003) notes that various teaching
strategies such as word method, listening, repeating aloud of new words, mnemonics, learning
stems and affixes, and semantic fields have been proposed in isolation, without clear indication
of how strategies may be used together to promote more effective word learning. Sixty five
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middle school children participated in this study. The students were assessed in target
recognition vocabulary. Students were asked to write a composition after reading a story about
bull fighting. The title of the essays was “A Cruel Sport.” The results indicated that writing
after reading instruction and comprehension exercise and before target vocabulary instruction
showed that 13.19% of recognized target vocabulary were productive. This increased
significantly to 63.62% after target vocabulary instruction and productive use of newly learned
vocabulary was impressive. Delayed writing showed no significant loss in recognized and
productive target vocabulary but newly learned and productive vocabulary was significantly
reduced. Systematic vocabulary instruction based on teacher directed interaction and negotiation
of psycholinguistic principles of word learning were proposed (Lee, 2003).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study is relevant because the focus of this study was on vocabulary and its
importance in writing. The authors provided a detailed description of the assessment they used
in this study and also provided a sample of the vocabulary test that was actually used in this
study. This made me understand the study better and also gave me an in-depth perspective on
what the students in this study had to do in terms of the vocabulary portion of the test. The
vocabulary test was in a fill in the blank test and required the students to choose a word to fill the
blanks spaces which had been left out. The authors did a good job providing the list of words
used for this study as well. In addition to this, a reading passage was also included in the study
and this was the passage that the students had to read prior to responding to some questions in
which they had to write the correct answers after reading a sentence.
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Lee, S. H. & Munice, J. (2006). From receptive to productive: improving ESL learners’ use of
vocabulary in a post reading composition task. TESOL Quarterly, 40(2), 295-320.
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
According to Lee & Munice (2006), vocabulary size is an important indicator of reading
comprehension and quality of writing since using vocabulary effectively is an important
indicator of the quality of composition. This article stresses the need for an intensive vocabulary
instruction as a prewriting technique to improve writing quality and notes that when vocabulary
is focused on prior to writing, there is an improvement in the production of higher level
recognition vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to investigate vocabulary use in
composition. Forty eight students took part in this study. The students watched an 80 minute
film on Titanic and were later on were assessed using a vocabulary test. The test consisted of
forty two target items, with thirty four single words and eight lexical phrases. Students were
asked to complete a passage choosing the best word or the best phrase and to use each item only
once. After the vocabulary test, the students read a passage on the titanic. Important vocabulary
words were explained to the students using an interactive negotiation technique to explain or
elicit meaning from the students. The results indicated that even though teaching strategies that
promote vocabulary learning improve writing quality of English language learners, encountering
new or advanced vocabulary in reading and teacher explanation of vocabulary was not enough
for it to become productive (Lee & Munice, 2006).
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An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study is relevant because the focus of this study was on the use of vocabulary in
improving writing quality. The authors provided a detailed information regarding the method
and procedures used in this study. In conducting this study, the Gates McGinitie Reading test
was used. It would have been helpful if the authors had explained or provided a description of
what this assessment entails. The study involved collecting writing samples from students.
However, a sample of the writing samples was not included in this article. This study is
quantitative. It seems like all the students were assessed using the same intervention. In terms
of methodology, I expected to see information regarding a control group and an experimental
group. However, this was not the case and so I wonder how the researchers determined whether
there was an improvement in performance or not based on the method they used.
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Olinghouse, N. G., & Leaird, J. T. (2009). The relationship between measures of vocabulary and
narrative writing in second and fourth grade students. Reading and Writing, 22(5), 545-
565. doi:10.1007/s11145-008-9124-z
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between measures of written
vocabulary and writing quality. This study talked about the complex nature of the writing
process and how writers must generate, organize ideas, develop and act on a plan to produce a
quality written narrative. The authors note that the narrative writing process involves
understanding story components, language skills, vocabulary mechanics, conventions of print,
attention to audience perspectives, and the ability to focus on abstract topics. According to
Olinghouse & Leaird (2009) frequently researched topics regarding predictors of writing quality
include writing length and spelling. Thus there is a relationship between writing length and
writing quality and between spelling ability and writing quality indicating that students who
write longer compositions and possesses better spelling skills tend to receive higher quality
ratings (Olinghouse & Leaird, 2009).
The authors note that while compositional length and spelling research have provided a
foundation for understanding writing development in elementary students, many questions about
writing have been left unexplored. This study expands on previous research by examining the
characteristics of vocabulary in narrative writing composition. Olinghouse & Leaird (2009)
indicated that selection of vocabulary is considered an important part of the writing process and
defined vocabulary as the originality and maturity of a student’s choice of words, and identifies it
as one of the five components that emerge from every major theory of written language. Thus
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the development of a rich and varied vocabulary is considered an essential step in becoming an
efficient writer. According to this article, words remain the most important tool the writer has to
work with. A rich vocabulary allows a writer to get a richness of thought onto paper. However,
the writer’s real pleasure comes not from using an exotic word but from using the right word.
Studies of vocabulary are dependent upon the definition of a word. Most studies involving
vocabulary in written expression have defined a word in the traditional sense that is a word is a
letter or combination of letters that has a specific and unique meaning. However, when
examining vocabulary characteristics of written vocabulary, the exact definition of a word
becomes important. This study takes the stance that each word has a distinct and precise
meaning that determines not only the overall meaning of the conveyed ideas, but also establishes
relationships between sentences and ideas within the larger context of the written text
(Olinghouse & Leaird, 2009).
Four vocabulary measures were chosen to represent different characteristics of
vocabulary hypothesized to be important to narrative writing quality: vocabulary diversity, less
frequent vocabulary, average syllable length, and number of polysyllabic words. Ninety two
second grade and one hundred and one fourth grade students took part in this study. As part of
the procedures for collecting data, writing samples were collected. Students were assigned a
picture prompt. The prompt depicted simple line drawings of children involved in an activity.
For example a child watching a giant egg hatch, a child swinging through a jungle, three children
sledding. The students were given five minutes of planning time to plan their stories based on
the picture prompt. The students were informed that planning meant writing down any words or
ideas that would help a story. After the planning time, the students were given fifteen minutes to
write their stories. Students were also assessed on the standard test of written language and the
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standard assessment of narrative writing. Analytic scales were used to score the writing quality
and were developed to reflect essential features of narrative composition such as organization,
development of plot, characters and setting and creativity of ideation and vocabulary. The
results indicated that vocabulary diversity and less frequent vocabulary showed developmental
differences across the two writing task. In addition, the results indicated that vocabulary
diversity was the only variable to remain stable across the two writing task (Olinghouse &
Leaird, 2009).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study was very relevant because it focused on the relationship between measures of
vocabulary and narrative writing. I think that there were too many research questions that the
authors wanted to focus on. One or two research questions were enough. However, for this
study there were three research questions. The authors did mention that past reading studies had
identified vocabulary characteristics such as diversity, maturity of word size. I wonder what the
author meant by vocabulary characteristics and wished the authors had provided more
information about these vocabulary characteristics and explained these characteristics as well.
The authors stated that three analytic scales were used for this study. It would have been better if
they had included the scales in this article for readers to refer to in order to gain a deeper
understanding of the scales that were used for this study.
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Roessingh, H. & Elgie, S. (2014). From thought to words, to print: Early Literacy Development
in grade 2. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 60(3), 576-597.
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results and conclusions
Research suggest that vocabulary size is an indicator in early childhood development.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of printing, spelling and vocabulary
choices and its influence on writing. Children in second grade are shifting from emergent
literacy which includes drawing, and beginning printing to early literacy. Early literacy involves
transcription and text generation. Roessingh & Elgie (2014) indicated that when children reach
the concrete operations stage as noted by Piaget, they begin to think critically and are able to
transform and manipulate concept information. Writing samples were collected from four
second grade classrooms. Eighty five second grade students took part in this study. The writing
samples were scored using the trait based rubric. Children were asked to provide suggestions to
make the Calgary Zoo the best in the world. In scoring the writing samples the authors checked
for spelling accuracy and legibility of printing. The findings revealed the need for explicit
instruction in printing and spelling and vocabulary as well. In conclusion, the early years of
schooling are very critical for developing the foundational skills in literacy. For students who
are English language learners, more emphasis should be on vocabulary instruction (Roessingh &
Elgie, 2014).
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An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study is relevant because it focuses on emergent literacy as well as early literacy
which forms the foundation for cognitive development. This study focused on the importance of
productive vocabulary to the quality of writing of young children. This study is also important
because it focuses on student’s use of vocabulary in writing or authoring. The authors provided
writing samples which to me is important in understanding what the participants actually wrote
and one thing I liked was that the authors did comment on the writing sample using the rubric
since this sort of feedback is important. The authors also provided visual representations. The
graphs focused on the distribution of quality ratings from the four classes. This visual
representation was helpful in understanding the number of samples collected per class. It was
difficult to tell whether this study was a qualitative study or a quantitative study.
Sparrow, W. (2014). Unconventional Word Segmentation in emerging bilingual students writing:
A Longitudinal Analysis. Applied Linguistics, 35(3), 263-282.
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
The purpose of this study was to explore instances of hyposegmentation and
hypersegmentation in children’s Spanish and English writing over a three year period from first
to third grade and also to investigate the similarities and differences between such patterns in
Spanish and English. Hyposegmentation occurs when at least two graphic words are written
without conventional spaces. Hypersegmentation occurs when blank spaces are put within one
graphic word. Twenty five students participated in this study. The participants were bilingual
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Latino students who had been receiving both Spanish and English instruction for at least three
years. Data on writing development was collected annually and the participants for this study
were asked to write to a prompt for thirty minutes. The children who took part in this study had
the opportunity to draw a picture before writing a response to the prompt (Sparrow, 2014).
Writing samples were first collected in Spanish and then two weeks later the teachers
collected writing samples in English. Each grade level had a different writing prompt.
Examples of writing prompts included participants drawing a picture of their favorite animal and
then writing about why it is their favorite animal. Another example of a writing prompt is “what
is your favorite television program? Write a summary of what it is about.” The writing samples
were then analyzed by examining instances of hyposegmentation and hypersegmentation. The
results indicated that students had more instances of hypersegmentation in their Spanish writing.
The results also indicate unconventional segmentation in students Spanish and English writing is
more often a result of hyposegmentation than hypersegmentation since sixty one percent of all
the English instances were a result of hyposegmentation. Students who had high
hyposegmentation had lower vocabulary and verbal abilities. The results also show that
hyposegmentation was more common than hypersegmentation, indicating that children tend to
leave blank spaces in their writing than required by typical writing conventions (Sparrow, 2014).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study is very relevant because it focuses on word segmentation in emerging
bilingual students writing. The study involved collecting writing samples. It would have been
better providing samples of the children’s writing for readers to better understand what
hyposegmentation and hypersegmentation entails. This study also focused on teaching
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vocabulary skills with meaningful context which helps children to understand morphological
words. The author stated the research questions and also addressed all four research questions in
the article by providing more information as to how she went about analyzing the data in relation
to the research questions. The author suggested that Bilingual students have linguistic repertoire
and that there is the need to look at student’s writing in both languages in order to have a better
perspective and gain a fuller understanding and provide instruction that meet the needs of
students. This to me is very critical and important.
Sun, L. & Nippold, M. A. (2012). Narrative writing in children and adolescents: Examining the
literate lexicon. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 43, 2-13.
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results and the conclusions
The purpose of this study was primarily to examine the use literate words in the narrative
writing of school aged children and adolescents. The focus was on narrative writing because
students in public schools are required to retell stories in the classroom and they are evaluated on
their ability to express themselves using vocabulary and grammatically appropriate sentences.
However many children with language disorders struggle to do this. The study focused on two
types of words, abstract nouns and metacognitive verbs. Three groups of students took part in
this study. There were forty students in each group. The students spoke American English as
their primary language and none of the students had individualized education plans and therefore
did not need special education services. Participants were given twenty minutes to write an
essay. The title of the essay was “What happened on day” and children were requested to write
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something funny, sad or scary that happened to them and a friend. The outline prompted them to
address some key elements of story grammar such as setting, characters and plot. The results
indicated that age related growth in narrative writing was documented for both types of words.
In addition, the use of abstract nouns and metacognitive verbs was associated with the
production of complex syntax. It was concluded that narrative writing task employed in this
study was effective in eliciting literate words and complex syntax in school aged children (Sun &
Nippold, 2012).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study is relevant in that it focused on using vocabulary in narrative writing. The
authors provided detailed information on the methodology. However, even though this study
was a quantitative study, writing samples were not included in this study. It would have been
better if the authors had provided writing samples in the study. I wondered how the authors
graded the essays because there were no rubrics. It was also difficult to understand the analysis
section of the study. The authors stated that the words were coded but the information provided
was not too clear for easy understanding of text.
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Wang, Y., McBride-Chang, C., & Chan, S. F. (2014). Correlates of Chinese kindergarteners’
word reading and writing: the unique role of copying skills? Reading and Writing, 27,
1281-1302.
Summary of the argument or thesis, the results, and the conclusions
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between word reading and
dictation or writing among Chinese kindergarteners. Ninety four Chinese kindergarteners
participated in this study. The kindergarteners were tested using the Raven’s Standard
Progressive Matrices, which is a non-verbal multiple choice measure of children’s reasoning
ability. Children were asked to identify the missing element that completed a pattern from
among six choices. The kindergarteners were also tested on the Pinyin letter naming knowledge
in which children were asked to name or identify twelve Pinyin letters (k, m, a, h, p, f, u, c, t, i, g,
and s). In addition to this, the researchers measured invented Pinyin spelling using three one
syllable Chinese words (Wang et al., 2014).
A vocabulary definitions task was used to measure children’s vocabulary
knowledge. This expressive vocabulary test was similar to the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
vocabulary subtest. The kindergarteners were asked to provide oral definitions of the Chinese
words presented to them by the researcher. There were thirty two vocabulary words for this
subtest. The kindergarteners also had to complete a task on syllable deletion, and morphological
awareness as well as complete a task that required them to copy unfamiliar scripts including
Korean words, Hebrew words and Vietnamese diacritics to test children’s basic copying skills.
The kindergarteners were also required to read fifty Chinese single character words as well as
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write ten words. The results indicate that the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices were
significantly associated with word reading and writing. The results also show that all three
copying tasks were significantly associated with dictation in Chinese. Both the invented Pinyin
and Pinyin letter name knowledge were significantly associated with word reading (Wang et al.,
2014).
An analysis of the relevance, accuracy and quality of the article
This study focused on the relationship between Chinese kindergarteners’ word reading
and writing and is very relevant. The authors assessed students using different measures such as
the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices which I wasn’t familiar with. I think that the authors
should have provided some more information on the assessment instruments used in this study. I
also wondered whether if the study had involved other students apart from Chinese students
whether the results would have been the same. For example what will the correlation be if
students from other cultures had taken part in the study in relation to word reading and writing.
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