examining the effectiveness of a sentence construction

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Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses

July 2017

Examining the Effectiveness of a Sentence Construction Examining the Effectiveness of a Sentence Construction

Intervention Combined with Self-Regulation Instruction Using a Intervention Combined with Self-Regulation Instruction Using a

Regression Discontinuity Design Regression Discontinuity Design

William Furey University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Furey, William, "Examining the Effectiveness of a Sentence Construction Intervention Combined with Self-Regulation Instruction Using a Regression Discontinuity Design" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 997. https://doi.org/10.7275/9712295.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/997

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EXAMININGTHEEFFECTIVENESSOFASENTENCECONSTRUCTIONINTERVENTIONCOMBINEDWITHSELF-REGULATIONINSTRUCTIONUSINGA

REGRESSIONDISCONTINUITYDESIGN

ADissertationPresentedby

WILLIAMM.FUREY,JR.

SubmittedtotheGraduateSchooloftheUniversityofMassachusettsAmherstinpartialfulfillment

oftherequirementsforthedegreeof

DOCTOROFPHILOSOPHY

May2017

CollegeofEducationSchoolPsychology

©CopyrightbyWilliamM.Furey2017

AllRightsReserved



ADissertationPresentedby

WILLIAMM.FUREY,JR.

Approvedastostyleandcontentby:____________________________________________________AmandaM.Marcotte,Chair____________________________________________________JohnM.Hintze,Member____________________________________________________CraigS.Wells,Member____________________________________________________DavidH.Arnold,Member

_______________________________________________JosephB.Berger,SeniorAssociateDeanCollegeofEducation

DEDICATION

Ma,Pa,Wendy,andHeidi

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Manythanksareduetothosewhomadethisprojectpossible.First,thank

youDennis,Kristen,Jenny,andthe4thgradeteamforyourspace,time,flexibility

andpatience.Yourwillingnesstoproblemsolvearoundsnowdays,assemblies,fire

drills,parent/teacherconferences,andalltheotherchallengesthatgowithschool-

basedresearchwasessentialtothestudy'ssuccess.ThankyouVictoriaGreeneand

ProjectReadforallowingmeaccesstotheFramingYourThoughtscurricular

materials.AndIamverygratefultoGroup2,mostnotablyCarolineShackettand

LauraFindlay.I'msureyoureadmorepiecesof4thgradewritingthanyouever

caredto.JoshuaMarlandandCraigWells,thankyouforyourstatisticalassistance

andexpertise,andforpatientlyansweringeachofmyquestions,oftenmorethan

once.

Iamalsoindebtedtothosewhosupportedmethroughouttheprocess.

CatherineRossiandBrookeDeWitt,Icouldnothaveaskedforabettercohort.I

believewecomplimentedeachotherquitewell,andIalreadymissourregular

conversationsoverpitchersandwings.BobbyStorey,LishaDanielsStorey,and

Franklin"SirSniff-n-TellsReachFortheTop"Storey,forbeingmywesternMass

familyanddoingallthosethingsfamiliesdo.WheneveryousensedIwasgetting

frustratedoroverwhelmed,youalwaysseemedtoknowexactlywhatIneeded,beit

astiffdrinkoraridiculousmeme.LuisOliveira,youmodeledtrueworkethicwhile

livingwithus.WheneverIwastemptedtotakeabreakfromreadingorwriting,I

couldhearyourvoiceinmyheadsaying,"Noexcuses.Youwillstartandfinishthe

literaturereviewthisweek."

vi

AndasincerethankyoutoMaryLynnBoscardinforyourmentorship,pep

talks,andhoursofinvaluableadviceandguidancethatwereinstrumentalin

keepingmeontracktowardsmeetingmyprofessionalgoals.Thankyoualsoto

JoyceAbramsBallwhofirstexposedmetotheimportanceandpowerofsmall-

group,explicitinstruction.

Ialsowishtoexpressmyappreciationforthesupportandguidanceofmy

committeemembersDavidArnold,JohnHintze,CraigWellsandespeciallymy

advisorAmandaMarcotte.Thankyouforyourthoughtfulfeedbackandadvice

duringeveryphaseofthisstudy.Amanda,Ihopetoemulateyourbalancedstyleof

mentorshipwithanyfutureadviseesImayhave.Alwaysprovidingtheexacttypeof

supportneededforthesituation,youwerethoughtful,encouraging,motivating,and

whennecessarysuperdirect.Yougetme---youallowedmetogetexcitedand

sometimescarriedawaywithplans,joininginintheexcitementbutstillknowing

theexactrightmomenttosay,"Ok,nowlet'stalkfeasibility"withoutbeingatotal

dream-squasher.Ilookforwardtocontinuedcollaboration.

Andaspecialthankyoutomyparents,WilliamandDebbe,andsister,

Wendy,whohavealwaysbeenmybiggestcheerleaders.Iamverygratefulforyour

loveandoverwhelmingsupport.

Andlastly,toHeidi.Iamveryluckytohaveapartnerandbestfriendwhois

sosupportive.YouknowI'mnotthebestatwritingortalkingaboutfeelingsand

howIhavethem...sohereIwilljustthankyouforbuildingmeTheFortofFocusand

Concentrationwitholdmovingboxesandallowingmystyleoforganizingarticles,

vii

books,andmaterialstotakeoverourdiningroomforwaylongerthanIsaidit

would.Youmakemehappy.

"HeyHeidi!!!...Isthissentenceclear?"

viii

ABSTRACT



MAY2017

WILLIAMM.FUREY,B.A.,CONNECTICUTCOLLEGE

M.A.T.,BROWNUNIVERSITY

M.Ed.,UNIVERSITYOFMASSACHUSETTSAMHERST

Ph.D.,UNIVERSITYOFMASSACHUSETTSAMHERST

Directedby:Dr.AmandaM.Marcotte

TheLanguageandWritingstrandsoftheCommonCoreStateStandardsplacea

heavyemphasisonsentence-levelconventionsincludingsyntax/grammarand

mechanics.Interventionstargetingthesefoundationalskillsarenecessaryto

supportstrugglingwritersaspoorlydevelopedsentenceconstructionskillsinhibit

morecomplexwritingtasks.Thisstudyexaminedtheeffectsofasupplemental

interventiononthewritingskillsoffourthgradestudentsidentifiedasstruggling

writers.TheinterventionusedexplicitinstructionandtheSelf-RegulatedStrategy

Development(SRSD)frameworktoteachstudentsasentenceconstructionstrategy

alongwithself-regulationprocedures.Aregressiondiscontinuitydesignwasusedto

testwhetherstudentsincludedintheinterventiongroupoutperformedtheir

predictedscoresonassessmentsofwritingconventionsandstoryquality.Results

indicatetheinterventionwassuccessfulforimprovingstrugglingwriters'abilityto

ix

useacceptedorthographicandgrammaticalconventionsduringcomposition.The

interventionwasnoteffectiveforimprovingthebroaderdomainofstoryquality.

x

TABLEOFCONTENTS

PageACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................................v

ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................................viii

LISTOFTABLES.......................................................................................................................................xii

LISTOFFIGURES....................................................................................................................................xiii

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION,BACKGROUND,ANDPURPOSE.........................................................1

Introduction..................................................................................................................................1WritingInstructionWithinaPreventativeInstructionalFramework.................2SentenceConstructionInstruction......................................................................................4Self-regulationInWritingInstruction...............................................................................7RegressionDiscontinuityDesign.........................................................................................9ThePresentStudy.....................................................................................................................11

2. REVIEWOFTHEORETICALANDEMPIRICALLITERATURE..................................12

Introduction................................................................................................................................12ResistancetoTeachingStandardConventionsandSentence-level

Skills........................................................................................................................................14TheoriesofWritingDevelopment.....................................................................................19

CognitivePerspectivesonWriting......................................................................21DevelopmentalPerspectivesonWriting..........................................................22WorkingMemoryandtheCapacityTheoryofWriting..............................23

GrammarandSentenceConstructionInstruction......................................................28Hudson'sTheoreticalModelofTeachingGrammar....................................32GrammarandSentenceConstructionInstructionwithStrategy

Instruction..............................................................................................................34Conclusion....................................................................................................................................38

3. METHODOLOGY.........................................................................................................................40

ParticipantsandSetting.........................................................................................................40Measures.......................................................................................................................................41

Curriculum-basedMeasurement-WrittenExpression(WE-CBM).........................................................................................................................41

TestofWrittenLanguage,4thedition(FormB;TOWL-4)........................42

xi

ScoringProcedures..................................................................................................................43Screening........................................................................................................................43OutcomeMeasures....................................................................................................43

Intervention.................................................................................................................................44GeneralInstructionalProcedures.......................................................................44InstructionalSequence............................................................................................44F-SPEED..........................................................................................................................46Self-regulationProcedures.....................................................................................46FidelityofImplementation.....................................................................................47

RegressionDiscontinuityDesignandDataAnalysis.................................................474. RESULTS........................................................................................................................................51

AnalysesofUnderlyingAssumptions...............................................................................52DescriptiveStatistics...............................................................................................................53RelationshipBetweenVariables.........................................................................................53ContextualConventions.........................................................................................................54StoryComposition....................................................................................................................55

5. DISCUSSION.................................................................................................................................62

SummaryofFindings...............................................................................................................63LimitationsandFutureDirections....................................................................................66ContributionstoExtantResearchandPractice...........................................................67

APPENDICES...............................................................................................................................................72

A. RECRUITMENTMATERIALS................................................................................................73B. ASSENTANDCONSENTMATERIALS...............................................................................75C. ATTENDANCEDATA................................................................................................................79D. INSTRUCTIONALSEQUENCE...............................................................................................80E. SAMPLELESSONPLAN...........................................................................................................81REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................84

xii

LISTOFTABLES

Table Page

1.SampleDemographics............................................................................................................50

2.MeansandStandardDeviationsbyGroup....................................................................56

3.Correlations.................................................................................................................................56

4.StatisticsFromtheFinalRegressionAnalysis.............................................................56

xiii

LISTOFFIGURES

Figure Page

1.ContextualConventionsScatterplot.................................................................................57

2.StoryCompositionScatterplot............................................................................................57

3.HistogramoftheTransformedScreeningScores.......................................................58

4.NormalQ-QPlotofTransformedScreeningScores..................................................58

5.HistogramforComparisonGroupContextualConventionsScores....................59

6.NormalQ-QPlotforComparisonGroupContextualConventions......................59

7.HistogramforComparisonGroupStoryCompositionScores...............................60

8.NormalQ-QPlotforComparisonGroupStoryComposition.................................60

9.ContextualConventionsScatterplotandRegressionLine......................................61

10.StoryCompositionScatterplotandRegressionLine..............................................61

1

CHAPTER1

INTRODUCTION,BACKGROUND,ANDPURPOSE

Introduction

Proficientwrittenexpressioniscentraltoacademicsuccess.Notonlydoes

writingallowstudentstodemonstrateandsharetheirknowledge,ithasbeenfound

tobeeffectiveinfacilitatingstudents’understandingacrosscurricularcontentareas

(Bangert-Drowns,Hurley,&Wilkinson,2004).Unfortunately,manystudents

struggletoattainwritingskillsnecessarytosupporttheirexpressive

communicationneeds.Interpretingthe2014SATresults,theCollegeBoard(2014)

concludedmerely42.6%ofhighschoolgraduatesmetthebenchmarkforCollege

andCareerReadiness.Remedialwritinginstructionhasnotonlybecomenecessary

incollegesanduniversities(Goen-Salter,2008),butithasalsobecomeacostly

expenseformanybusinesses(NationalCommissiononWriting,2004).

Theprevalenceofdifficultieswithwrittenexpressionisapparentwellbefore

itistimeforstudentstotakecollegeentranceexamsorentertheworkforce.Onthe

2011NationalAssessmentofEducationalProgress(NAEP),74%of8thgrade

studentsperformedbelowtheproficientlevelinwriting.In2002,themostrecent

year4thgradestudentsparticipatedinthewritingportionofNAEP,72%ofscores

fellbelowtheproficientlevel(NationalCenterforEducationalStatistics,2012,

2015).Despitestatisticssuchasthese,aswellasfindingsfroma2009

epidemiologicalstudysuggestingtherateofwrittenlanguagedisordersisashighas

therateofreadingdisorders(Katusic,Colligan,Weaver,&Barbaresi,2009),past

2

initiativestoimprovestudentachievementandpreventlaterfailurehavefocused

primarilyonreadingandmathematicswhileneglectingwriting.Evidence-based

preventiveinterventionstargetingprerequisitecomponentskillsarecriticaltothe

successofstrugglingstudents,andarefundamentaltotheimplementationof

prevention-orientedinstructionalapproaches(Brown-Chidsey&Steege,2010;

Kame'enui&Simmons,1990).

WritingInstructionWithinaPreventativeInstructionalFramework

Thepreventativeeducationalmodelpromotesstudentachievementthrough

atieredsystemofsupports,ongoingstudentassessment,evidence-based

instructionalpractices,anddata-baseddecisionmaking(Glover,2010).Atthe

primarypreventionlevel,evidence-basedinstructionisprovidedtoallstudents

throughgeneraleducation.Universalscreeningisconductedtoidentifystruggling

studentswhomaybenefitfromsmall-group,supplementalsupportaimedatthe

remediationofskillsandpreventionoffurtherdifficulty.Supplementalsupports

mayincludeincreasedacademicengagedtimeandextraguidedpracticeorremedial

instructionformissingprerequisiteskills.Studentswhoarenotresponsiveto

supplementalinterventionmayrequiremoreintensivesupporttostrategically

addressindividualneeds.

Althoughthereisanabundanceofresearchaddressingtieredinterventions

withinapreventativeinstructionalframeworkforreading,lessworkhasbeendone

intheareaofwriting(DeLaPaz,Espin,&McMaster,2010;Saddler,Asaro-Saddler,

2013;Troia,2013).Providingevidence-basedremedialinstructiontostudents

identifiedasat-riskforreadingfailurecanpreventthedevelopmentoffurther

3

problemsandreduceachievementgapsbetweenthesestudentsandtypically

developingpeers(e.g.,Bollman,Silberglitt,&Gibbons,2007;Vaughnetal.,2009).As

writingdevelopsinstagessimilarlytoreading(Fitzgerald&Shanahan,2000),and

becausecriticalknowledgeandskillsateachstageareteachable(Kame'enui&

Simmons,1990),theoreticallywritinginstructioncanalsobesuccessfullyintegrated

intoapreventivetieredinstructionalmodel.Despitetheexpansiveextantresearch

onwritinginstruction,writingassessment,andanalysesexaminingdifferences

betweenskilledandless-skilledwriters,verylittleisknownabouthowtoeffectively

incorporatethisknowledgeintoapreventativeframework(Saddler&Asaro-

Saddler,2013).

Todate,fivepublishedempiricalstudies(Berningeretal.,2006;Berningeret

al.,2008;Harris,Graham,&Adkins,2015;Hooperetal.,2013;Laneetal.,2011)and

onedescriptivestudy(Johnson,Hancock,Carter,&Pool,2012)directlyaddress

screeningandinterventioninwritingwithinatieredservicedeliverymodel.Though

notcomprehensive,theavailableresearchdoesprovideinitialsupportforthese

practices.Interventionstargetinggraphophonicsdeliveredtowritersidentifiedas

at-riskwerefoundeffectiveinbothincreasingtherateatwhichstudentsgain

foundationalskillssuchasencodingphonemes,spelling,andhandwriting

(Berningeretal.,2006;Hooperetal.,2013),andimprovingtheoverallqualityof

students’writing(Berningeretal.,2006;Berningeretal.,2008;Hooperetal.,2013).

Additionally,supplementalinstructiontargetingplanningandthesyntaxoflarger

textswaseffectiveinincreasingtheuseofgenrespecificelements(Harrisetal.,

2015;Laneetal.,2011)andimprovingoverallqualityofwriting(Berningeretal.,

4

2006;Harrisetal.,2015;Laneetal.,2011).Ineachstudy,at-riskstudentswho

receivedsupplementalwritinginterventionsoutperformedat-riskstudentswho

solelyreceivedwritinginstructiondeliveredviathegeneralcurriculum.Asthe

researchislimited,however,therearefewrecommendationsavailableregarding

whichwritinginterventionsareusefulforsupplementalprogrammingversus

intensiveprogramming(DeLaPazetal.,2010).Thereisaneedformoreresearch

identifyingandvalidatingwritinginterventionsthataddressvaryinglevelsof

studentneed(Saddler&Asaro-Saddler,2013;Troia,2013)inordertosuccessfully

incorporatewritinginstructionintoapreventivetierededucationalmodelaswas

donewithreadinginstruction.

SentenceConstructionInstruction

Composingsentencesisonefoundationalcomponentofwritingwheremany

studentsstruggle(Houck&Billingsley,1989;Myklebust,1973;Newcomer&

Barenbaum,1991).Poorlydevelopedsentence-levelcompositionskillsinhibitmore

complexwritingtasks,andtherefore,serveasabarriertoproficientwritten

expression(Datchuk&Kubina,2012;Kame'enui&Simmons,1990).Constructinga

sentenceisalinguisticallydemandingtaskinwhichstudentsmustusesyntactic

knowledgetogeneratetextbycombiningwordsintogroupsthat,notonlyconvey

intendedmeaning,butalsoaregrammaticallyacceptable(Saddler,2012).Itistoo

oftenassumed,thatbyfourthgrade,studentshavemasteredthesefundamental

writingskills.Whileinstructionshiftstowardsmorecomplexaspectsofwriting,

suchastheinclusionofgenrespecificelements,manystudentscontinuetohave

5

difficultyeffectivelycommunicatingtheirideasthroughwritingduetotheir

inabilitytoclearlyexpresstheirthoughtsinbasicsentences.

FitzgeraldandShanahan(2000)developedastagetheoryofwriting

developmentinwhichtheyoutlinedcriticalknowledgeateachstagethatis

prerequisitetosubsequentstages.Graphophonics,whichincludesphonological

awareness,graphemeawareness,andmorphology,iscriticalknowledgeatthe

earlieststagesbeforeonecanproducesentences.Syntaxofsentencesisalsocritical

knowledgeinthestagesprecedingthosethatincludetheproductionoflarger

chunksoftext(Fitzgerald&Shanahan,2000).Moresimplyput,awritermustknow

howtoproperlyformaletterpriortoformingaword,toproperlyformawordprior

toformingasentence,andtoproperlyformasentencepriortowritinglargerforms

ofconnectedtext.Strugglingatthebasictextproductionlevel,whichincludesboth

transcription(i.e.handwritingandspelling)aswellastextgeneration(i.e.turning

ideasintowordsandsentences),theoreticallyplacesdemandonworkingmemory

leavingfewercognitiveresourcestoacquireandemploystrategiesforplanningand

revising,andtherefore,negativelyinfluencesoveralltextquality(McCutchen,2006).

Sentence-levelinterventionsarenecessarytoprovidestrugglingwriterswith

foundationallinguisticskills.Inameta-analysisofresearch-basedwritingpractices

Graham,Harris,andSantangelo(2015)highlightedtheimportanceofexplicitly

teachingsentenceconstructionskillsyetlamented,“therearesurprisinglyfew

studiestestingtheeffectsofteachingsentenceconstructionortheskillsthatgointo

creatingacorrectsentence”(p512).Onlythreestudieswereavailabletoincludein

theirmeta-analysisoftrue-andquasi-experimentsonteachingsentence

6

constructionskills,andeachoftheseinvestigatedthesameintervention,sentence

combining.Additionally,DatchukandKubina's(2012)reviewofhandwritingand

sentence-levelinstructiononlyincludedninestudiesregardingsentence

construction,andinthesestudies,onlyfivewritinginterventionswereexamined.

Resultsfromavailablestudiesaremixedinregardstotheeffectivenessof

sentence-levelinstructiononoverallqualityofstudentwriting.Inmanyofthe

studieswhereasignificantimprovementordifferenceinoverallqualitywasfound,

thesentence-levelinstructionwasembeddedwithinalargerunitofstudycovering

severalaspectsofwriting(Anderson&Keel,2002;Bui,Schumaker,&Deshler,2006;

McCurdy,Skinner,Watson,&Shriver,2008;Viel-Ruma,Houchins,Jolivette,

Fredrick,&Gama,2010;Walker,Shippen,Alberto,Houchins,&Cihak,2005).The

majorityofstudiesinwhichsentenceconstructionwastaughtinisolation

investigatedtheeffectsofsentencecombininginstruction(Saddler,Asaro,&

Behforooz,2008;Saddler,Behforooz,&Asaro,2008;Saddler&Graham,2005),

whichhasbeenshowntobemoderatelyeffectiveatimprovingoverallwriting

qualitywithanaverage-weightedESforwritingqualityof0.56(Grahametal.,

2015).Sentencecombining,however,doesnotrequirestudentstoproducetheir

ownideas.Rather,studentsareprovidedsimplesentencesandclausesandtaught

howtocombinethepre-determinedsentencecontent.Generalizingsentence

combiningskillstoastudent’sownwritingcan,therefore,bechallengingforsome

writers.Andrewsandcolleagues(2006)conductedasystematicresearchreview

comparingsentence-combiningtotraditionalformalgrammarinstruction,and

althoughtheyfoundsentencecombininghadamorepositiveeffectthanformal

7

grammarinstruction,forwhichtheyfoundnoevidenceindicatingittobeeffective,

theystatedthereisinsufficientqualityofresearchavailabletoadvocateforeither

approachtoinstruction.EchoingthesentimentofGraham,Harris,andSantangelo

(2015)aswellasDatchukandKubina(2012),Andrewsandcolleagues(2006)also

emphasizetheneedformoreresearchexaminingvariousmethodsofteaching

sentenceconstruction.

Recently,Datchukandcolleagues(2015)exploredtheefficacyofasentence

constructioninterventionotherthansentencecombiningintwoseparatestudies.

Resultsindicatedexplicitinstructionintheconstructionofsimplesentences

combinedwithafluency-buildingpracticeprocedureincreasedthespeedand

accuracyofcompletesentencesandcorrectwordsequencesonone-minute

sentenceconstructionassessmentsdeliveredattheendofeachsessionforfour

elementary-agedstudents(Datchuk,Kubina,&Mason,2015).Similarly,the

interventionwaseffectiveinincreasingfluencyofcompletesentencesforfour

adolescentswithwritingdifficulties(Datchuk,2015).Thesesinglesubjectstudies,

however,didnotincludeoutcomemeasurestoexaminewhetherfluencyinthe

sentence-levelfoundationalskillinfluencedoverallwritingqualityofconnected

text.

Self-regulationInWritingInstruction

Tobeaproficientwriter,studentsmustnotonlyhavethebasicskillsand

syntacticknowledgetoconstructmeaningfulsentencesandtext,theymustalso

havestrategiestoplanwhattowriteandthentoreviewthetexttomake

improvements(Flower&Hayes,1981).Moreover,theymustalsodevelopbehaviors

8

forself-regulatingtheseprocesseswhilewriting(Bereiter&Scardamalia,1987;

Berninger&Amtmann,2003;Berninger,Garcia,&Abbott,2009;McCutchen,2006).

Studentswholackself-regulationhavedifficultyemployingspecificwriting

strategies(Graham&Harris,2005).Interventionsdesignedtoteachwriting

strategiesalongsideself-regulatorybehaviorstopromotetheuseofthestrategies

supportthecognitiveaspectsofeffectivewriting.

TheSelf-RegulatedStrategyDevelopment(SRSD;Harris&Graham,1999)

modelisawell-researchedexampleofinstructionfocusedonproceduralfacilitation

deliveredthroughexplicitinstructionwhereteachersplayanintegralroledirecting

lessonsthathelpstudentsdevelopandinternalizecognitivestrategies.SRSDwas

designedtoimproveastudent’sstrategicknowledge,self-regulationskills,content

knowledge,andmotivation(Harris&Graham,1999).Severalmeta-analyses

indicateitsusehasameaningfuleffectonthewritingofbothtypicalandstruggling

writers(Graham&Harris,2003;Grahametal.,2015;Graham&Perin,2007;

Graham,McKeown,Kiuhara,&Harris,2012;Rogers&Graham,2008).

Onlyrecentlyhasasentence-levelinterventionbeencombinedwithSRSD

instruction.InthestudyconductedbyLimpoandAlves(2013),sentencecombining

wasfirstexplicitlytaughtandthenstudentswereprovidedinstructionandguided

practicetointegratetheskillintocomposition.Resultsofthestudyindicatethat

teachingsentencecombiningthroughSRSDwaseffectiveatincreasingthetargeted

skillofsentencecombining(ES=1.06)aswellasimprovingoverallessayquality

(ES=.72).Studentswhoreceivedsentence-combininginstructionscoredbetterat

eachofthesentenceconstructionmeasuresindicatingtheywerenotonlyableto

9

usetheskillsinisolation,buttheywereabletoapplythemwhenproducing

connectedtext.

ResultsoftheLimpoandAlves(2013)studyalongwiththeextantresearch

supportingSRSDinstructiontoimproverevisions(e.g.DeLaPaz,Swanson,&

Graham,1998;Graham,1997)suggestthatforstudentswhoarestrugglingwith

sentencecomposition,aninterventionthatexplicitlyteachesastrategytoproduce

andrevisetheirownsentencescombinedwithself-regulationinstructionmaybe

beneficialforimprovingtheiroverallwrittenexpression.

RegressionDiscontinuityDesign

Withinthefieldofeducationalresearch,randomizedexperimentsarenot

alwayspracticalorfeasible,andtheRegressionDiscontinuitydesign(RD)isa

strongalternativetousewhenthepurposeofthestudyistoevaluatetheefficacyof

aninterventionprogram(Cook,Shadish,&Wong,2008;Lipsey,2007;Shadish,

Cook,&Campbell,2002;Trochim,1984).RDisaquasi-experimentaldesignwhere

participantsareassignedtotreatmentorcontrolbasedonwhetherornottheyfall

aboveorbelowacutoffpointonanassignmentvariable(Shadishetal.,2002;

Trochim,2006).Forthisreason,theuseofRDdesignseffectivelyalignstoa

preventativeinstructionalframeworkwherestudentsidentifiedasat-riskona

screeningmeasurereceivesupplementalinstruction.Allstudentscontinueto

receivecoreinstruction,whilethoseidentifiedasat-riskontheassignmentvariable

receivesupplementalinstruction.Theassignmentvariablecanbeanycontinuous

quantitativemeasuretakenpriortointerventionandthecutoffpointmustbe

followedwithoutexceptionsothatonlythoseparticipantswhosescoresplacethem

10

inthetreatmentgroupreceiveintervention(Trochim,2006).Allparticipantsare

administeredapost-interventionmeasureandthetreatmenteffectcanbeobserved

asadiscontinuityintheregressionlinesatthecutoffpointontheassignment

variable(Shadishetal.,2002;Trochim,2006).Thisisduetotheunderlying

assumptionthatiftherewerenotreatmenteffect,therelationshipbetweenthe

assignmentvariablescoreandthescoreonthepost-interventionmeasurewouldbe

thesameforallstudentsregardlessofwhodidordidnotreceivetheintervention.

TheRDdesignyieldsunbiasedestimatesoftreatmenteffectsifallofthefive

centralassumptionsaremet(Shadishetal.,2002;Trochim,2006).First,thecutoff

criterionmuststrictlybefollowedwhenassigningstudentstotheinterventionand

nointerventiongroups.Second,therelationshipbetweenpre-andposttestscores

mustbedescribableasapolynomialfunction.Third,thenointerventioncomparison

groupmustbelargeenoughtoadequatelypredicttheregressionline.Fourth,all

participantsinboththeinterventionandnointerventiongroupsmustcomefrom

thesamecontinuouspre-interventiondistributioninordertoavoidselectionbias.

Lastly,theinterventionmustbedeliveredtoallparticipantsinaconsistentmanner.

EducationalresearchersareincreasinglyusingtheRDdesigntoevaluatethe

efficacyofinstructionalinterventions,inpartduetothedesign’scompatibilitywith

apreventativetieredservicedeliverymodelwhereat-riskstudentswhoaremostin

needreceivethetargetedinterventions.Thedesignhasbeenusedtoexaminethe

effectsofaTier2mathematicsintervention(Bryant,Bryant,Gersten,Scammacca,&

Chavez,2008),aTier3readingintervention(Vaughnetal.,2009),aTier2literacy

intervention(Chaparro,Smolkowski,Baker,Fien,&Smith,2012),andanintensive

11

vocabularyintervention(Ashworth&Pullen,2015;Tuckwiller,Pullen,&Coyne,

2010).

ThePresentStudy

Thepurposeofthepresentinvestigationwastoexaminewhether

participationinasupplementalwritinginterventionthatcombinedsentence

constructionstrategyinstructionwithself-regulationproceduresresultedin

significantimprovementstotheperformanceofstrugglingfourthgradewriters.The

intervention’seffectivenesswasexaminedusingstandardized,norm-referenced

assessmentsofstandardwritingconventionsandstoryquality.Aregression

discontinuity(RD)designwasusedtotestwhetherstudentsincludedinthe

interventiongroupoutperformedtheirpredictedscoresoneachoftheoutcome

measures.Ihypothesizedthatthestrugglingwriterswouldsignificantlyoutperform

theirpredictedscoresonbothmeasuresofstandardwritingconventionsandstory

quality.Ipredictedtheintervention,aimedatbuildingfluencyinfoundational

sentence-levelskills,woulddirectlyimproveperformanceonthestandard

conventionsmeasure.Additionally,Itheorizedthatfluencyinprerequisite

sentence-levelskillswouldallowstudentstoallocatemorecognitiveefforttowards

planningandmakingsubstantiverevisions,andthussignificantimprovementsin

storyqualitywouldbeobserved.

12

CHAPTER2

REVIEWOFTHEORETICALANDEMPIRICALLITERATURE

Introduction

ThroughtheadoptionoftheCommonCoreStateStandards(CCSS;National

GovernorsAssociation&CouncilofChiefStateSchoolOfficers,2010)writing

instructionwaselevatedtotheroleofafundamentaleducationalimperative

alongsidereadingandmathematicsinschoolimprovementefforts.Thestandards,

whichspecifythecontentallstudentsareexpectedtomasterandsuccessfullyapply

ateachgradelevel,correspondtooverarchinganchorstandardsforCollegeand

CareerReadiness(CCRA).TheyareintendedtoimproveK-12instructionand

increasestudentachievement.TheCCSSneithermandatesnorrecommendsthe

"how"partofteaching.However,theiradoptionhasrequiredmanyteacherstoshift

theirapproachtoliteracyandwritinginstructioninordertomoredirectlyaddress

theconventional,linguistic,andcognitivecomponentstargetedintheStandards.

OnecomponentofwritingprominentwithinCCSSisthecommandof

standardEnglishconventions(CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.1;CCSS.ELA-

Literacy.CCRA.L.2).Theefficacyofwrittenlanguagelargelydependsonthese

sociallyagreeduponrulesforgrammar(i.e.thesyntacticandsemanticstructureof

sentences)andmechanics(i.e.capitalization,punctuation,andspelling)(Shanahan,

2009).Whilearbitrary,theserulesareanecessarytooltoensurethemeaningofa

textisclearlyconveyedtothereaderinauniformmanner(Culham,2003).

Unfortunately,manystudentsleavehighschoolwithoutafirmgraspofthese

13

foundationalskills.Bothprofessorsandemployershaveexpressedfrustrationwith

thelackofproficiencydisplayedbystudentsandnewlyhiredyoungprofessionalsin

basicwritingskills,specificallyatthesentencelevel(Foltz-Gray,2012;National

CommissiononWriting,2004;Quible,2008;Sanoff,2006).Remedialwriting

instructionhasconsequentlybecomeanecessaryandtime-consumingexpensefor

universitiesandbusinesses(Goen-Salter,2008;NationalCommissiononWriting,

2004).

Inordertopreventfutureacademicdifficultystemmingfrommissing

prerequisiteskills,teachersmustsystematicallyteachtheirstudentsaprogression

ofcomponentskillsbuildinguptooverallcompositeskills(Kame'enui&Simmons,

1990),andtheprovidedinstructionmusttargettheknowledgeandskillsmost

salientfortheirstudents'developmentallevel(Fitzgerald,2013).TheLanguageand

WritingstrandsoftheCCSSprovideasystematic,developmentalK-12framework

outliningasequenceoflearninggoalstoguideinstructionthatwillhopefully

minimizeandpreventanoverwhelmingneedforremediationattheuniversityand

occupationallevel.Intheearliestgrades,graphophonics,whichincludes

phonologicalawareness,graphemeawareness,andmorphology,iscritical,asitisa

prerequisitetosentenceproduction(Berninger&Swanson,1994;Fitzgerald&

Shanahan,2000).Inthefollowinggrades,sentence-levelconventionsincluding

syntax/grammarandmechanicsbecomemorecritical,astheyareprerequisitesto

developingmoreadvancedcompositionabilities(Berninger&Swanson,1994;

Fitzgerald&Shanahan,2000).Thebasicsentenceis,afterall,thefoundationof

writtenexpression(Kame'enui&Simmons,1990),andpoorlydevelopedsentence-

14

levelcompositionskillsdoinhibitmorecomplexwritingtasks(Berninger,Nagy,&

Beers,2011;Datchuk&Kubina,2012).Priortobeingabletowriteparagraphsand

piecesofconnectedtext,awritermustfirstbeabletousesyntacticknowledgeto

properlyformasentencethatconveysherorhisintendedmeaningthroughthe

combinationofwordsingrammaticallyacceptablegroups(Fitzgerald&Shanahan,

2000;Kame'enui&Simmons,1990;Saddler,2012,2013).Asentenceisa

"compositioninminiature"(Flower&Hayes,1981).Andbecauseconstructinga

sentenceisacognitivelyandlinguisticallydemandingtask(Fayol,2016;Myhill,

2008),itcannotbeassumedthatallstudentswilldevelopthenecessaryknowledge,

skills,andstrategieswithoutexplicitinstruction.Unfortunately,muchK-12

instructionsolelyfocusesonmacrolevelwritingprocesses(Wakely,Hooper,de

Kruif,&Swartz,2006),suchaschoosingatopic,organizingideas,anddraftingand

editingwithoutexplicitinstructionalattentiononthediscretecompositionskills.

However,asnotedearlier,toomanystudentsarecompletingtheirK-12education

withoutevermasteringthebasicsentenceorstandardEnglishconventions,let

alonedevelopingthemorecomplexcompositionalskillsexpectedofthemincollege

andtheworkforce.

ResistancetoTeachingStandardConventionsandSentence-levelSkills

CommonCore'sattentiontostandardEnglishconventionsandthenecessary

instructionalshift,hasnotcomewithoutcontroversy(Gartland&Smolkin,2016;

Locke,2009).Thereisaworthydebate,wellbeyondthescopeofthischapter,

concerningtheappropriatenessofaprescriptiveapproachtoteachingstandard

Englishasthesinglecorrectwaytowrite(e.g.Delpit,1986;Kolln&Hancock,2005;

15

Labov,1972;Scarcella,2003;Smith,Cheville,&Hillocks,2006).Manyeducators

arguethatteachingstandardEnglishashowoneoughttowritedevaluesother

formsofEnglish.Forpurposesofthischapter,Itakethepositionthatstandard

Englishisateachabletextgenerationskill.Whilenotintrinsicallysuperior,itisthe

varietyofEnglishassociatedwitheducationalandsocioeconomicsuccessand

mobility(Scarcella,2003).Andforthisreason,Iassumeitisimportantallstudents

begivenaccesstothegenerallyacceptedconventionsandbetaughthowtoapply

theskillduringparticularsituations(Delpit,1986).Alongwiththisassumption,I

alsoacknowledgethattherulesandconventionsconsideredacceptableand

relevantfortoday'swritingareboundtoshift(Leu,Slomp,Zawilinski,&Corrigan,

2016).

Itisimportanttonote,onecantakethepositionthatstandingcultural

conventionsnecessitatestudentstobecomeproficientinstandardEnglishwithout

assumingthatsuchproficiencyisagaugeofalearner'sabilities.Justasitis

conventionaltowearasuittoaninterviewdespitethefactthesuititselfisoften

irrelevanttowhetherornottheintervieweecanperformthejob'srequiredduties,

itisexpectedthatwrittencommunicationbepresentedfollowingagenerally

acceptedsetofrulesevenifadeviationdoesnotinfluenceareader's

comprehensionofthecontentandideascontainedinthetext.Andwhile

unfortunate,itisthecasethatgrammaticalerrors,muchlikeattire,oftennegatively

influencejudgmentsmadebyemployers(Forsythe,1990;NationalCommissionon

Writing,2004)andteachers(Graham,Harris,&Hebert,2011)aboutone's

competence,notjusttheirabilitytoapplystandardconventionsinwriting.Onthis

16

point,Graham,Harris,andHebert(2011)conductedameta-analysisofstudies

examiningpresentationeffectsonscoringwriting,andcalculatedanaverage

weightedeffectsizeof-0.56indicatingthatpaperswithgrammaticalerrorswere

moreharshlygradedforcontentandqualitythanidenticalpaperswithfewerorno

grammaticalerrors.Theoverallaim,ofcourse,shouldbetoeliminatepresentation

effectsinassessment,especiallywhenthetestsaredesignedtoassesscontent

knowledge.However,untilthisisdone,allstudentsmustbetaughthowtoapply

standardEnglishconventionswhenitisanexpectationtoensureaccesstofair

evaluation.

Additionalargumentsaremadeopposingtheinclusionofconventionsinthe

curriculum.Someeducatorsarguethatfocusingtoomuchonthe"surfaceaspects"

ofwritingcandiscouragethedevelopmentofauthorialvoice,individualstyle,and

organization(Smithetal.,2006).Humphrey,Davidson,andWalton(2014)suggest

teachersareforcedtoneglecttheseotherimportantaspectsofwritingbecause

standardEnglishconventionsaretooprominentwithinCCSSandconsequently

largelyemphasizedonhighstakestests.Furthermore,someeducatorstrainedin

strictsocial-constructivistorsocioculturalteacherpreparationprogramsdonot

directlyaddressconventionsbasedontheoreticalgrounds.Teachersinthese

programsaretaughttobelievethatwritingshouldnotbebrokenintosmaller

componentsforexplicitinstruction.Rather,theyaretaughtthatstudentswill

naturallylearnalltheknowledgeandcomponentskillsnecessaryforproficient

composition,includingthosepertainingtostandardEnglishconventions,asthey

mature,writeabouttopicsoftheirchoiceduringauthenticwritingtasks,and

17

receivefeedbackfrompeerspriortorevisingeachpiece(Applebee,2000).Alarge

bodyofevidence,however,suggeststhistypeofgenerativeinstructionisnotas

effectiveassupplantiveinstructionthatsystematicallypromotesskillbuilding(e.g.

Kirschner,Sweller,&Clark,2006;NationalReadingPanel,2000),especiallyfor

strugglinglearners.

Whilelessextremethanapurelygenerativemodelofinstructionthat

dependsheavilyonincidentallearning,manyofthecoreunderlyingprinciples

guidingtheprocessapproachtowritinginstruction-themostwidespreadformof

writinginstructiontoday-arealsobasedinsocioculturalandconstructivisttheory.

Inanationalsurvey,72%ofelementaryteachersreportedusingaprocessapproach

towritinginstructioncombinedwithsometraditionalskillsinstruction(Cutler&

Graham,2008).Inprocessapproachorientedclassrooms,writingforauthentic

purposesisemphasizedoversystematic,explicitinstructiononskillsatthe

sentence,word,andsubwordlevel.Instructiononbasicskillsandcomponentsof

writingsuchasconventionsmayoccurthroughclassmini-lessons,individual

conferences,and"teachablemoments."

Theprocessapproachtowritingalone,however,isnoteffectivefor

strugglingandat-riskwritersbecauseskillinstructionprovidedthrough

minilessons,writingconferences,andteachablemomentsisnotintensiveenough

fortheselearnerstosecurenecessarybasicskillssuchassentenceconstruction

(Berningeretal.,2009;Graham&Harris,1997a,1997b;Graham&Sandmel,2011;

Spiegel,1992;Troia,Lin,Monroe,&Cohen,2009).Moreover,threeseparatemeta-

analysessuggesttheprocessapproachtowritinginstruction,whileeffective,isnot

18

particularlypowerfulforgeneraleducationstudentseitherwhencomparedtoother

instructionaltreatments(Grahametal.,2012;Graham&Sandmel,2011;Graham&

Perin,2007).Couplingtheprocessapproachwithsystematic,explicitinstructionon

requisiteknowledgeandskills,aswellasstrategiestoapplysuchknowledgeand

skills,ismoreeffectiveforgeneraleducationstudentsatimprovingtheoverall

qualityofwritingthansimplyengagingstudentsinthewritingprocess(Grahamet

al.,2012;Graham&Perin,2007).

EducatorsreluctanttoteachstandardEnglishconventionsforanyofthe

reasonsdescribedabovemaypreventstudentsfromacquiringnecessarybasic

grammaticalskills.Still,studentsmaystruggletoachievegrammaticalproficiencyin

writingevenincaseswhereteachersbelieveinprovidinginstructionon

conventions.Therearemanyteacherswhowishtoprovidethisinstruction,notonly

becauseoftheirprominenceintheStandardsandconsequentemphasisin

standardizedtests,butbecausetheyhopeeliminatingsurfaceerrorswillimprove

theoverallqualityofwriting(Smithetal.,2006).Yet,unlesstheseteachershavea

thoroughunderstandingofthestagesofwritingandsyntacticdevelopment,the

cognitiveprocessesthatmediatesuccessfulwriting,andevidence-basedinstruction

appropriateforlearnersofdifferentskillanddevelopmentallevels,theyarelikelyto

employpracticessuchastraditionaldecontextualizedgrammarinstruction,

(Berningeretal.,2009;Troia&Olinghouse,2013)apracticewhichresearch

suggestsisnoteffectiveatimprovingoverallwrittenexpression(e.g.Andrewsetal.,

2006;Grahametal.,2012;Hillocks,1984;Hillocks&Smith,2003).Thereare,

though,research-supportedpracticesthatcanbeusedtoteachgrammarandother

19

sentence-levelstandardconventionstotypicallydevelopingandstrugglingwriters

asrequiredbyCCSSwithinaprocess-orientedwritingprogramthatcontinuesto

provideauthenticopportunitiesforstudentstocultivateothercomponentsof

writingsuchasauthorialvoiceandstyle(Fearn&Farnan,2007;Graham&Harris,

2013;Grahametal.,2015;Hudson,2016).

Inthischapter,Iaimtoprovideinformationthatcanhelpguideeducatorsin

choosingeffectiveinstructionalpracticestoensuretheirstudentslearnbasic

writingskillsasoutlinedintheLanguageandWritingstrandsofCCSS.Iwillfirst

offerabriefexplanationoftheoreticalmodelsofwrittenlanguageandits

developmentalstagestojustifytheStandards'emphasisplacedonteaching

sentence-levelgrammarandmechanicsintheelementarygrades.Iwillthenreview

whatisknownaboutsentence-leveltextgenerationinstruction-whatworksand

forwhom-andframetheextantresearchwithintheoreticalmodelsofgrammar

instruction.

TheoriesofWritingDevelopment

Inorderforteachersofwritingtobemosteffective,atheoretical

understandingofwritinganditsdevelopmentisessential.Thisunderstanding

enablesclarityofinstructionalgoalsbecausetheoryinfluencespedagogical

decisionsaboutwhatcomponentsofwritingareemphasized,andthewayinwhich

thesecomponentsoughttobetaught(Fitzgerald,2013).Therearetwogeneral

theoreticalapproachestowritingthathaveguidedmuchofthedevelopmentaland

instructionalresearchoverthepastfewdecades;acognitiveperspectiveanda

socioculturalperspective.Thecognitivestanceviewswritingasacomplexproblem-

20

solvingactivitythatinvolvestheintegrationofthewriter'sknowledge,skills,

strategies,language,andmotivationalresourcesinordertomeettheir

communicativegoals(MacArthur&Graham,2016).Thesocioculturalstanceviews

writingas"acomplexsocialparticipatoryperformanceinwhichthewriterasserts

meaning,goals,actions,affiliations,andidentitieswithinaconstantlychanging,

contingentlyorganizedsocialworld,relyingonsharedtextsandknowledge"

(Bazerman,2016,p.18).Fromeitherperspective,however,linguisticcompetence,

whichincludessyntax/grammar,isessentialtoproficientwrittenexpression

(Myhill,2008).

Thesocioculturalperspectiveonthecausalfactorsfordeficitsinwriting

outcomesisthatstrugglingwriterslackasolidunderstandingoftheimportant

relationshipbetweenauthorsandreaders(Fitzgerald,2013).Ontheotherhand,

cognitivetheoryprovidesgreaterinsightintodifferentreasonswhysomewriters

struggleandhowtheirdifficultiesmightberemediated.Fitzgerald(2013)suggests

thecognitiveperspectiveaffordsaproblem-solvingframeworkforassisting

strugglingwriters,becauseresearcherswiththistheoreticalstancehaveexplored

theknowledge,skills,andprocessesnecessaryduringcomposition,their

development,andhowtheymightbebolsteredthroughvariousinstructional

methods.Theassumptionisthatthedifficulty,orproblem,existsduetoadeficitin

requisiteskills,strategies,orspecificlinguisticandcontentknowledge,eachof

whichcontributestowritingdevelopmentandperformance(Graham,2006).The

specificcomponentthatneedsstrengtheningcanbeidentifiedandthentargeted

throughexplicitinstructiontoimprovewritingperformance.Conversely,

21

instructionbasedonafirmsocioculturalperspectiveinwhichteachersfacilitate

opportunitiesforstudentstoengageinauthenticandmeaningfulwritingactivities,

doesnotallowfortheoverallcompositeskillofwritingtobebrokendownintoits

smallercomponents.Therefore,whileacknowledgingthatwritingand

understandingdodevelopinsocialcontexts,thischapterfocusesprimarilyon

researchandinstructionalpracticesbasedoncognitivetheoreticalmodels.

CognitivePerspectivesonWriting

ThemostinfluentialcognitivemodelofwritingisthatofHayesandFlower

(1980),whichwasdevelopedthroughtheanalysisofthink-aloudprotocols

completedbyadultsastheyproducedawrittenproduct.Thetheoreticalmodel,

whichconceptualizeswritingasacomplexproblem-solvingtask,involvesthreecore

components;1)thewriter'slong-termmemorywhichincludestheirknowledgeof

thetopic,intendedaudience,andplanningactivitiesthathavebeenpreviously

effectiveinhelpingthemaccomplishpastwritingtasks,2)thetaskenvironment

whichincludesexternalinfluencessuchasthetopic,audience,andtextproducedso

far,and3)thecognitiveprocessesofplanning,translating,andreviewing.During

composition,thewritermustplanwhattosayandhowtoportraytheseideasin

words.Theymustthentranslatetheplansintowrittentextbeforeevaluatingand

revisingthattexttomakeimprovements.

CriticsoftheHayesandFlowermodeldonotbelievethesocialand

interactivenatureofwritingisadequatelyaddressed.Ratherthanbeingcentral,

intendedaudienceisincludedasanappurtenantcomponentwithintask

environment(Nystrand,2006).Hayes(1996)laterrevisedthemodeltomore

22

thoroughlyincludethesocialaspectsofwriting.Andinthisupdatedversion,healso

highlightedtheimportanceoflinguisticandgenreknowledge,aswellasthe

constraintsandroleofworkingmemory.Still,therevisedmodeldidnotcapture

significantdifferencesbetweenbeginningwritersandskilledwriters.Clearly,

writinginstructionforstudentsintheearlystagesofdevelopmentshouldnotlook

likewritinginstructionforadultshoningtheirskills.Unfortunatelythough,

elementaryschoolinstructionbasedonmodelsofadultorexpertwritingcantend

tooveremphasizethemacrolevelwritingprocesseswhilediscountingthe

importanceofprerequisiteskillsandknowledge(Wakelyetal.,2006).Thus,

developmentaltheoriesoffergreaterinsightanddepthintotheoriesofwriting

acquisition.

DevelopmentalPerspectivesonWriting

Writingproficiencyisdependentuponthedevelopmentandintegrationof

skillsandprocessesatthephysical,neurological,cognitive,andlinguisticlevels

(Berninger,Fuller,&Whitaker,1996;Berningeretal.,1992).Becausethereexist

developmentalconstraintsateachoftheselevelswhilechildrenarelearningto

write,thedevelopingnovicewritercannotbeequatedtoaskilledadultwriter

(Berninger,Mizokawa,&Bragg,1991;Berninger&Swanson,1994).Takinga

developmentalperspective,BerningerandSwanson(1994)modifiedtheHayesand

Flowermodelbasedonconstraintstowritingacquisition,andtheseconstraints'

relativeimportanceatdifferentages.TheyadaptedtheHayesandFlowermodelby

dividingtheprocessoftranslatingintotwocomponents:transcriptionandtext

generation,bothofwhichemergepriortoone'sabilitytoskillfullyplanorreview

23

text.Transcription,whichincludeshandwriting,keyboarding,andspelling,skills

paramountinprimarygrades,isdependentuponphysicalandneurological

development.Textgeneration,whichinvolvestransformingideasintowords,

sentences,andparagraphs,isdependentuponlinguisticdevelopment.While

transcriptionskillsactasaconstraintearlyon,andthusreceivethemajorityoftheir

attentionintheprimarygrades,linguisticknowledgeandskillsthatallowwritersto

producesentencesandconnectedtextofappropriatesyntaxandgrammarbecomea

moresignificantconstrainttowritingproficiencyintheintermediategrades.The

abilitytoplan,organizethoughts,andreview/revisethewrittenproductfor

cohesionisdependentondevelopmentatthecognitivelevel,whichBerningerand

Swanson(1994)suggestbecomesmostsalientinjuniorhigh.Cognitiveconstraints,

however,arenotjustrelevantduringthisdevelopmentalstage.Theyareinvolvedat

alldevelopmentalstages,owingtothefactthateverycomponentofwritingrequires

cognitiveresources(Bourdin&Fayol,1994).

WorkingMemoryandtheCapacityTheoryofWriting

Planning,translation-bothtranscriptionandtextgeneration-,and

reviewingeachrelyonthewriter'sskillsandstrategies,aswellastheircontent,

linguisticanddomainknowledge(Fayol,2016;Graham,2006).Andduring

composition,theseareallcoordinatedandbalancedwithinworkingmemory

(Berninger,1999;Bourdin&Fayol,1994;McCutchen,2000;2006),whichitselfhas

alimitedcapacity(Baddeley,1986;Swanson,1992).Workingmemoryis

responsibleforstoringandprocessinginformationfromboththeenvironmentand

long-termmemoryduringanytask,andduetoitslimitations,thereisatrade-off

24

betweenthetwofunctions(Baddeley,1986;McCutchen,1996;2000).Storage,

processing,orbothareadverselyaffectedwhencognitivedemandsexceed

resources.Forthecomplextaskofwriting,cognitiveresourcesdevotedtoplanning,

translating,orreviewingresultindiminishedresourcesavailablefortheremaining

twocomponents(Bourdin&Fayol,1994;McCutchen,2000).Eventhough

translatingistheleastdemandingofthethreeprocesses(Kellogg,1994),lackof

fluencyintextproductiontaxesthewriter'slimitedresourcesandcanpreventher

orhimfromadequatelyplanningandrevising,whichconsequently,negatively

influencesoverallwritingquality(McCutchen,2006;McCutchen,Teske,&Bankston,

2008).

Developingandstrugglingwriterswhodonotadequatelyplanorrevise

resorttousinganapproachtowritingBereiterandScardamalia(1987)called

knowledge-telling.Writerswhorelyonthislow-levelstrategysimplyretrievetopic-

appropriateknowledgefromlong-termmemorytoimmediatelywritedown.Each

briefchunkoftextservesasthecueorstimulusforthenextidea,resultingina

stringoflooselyrelatedideasoftenorganizedinfragmentsorrun-onsentences

(Berningeretal.,2011;Graham,1990).Withoutplanningandreviewing,writers

whorelyonknowledge-tellinghavedifficultytakingtheperspectiveofapotential

reader.Theyinsteadfocusontheirownthoughtsandnothowthetextliterally

reads(Kellogg&Whiteford,2009).Thesamelimitedcapacityofworkingmemory

thatresultsintrade-offsbetweenplanning,translation,andreviewingdoesnot

allowdevelopingwriterstosimultaneouslyaccesstheirownrepresentationofthe

textastheauthor,theliteraltextitself,andthereader'srepresentationofthetext

25

(Kellogg&Whiteford,2009).Withoutaccesstoallthreetextrepresentations,the

authorcannotmaketheintendedmeaningofthecommunicationclear.

Researchsuggestedthislow-levelformofcompositioncannotonlybe

preventedthroughexplicitinstructiononplanningandrevisionstrategies(Graham

&Harris,2005),buteffectiveinstructioninthecomponentsoftranslationcanalso

reducewriters'relianceonlimitedknowledge-telling(Berningeretal.,2011).

Theoretically,thecognitiveload,ordemandonworkingmemoryresources,

requiredforataskcanbereducedwhenanyofitscomponentskillsandprocesses

becomerelativelymoreautomaticandefficientthroughinstructionandpractice

(Kellogg&Whiteford,2009;Sweller,1988).Foryoungerwriters,bothtranscription

andtextgenerationarefairlyinefficientwhencomparedtotypicaladultwriters

whohavedevelopedrelativeautomaticity.Multiplestudieshavefoundtranscription

requiresmorecognitivedemandforchildrenthanforadults(e.g.Bourdin&Fayol,

1994;Bourdin,Fayol,&Darciaux,1996;Olive&Kellogg,2002).Researchalso

suggestssystematicinstructionfordevelopingwritersonhandwritingandspelling

iseffectiveinbuildingoverallcompositionalfluency(e.g.Berningeretal.,1997;

Berningeretal.,2002;Berningeretal.,2006;Berninger&Graham,1998),

theoreticallybecausedemandonworkingmemoryisreducedasthecomponent

skillsbecomerelativelymoreautomatic(McCutchen,2006).

Textgeneration,justliketranslation,alsorequiresmorecognitivedemand

forchildrenthanforadults(Bourdin&Fayol,1994;Kellogg,1994).Whilethe

burdenvocabularyretrievalandgeneratingtextatthesentencelevelimposeon

typicaladultwriter'sworkingmemoryisnearlyindiscernible,thecognitivedemand

26

fordevelopingwritersisquitelarge(Berninger,Cartwright,Yates,Swanson,&

Abbott,1994;Bourdin&Fayol,1994).Childrenarejustdevelopingan

understandingofhoworalandwrittenlanguagenecessitatedifferentlinguistic

codesandsyntacticconstructions(Myhill,2008;2009),andthosestructures

associatedwithwritingareunderstandablymorecomplexthanspeaking

(Shanahan,2006).Theeffortdevelopingwritersmustplaceonlinguisticand

syntacticdecisionswithinthesetofacceptedrulesinhibitstheirabilitytofocuson

themeaningtheyareintendingtoconveythroughtext(VanGelderen&Oostdam,

2005).Muchliketeachingtranscriptionskillsinfluencesoverallcompositionby

reducingcognitiveload,theoretically,teachingtextgenerationskillsandthe

requisitelinguisticknowledgewillreducetranslationdemandsopeningupmore

resourcesforplanningandreviewing.Andwhileitisn'texpectedforsentence-level

textgenerationskillstobecomeautomaticinthesamewayastranscriptionskills,it

istherelativeautomaticityandfluencythatmatters(Cheng,1985;Kellogg&

Whiteford,2009).

FindingsfromastudycompletedbyMcCutchen,Covill,Hoyne,andMildes

(1994)areconsistentwiththetheorythatfluencyintextgenerationskillsmay

allowwriterstoattendtoothercomponentsofwritingtoimproveoverallquality.

Theyfoundthatacrossgradelevels,thoseclassifiedgenerallyasskilledwritershad

greatersentence-levelfluencythanunskilledwriters.Additionally,VanGelderen

andOostdam(2005)foundstudentswhoparticipatedinfluencytrainingonvarious

sentence-levellinguisticoperationsmadeproportionallyfewererrorsrelatedtotext

meaningthanacontrolgroupduringawritingtask.Theauthorssuggesttheir

27

findingssupportthetheorythatincreasedfluencyinproducingvariousacceptable

sentencestructuresallowswriterstobetterattendtotheoverallmeaningofthe

text.

Insummary,accordingtocognitiveanddevelopmentaltheoriesofwriting,

teachingtheorthographicandlinguisticknowledgeandskillsnecessaryfor

translationmayimproveoverallwrittenexpressionjustasteachingskillsand

strategiesforplanningandreviewingtextcan.Byreducingthecognitivedemand

requiredfortranscription(i.e.handwritingandspelling)andtextgeneration(i.e.

producingsentencesofappropriatesyntax/grammar),writersmaybelesslikelyto

resorttoknowledge-telling.Thisisbecausetheywillhavemorecognitiveresources

availabletoapplytoplanning,reviewing,andtakingaprospectivereader'spointof

view.Unfortunately,educatorshavenotembracedgrammarandsentence-leveltext

generationinstructioninthesamewaytheyhaveacceptedspellingand

handwriting/transcriptioninstruction.Thereareseveralreasonsthismightbethe

case,someofwhichwerepreviouslydiscussed.Additionally,thepasttwentyyears

ofwritinginstructionandwritinginstructionresearchcanbecharacterizedasa

backlashfromthestudiesthatdemonstratedtraditionaldecontextualizedgrammar

instructionwasfoundtobeineffective.Thisresultedincompletelygrammar-free

instructionfortwodecades,whichmeansthatmanyoftoday'steachersdonothave

thenecessaryunderstandingofsyntaxtoeffectivelyteachgrammarandsentence-

levelwritingskills(Hudson,2016).

28

GrammarandSentenceConstructionInstruction

Giventhat1)linguisticknowledgeandsentence-leveltextgenerationskills

maysignificantlyconstrainwritingproficiencyintheintermediategrades

(Berninger&Swanson,1994),and2)fluencyorrelativeautomaticityinsentence-

leveltextgenerationskillsmayimproveoverallwritingproficiencybymaking

availablemorecognitiveresourcesforplanningandreviewing(Kellogg&

Whiteford,2009),theemphasisCCSSplacesonstandardEnglishconventionsduring

elementaryandintermediategradesiswarranted.Itisimportanttokeepinmind,

however,thattheStandardsdonotrecommendmethodsthroughwhichteachers

shouldsupportandguidetheirstudentsinmeetingtheseexpectations.Wemust,

therefore,looktoresearchinordertofindeffectivepracticesforteachingsentence-

levelskills.Withintheliterature,methodsofteachingstandardconventionsand

othersentence-levelskillstendtofallundertwogeneralheadings;sentence

construction(SC)instructionandgrammarinstruction.

WhileitisnowarguedthatSCinstructionisactuallyaformofgrammar

instruction(Hudson,2016),thelattertendstorefertotraditionaldecontextualized

methodssuchassentencediagraming.Anabundanceofresearch,synthesizedin

multiplemeta-analyses,hasfoundtraditionalmethodsofgrammarinstructionto

havenoinfluenceonchildren'swritingquality(Andrewsetal.,2006;Grahametal.,

2015;Grahametal.,2012;Hillocks,1984;Hillocks&Smith,2003).Thishasdriven

manyeducatorstofullyabandontheideaofteachinggrammarbyanymeans.

Hudson(2016)arguesagainstthecompleteabandonmentofgrammarinstruction

ineducation.Hecitesmultiplereasonswhytheconclusionthatitisineffective

29

shouldbereconsidered.OnemajorflawpointedoutbyHudsonisthatthenarrow

definitionofwhatconstitutesteachinggrammarinthesemeta-analysesexcludedSC

instruction.Teachingstudentstoconstructgrammaticallycorrectsentences,

whetherbasicorsyntacticallycomplex,however,isaclearexampleofteaching

grammar.

Sentence-combining,oneformofSCinstruction,isawell-researched

alternativetotraditionalmethodsofteachinggrammar.Throughaseriesof

systematiclessons,theinstructorexplicitlyteachesstudentstocombinetwoor

morekernelsentencesorclausesintoasyntacticallycomplexsentence(Saddler,

2012,2013).Theinstructionhelpsstudentsdevelopametalinguisticawareness,

whichallowsthemtomakethoughtfulsyntacticalchoiceswiththereaderinmind.

Repeatedguidedpracticebuildssyntacticalfluencywithavarietyofcomplex

sentenceconstructions.InastudyconductedbySaddlerandGraham(2005),

studentsinthesentencecombiningtreatmentgroupweretwiceaslikelytoproduce

agrammaticallycorrectsentencecontainingallcriticalideasfromthekernel

sentencesthanthosestudentsinthetraditionalgrammarinstructioncomparison

group.Theresearchersreportedeffectsizesof1.31forsentencecombiningonthe

researchermadeend-of-unittestsand0.81fortheTOWL-3SentenceCombining

subtests.Additionally,sentencecombininghasbeenshowntobemoderately

effectiveatimprovingoverallwritingquality(Saddler,Asaro,&Behforooz,2008;

Saddler,Behforooz,&Asaro,2008;Saddler&Graham,2005)withanaverage-

weightedeffectsizeof0.56(Grahametal.,2015).

30

FormsofSCinstructionotherthansentencecombininghavealsobeenfound

tobeeffective.AndersonandKeel(2002)examinedtheeffectsofthefirstunitinthe

ReasoningandWritingprogram(Engelmann&Silbert,1991).Theunitisaseriesof

explicitandsystematiclessonsbeginningwiththeconstructionofsimplesentences

beforegraduallyprogressingtocompoundandcomplexconstructions.The

researchersreportedmediumeffectsizesforsyntacticmaturity(ES=0.48)and

overallSpontaneousWritingontheTOWL-2(ES=0.47).Additionally,Datchuk,

Kubina,andMason,(2015)foundexplicitteachingontheconstructionofsimple

sentencescombinedwithafluency-buildingpracticeprocedurewaseffectivefor

increasingthespeedandaccuracyofcompletesentencesandcorrectword

sequencesforelementary-agedstudents.Inasecondstudy,theSCinstructionwas

effectiveinincreasingfluencyofcompletesentencesforfouradolescentswith

writingdifficulties(Datchuk,2015).Althoughneitherofthestudiesincludedan

outcomemeasureofoverallwritingquality,writingresearcherstheorizethatthe

increasedfluencyintextgenerationskillswillallowthewriterstoallocatemore

cognitiveresourcestoplanningandreviewing.

InadditiontoSCinstruction,recentresearchhasfoundotherformsof

teachinggrammartohavepositiveeffectsonwriting.Itshouldbenoted,however,

thatparticipantsinthefollowingstudieswereinhighschool.FearnandFarnan

(2007)comparedwhattheytermedfunctionalgrammarinstructioninwritingto

traditionaldecontextualizedgrammarinstruction.Ratherthanfocusingon

identifyingpartsofspeechandeditinggrammaticallyincorrectsentences,thosein

thetreatmentgroupwereexplicitlytaughtthepurposeandfunctionofwordtypes

31

andsentencepartswithincompletesentences.Theteachersofthetreatmentgroup

purposefullycapitalizedonstudents'grammaticalinstinctwithinthestudents'own

writingtoilluminatedifferencesbetweennonstandardformsofgrammarandthe

acceptedconventionalformsofgrammar.Althoughtherewasnodifferenceinthe

performanceofthetreatmentandcontrolgroupsonatraditionalgrammartestand

measuresofmechanicalaccuracy,thestudentsreceivingfunctionalgrammar

instructionperformedsignificantlybetteronameasureofoverallwritingquality.

Similarly,Jones,Myhill,andBailey(2013)andMyhill,Jones,Lines,and

Watson(2012)foundexplicitgrammarinstructionthatfocusesonbuildingan

understandingofhowlanguagefunctionstopositivelyimprovehighschoolstudent

writing.Theinterventioninthissetofstudiestaughtgrammarasameaningmaking

resource.Studentslearnedhowspecificgrammaticalchoicescouldhelp

communicatetheirintendedideastoreaders.Effectsoftheinterventionwerefound

bothatthesyntacticlevelofthesentenceandoveralltextcomposition.The

researchersfound,however,itwassignificantlymorebeneficialforstronger

writers.Theinterventiondidnothavethesamebeneficialeffectsforstruggling

writers.Asdiscussedearlier,strugglingwriterscanhavedifficultyaccessingthe

reader'srepresentationofthetextduetocognitiveconstraints(Kellogg&

Whiteford,2009).Thismaybethereasonwhyametalinguisticlanguage-heavy

interventionaimedatusinggrammarasatooltoconveymeaningtoareaderwas

notasbeneficialforthesestudents.

Inadditiontothisevidencesupportingformsofgrammarinstructionnot

includedinthemeta-analyses,Hudson'scaseagainstfullabandonmentisfurther

32

cementedbythefactthatresearchsuggestseventraditionalgrammarinstruction

showspromiseforstudentswithlearningdisabilities(Rogers&Graham,2008).

Additionally,thereisalargeevidencebasesupportingitsuseforEnglishlanguage

learners(e.g.DiCerbo,Anstrom,Baker,&Rivera,2014;Williams,2013).

Hudson'sTheoreticalModelofTeachingGrammar

Hudson(2016)offersatheoreticalexplanationastowhycertainmethodsof

grammarandSCinstructionareeffectiveandwhyothersarenot.Hestatesthat

thereare,ingeneral,twoapproachestoteachinggrammar;preventativeand

reactionary.Preventativeinstructionaimstosystematicallyteachgrammatical

knowledgeandskillsinordertopreventstudentsfrommakingmistakesintheir

ownwriting,thusimprovingoveralltextquality.Reactionaryinstruction,onthe

otherhand,occursonlyincontextandwhenitisrelevant.Thismeansthatteaching

occursinreactiontospecificmistakesmadeinauthenticwritingwiththeintentof

improvingtheoveralltextquality.Hudsonproposesasetoftheoreticalmodelsof

grammarinstructionusefulindescribingthepotentialandshortcomingstoboth

generalinstructionalapproaches.Inthemodels,"teachinggrammar"means

instructionontheideasandterminologyofthegrammaticalsystem.Hissimple3-

stepmodelofgrammarteachingforwritingisasfollows:

1. Teachinggrammarproducesknowledgeaboutgrammar

2. Knowledgeaboutgrammarenablesapplyinggrammar

3. Applyinggrammarimproveswriting

Inamorecomplexmodel,healsostatesthatteachinggrammarleadstoa

greaterawarenessofgrammar.Theawarenessenablesonetonoticegrammatical

33

patternsandchoiceswhenreading,whichthenfurthersknowledge.Again,the

knowledgeenablesthestudenttoapplythepatternsandchoicesintheirown

writing,whichwouldresultinimprovedtext.Thislineofreasoningdirectlyaligns

withBerninger,Nagy,andBeers'(2011)theorythatdevelopingsyntacticawareness

inyoungwriterscanenhancetheirabilitytotranslatetheirthoughtsmoreclearlyin

grammaticallyacceptablesentences.

InbothofHudson'smodels-thesimple3-stepmodelandthemorecomplex

model-thereisnodirectconnectionbetweentheknowledgeaboutgrammar

producedthroughinstructionandtheimprovementtowritingitself.Muchofthe

workinvolvingthepreventativeapproachtoteachinggrammar,however,assumes

thisdirectconnectionexists.Ratherthana3-stepmodel,thisviewimpliesa1-step

modelwhereteachinggrammarsimultaneouslyproducesknowledgeabout

grammarandimproveswriting.Thereisanassumptionthatgrammarisapplied

simplybecauseawriterpossessesknowledgeaboutit.Developingwriters,however,

donotnecessarilyapplytheirknowledgeunlesstheyareexplicitlytaughtstrategies

todoso(Graham&Harris,2000).Thisisespeciallytrueforstrugglingwriters.

Thereactionaryapproachtoteachinggrammaralsoassumesa1-stepmodel.

Thisapproach,accordingtoHudson,assumesapplyinggrammarandteaching

grammarareoneandthesame.Wheninstructionsolelyoccursinreactionto

problemsinauthenticwriting,thereisnosystemputinplacetopreventsimilar

problemsfromoccurringinfuturewritingandnoterminologyattachedtoerrors

andcorrections.Asaresultofthisapproach,studentsareleftwithahodgepodgeof

grammaticalknowledgetheyhaveapplied,whichtheyoftencannotnameor

34

explain.Asnotedearlier,instructionthroughreactionaryteachablemomentsisnot

effectiveinteachingstrugglingwritersnecessaryskills(Berningeretal.,2009;

Graham&Harris,1997b;Graham&Sandmel,2011;Spiegel,1992;Troiaetal.,

2009).

GrammarandSentenceConstructionInstructionwithStrategyInstruction

Accordingtothe3-stepmodel,grammarinstructiononlyimprovesoverall

writinggiventhatthegrammarisapplied(Hudson,2016).Teachersmust,

therefore,explicitlyteachtheirstudentstherequisitegrammarknowledgeand

skillsaswellasstrategiestoapplytheknowledgeandskillsduringwriting.

Strategiesinvolvetheproceduralknowledgenecessarytoaccomplishataskandcan

serveasastep-by-stepguidetoassistastudentinorganizinghisorherownactions

andbehaviors(Weinstein&Mayer,1983).Throughinstructionandrepeated

practice,strategiesandproceduralknowledgebecomestoredinlong-termmemory

wheretheyareavailableforrecallduringrelevanttasks.Recallingalearned,

efficientstrategyreducesthecognitiveloadnecessarytocompleteataskbecause

theindividualisnolongerrequiredtousethelimitedworkingmemoryresourcesto

problemsolvethroughpossibleproceduralsteps.Althoughsomestudentsareable

todeveloptheirownstrategies,strugglinglearnersandthosewithlearning

disabilitiesoftendonotlearnefficientandeffectivestrategieswithoutexplicit

instruction(Brown&Campione,1990;Derry&Murphy,1986;Swanson&Hoskyn,

1998).Researchindicatesexplicitstrategyinstructionforplanning,composing,and

revisingbenefitsbothstrugglingandtypicallydevelopingwriters(Grahametal.,

2012).

35

Twostudieshaveexaminedtheeffectivenessofsentence-levelgrammar

instructionpairedwithstrategyinstruction.Thefirst,conductedbyBui,Schumaker,

andDeshler(2006),examinedtheeffectsofacomprehensivewritingprogramthat

utilizedtheStrategicInstructionModel(Deshler&Schumaker,1988)andincluded

theFundamentalsofSentenceWriting(Schumaker&Sheldon,1998).Thefirst

lessonsfirsttaughtthe5thgradestudentsinthesampletherequirementsofa

completesimplesentenceandwerefollowedbylessonsonsentence-levelstrategies

for1)identifyingthesubjectandverbinasentence,2)identifyingactionandlinking

verbs,3)identifyinginfinitivesandprepositionalphrases,4)writingfourtypesof

simplesentences,5)identifyingmainsubjects,adjectives,andhelpingverbs,and6)

identifyingandusingcoordinatingconjunctionstojointwosimplesentences.

Followingagradualreleasemodelofexplicitinstruction,studentslearnedthePENS

MARKwritingstrategywhichstandsforPickasentenceformula,Explorewordsto

fittheformula,Notethewords,Searchandcheck,Markouttheimposters,Askif

thereisaverb,Rootoutthesubject,andKeyinonthebeginning,ending,and

meaning.Studentswhoreceivedtheinterventionincreasedsignificantlyfrompre-

toposttestontheproportionofcompletesentences(ES=1.64)andtheproportion

ofcomplicatedsentences(ES=1.18).StudentswithLDwhoreceivedthe

interventionmadeameangainof47%onproportionofcompletesentencesand

19%onproportionofcomplicatedsentences.StudentswithoutLDinthe

interventiongroupmadeameangainof38%onproportionofcompletesentences

and23%onproportionofcomplicatedsentences.Thosestudentsinthecontrol

36

groupshowednoimprovementoncomplicatedsentencesanddecreasedinthe

proportionofcompletesentences.

LimpoandAlves(2013)alsoexaminedtheeffectivenessofteaching

grammarpairedwithstrategyinstruction.Theinterventionexaminedinthisstudy

additionallyincludedinstructioninself-regulationprocedures.Self-regulation

referstointernalthoughts,feelings,andactionsthatareusedtoobtainpersonal

goals(Schunk&Zimmerman,2007),andthedevelopmentofthesecognitive

regulatingbehaviorsinfluencetheacquisitionandapplicationofknowledgeand

skills.Importantly,at-riskwritersneedmoresupportindevelopingself-regulation

proceduresthantheirpeerstoensuretheuseofstrategiesthroughouteachstepof

composition(Wong,Harris,Graham,&Butler,2003).Intheearlystagesofwriting

development,allwritersaredependentuponothers,beittheirteacherorpeers,to

regulatetheirplanning,composing,evaluating,andrevising(Berninger&Amtmann,

2003).Externalsupportsarenecessarytoreducethecognitiveprocessingburden,

andtherefore,theroleofateacheristoprovidescaffoldingtosimplifythecomplex

processesinvolvedinwriting.Fortypicallydevelopingwriters,dependenceon

othersforregulationofcognitiveprocessesgraduallyshiftstoself-regulationas

theyintegrateandinternalizestrategiesthroughoutthewritingprocess.For

strugglingwriters,thisshiftfromother-regulationtoself-regulationdoesnot

alwaysoccurastheyhavedifficultyacquiringandusingstrategieswithoutexplicit

guidanceandsupport(Graham&Harris,2000).

Inordertopromoteself-regulationduringcomposition,LimpoandAlves

(2013)integratedSCinstructionintotheSelf-RegulatedStrategyDevelopment

37

(SRSD)model.SRSDwasdesignedtoimproveastudent’sstrategicknowledge,self-

regulationskills,contentknowledge,andmotivation(Harris&Graham,1999).It

focusesonproceduralfacilitationandcanbeappliedtovariouswriting

interventionsthatemployexplicitinstruction.Goalsettingandself-monitoringare

integraltothemodel.Severalmeta-analysesindicateSRSDhasastrongeffectonthe

writingofbothtypicalandstrugglingwriters(Graham&Harris,2003;Grahametal.,

2015;Graham&Perin,2007;Grahametal.,2012;Rogers&Graham,2008).

DuringtheLimpoandAlvesstudy,thoseinasentencecombining

interventiongrouplearnedthemnemonicDICA,whichisthePortugueseacronym

for:whatdoyouwanttosay?,whatistheidea?,chooseyourbestconnective,and

enrichwithadjectivesandadverbs.Theysetthegoaltowritewell-craftedsentences

withconnectives,opinionmarkers,andadjectives/adverbs,andthenlearnedto

self-monitorbycountingthenumberofeachofthesesentencecomponents.Results

indicatedtheinterventionincreasedstudentssentenceconstructionskills.Those

whoreceivedthesentencecombininginterventionwereabletosuccessfully

combinemoresentencesatmid-testandposttestthanthosereceivinganalternate

interventionandthoseinthecontrolgroup(ES=1.06).Theinterventionalsohada

positiveeffectonoverallopinionessayquality(ES=0.72).Studentswhoreceived

sentencecombininginstructionscoredbetterateachofthesentenceconstruction

measuresandwordlevelmeasureswithinconnectedtext.Thisindicatesthe

studentswerenotonlyabletoutilizetheirskillsinisolation,buttheywereableto

applythemintextproduction.

38

Conclusion

Inordertobecomecollegeandcareerreadybyhighschoolgraduation,

studentsareexpectedtomasterstandardEnglishconventions,thesociallyagreed

uponrulesforgrammarandmechanics.Unfortunately,anoverwhelmingproportion

ofstudentsarecompletingschoolwithoutbecomingproficientinthesesentence-

levelconventions(NationalCommissiononWriting,2004),whichallowforclear

writtencommunicationandareassociatedwithacademicachievementand

socioeconomicmobility(Scarcella,2003).Disfluencyatthesentencelevelisa

barriertoproficientwrittenexpression,andmanyemployersarefrustratedwith

theinabilityoftheirnewhirestocommunicateclearlythroughwriting(National

CommissiononWriting,2004).Cognitiveanddevelopmentaltheoriesofwriting

suggestrelativefluencyinsentence-leveltextgenerationskillscanimproveoverall

writingbyreducingcognitiveload,allowingmoreresourcestobeallocatedto

planningandreviewing(McCutchen,2006).Therearemultipleinstructional

practicessupportedbyresearchthatcanbeusedtoteachsentence-leveltext

generationskillsandbuildsyntacticalfluency.Theoreticalmodelsofteaching

grammarsuggestthesemethodsofSCandgrammarinstructioncanimproveone's

overallwritingprovidedtheknowledgeandskillslearnedarealsoappliedwhen

writingconnectedtext(Hudson,2016).Therefore,teachersshouldexplicitlyteach

studentsproceduralstrategiesforapplicationalongsidetherequisitelinguistic

knowledge.Additionally,self-regulationprocedures,whichcanbetaughtthrough

theSRSDframework(Harris&Graham,1999),areespeciallybeneficialfor

strugglingwriters.Awell-designedwritingprogramcanincludeexplicitsentence-

39

leveltextgenerationinstructionalongwithstrategyinstructionforplanningand

revisingwithinaprocess-orientedstructure(Grahametal.,2015).Andby

emphasizinghowgrammaticalchoicesatthesentencelevelcaninfluencethe

presentationandclarityofawriter'sideas,authorialvoiceandindividualstylecan

bedevelopedratherthansacrificed.

40

CHAPTER3

METHODOLOGY

Thepresentinvestigationwasdesignedtotestwhetherparticipationina

supplementalwritinginterventionthatcombinedsentenceconstructionstrategy

instructionwithself-regulationproceduresresultedinsignificantimprovementsto

theperformanceofstrugglingfourthgradewriters.Usingaregressiondiscontinuity

(RD)design,Itestedwhetherstrugglingwriterswouldsignificantlyoutperform

theirpredictedscoresonmeasuresofstandardwritingconventionsandstory

qualityafterreceivingthewritingintervention.

ParticipantsandSetting

Thestudytookplaceinasuburbanelementaryschoolserving4thand5th

gradestudentsinthenortheast.Ofthe131fourthgradersintheschool,study

participantsincluded107studentswhodidnothavegoalsspecifictowritten

expressionintheirIndividualEducationProgram(IEP)andwhoseguardians

consentedtotheirchild'sparticipation.Coincidentally,allAfricanAmerican

studentsandallbuttwoHispanicstudentswereexcludedfromparticipating

becausetheyalreadyreceivedsupplementarywritinginstructionasoutlinedin

theirIEPs.DemographiccharacteristicsareincludedinTable1.

Theschoolwasselectedbecausealargesamplecouldberecruitedforan

adequatelypoweredRDdesign.Capperlleri,Darlington,andTrochim(1994)

completedapoweranalysisandprovidedsamplesizerecommendationsforRDto

detectsmall,medium,andlargeeffectsizesatα=.025.Inordertodetectamedium

41

effectsize,asampleof96wouldhavepowerof.60whileasampleof150would

havepowerof.80.Asamplesizefallingwithinthe96-150rangewouldhavepower

above.90fordetectingalargeeffectsize.Intheonlyotherstudyinvestigatingthe

effectsofasimilarsentenceconstructioninterventioncombinedwithSRSD

instruction,largeeffectsizeswerereportedforstrategy-specificmeasures(ES=

1.06),sentencelevelmeasures(ESrangingfrom.86to3.68),andwritingquality(ES

=.72)(Limpo&Alves,2013).

Measures

Curriculum-basedMeasurement-WrittenExpression(WE-CBM)

CorrectMinusIncorrectWritingSequences(CMIWS)elicitedfromWE-CBM

servedasthescreeningvariableforthisstudy.CMIWSisascoringindexthat

capturesbothfluencyandaccuracy.TocalculateCMIWS,eachwritingsequence-

twoadjacentwritingunits-isclassifiedaseitheracorrectwritingsequence(CWS)

oranincorrectwritingsequence(IWS)incontextusingVideen,Deno,andMarston's

(1982)scoringrules.IWSarethensubtractedfromCWS.CMIWShasdemonstrated

adequatereliabilityandstrongcorrelationstoteacherholisticratingsandstate

achievementtestsinmultiplestudies(Espinetal.,2000;Furey,Marcotte,Hintze,&

Shackett,2016;Jewell&Malecki,2005).

ArandomlyselectedWE-CBMprobefromthestorypromptlistprovided

throughAIMSweb(NCSPearson,2015)wasadministeredusingstandardized

directionsfromtheAIMSwebassessmentmanualforwrittenexpression(Powell-

Smith&Shinn,2004)inordertogatherthewritingsamplesfromwhichCMIWS

scoreswerederived.Thesamplingtime,however,wasincreasedfromoneminute

42

ofplanningwiththreeminutestowrite,tooneminuteofplanningwithtenminutes

towrite.Thepromptwasrepeatedfiveminutesintothewritingperiod.Students

whoscoredbelow43CMIWSwereassignedtotheinterventiongroup.These

proceduresandcutscorepreviouslydemonstratedadequateclassificationaccuracy

(Sensitivity=.91,Specificity=.54,AUC=.80)withfourthgradestudents(Fureyet

al.,2016).

TestofWrittenLanguage,4thedition(FormB;TOWL-4)

ThetwooutcomemeasuresincludedtheContextualConventionsandStory

CompositionsubtestsfromtheTOWL-4(Hammill&Larson,2009).Thesesubtests

arescoredusingthesamewritingsample.ToadministerthissectionoftheTOWL-4,

theprimaryinvestigatorreadthesamplestorythatwaspairedwithapicturetothe

students.Theexaminerthenpointedouthowthestoryhadimportantelements

suchasaclearbeginning,middle,andending,aswellasinterestingcharactersthat

showemotions,inaccordancewiththestandardizedtestdirections.Thestudents

werethenprovidedastimuluspictureandweredirectedtocomposetheirown

interestingstory.Theyweregivenfiveminutestoplanfollowedbyfifteenminutes

towrite.

TheContextualConventionssubtestrepresentedtheproximaloutcome

measureforthisstudy.Itsscorewascomputedusing21itemsassociatedwiththe

properuseofpunctuation,spelling,andgrammar.Thesubtestmeasuresastudent's

abilitytouseacceptedorthographicandgrammaticconventionsduring

composition.Thetestdevelopersreportedthecoefficientalphafor4thgradeForm

BofContextualConventionstobe.69andthestandarderrorofmeasurementtobe

43

1.Theyreportedcorrelationsrangingfrom.58to.62betweenthesubtestandother

measuresofliteracy.

TheStoryCompositionsubtestrepresentedthestoryqualityoutcome

measureforthisstudy.ToobtainaStoryCompositionscore,thewritingsamplewas

evaluatedusing11itemsassociatedwiththepresenceofmaturevocabulary,a

coherentplot,andanappropriateorganizationalstructure.Thecoefficientalphafor

4thgradeFormBoftheStoryCompositionsubtestwasreportedtobe.68.The

standarderrorofmeasurementwasreportedtobe2.Theyreportedcorrelations

rangingfrom.39to.56betweenthesubtestandothermeasuresofliteracy.

ScoringProcedures

Screening

TrainedschoolpsychologygraduatestudentsscoredresponsesforCWSand

IWS.ExcelwasusedtocalculateCMIWS.Interscoreragreementwascalculated

usingproceduresdescribedinGansle,Noell,VanDerHeyden,Naquin,andSlider

(2002)for21%ofprobes.Meanagreementbetweenscorerswas.93forCWSand

.77forIWS.Sampleswerenottypedpriortoscoring,whichmayhavecontributedto

thelowerinterrscoreragreement.

OutcomeMeasures

Outcomeassessmentswereconductedduringthetwoweeksfollowingthe

completionoftheintervention.Graduatestudentsscoredthewritingsamples

accordingtocriteriaintheTOWL-4Record/StoryScoringForm.Priortoscoringthe

samplesincludedinthestudy,thestudentsreceivedtrainingandpracticedscoring

multiplestoriesfromthetest'sSupplementalPracticeScoringBooklet.Following

44

theproceduresthetestauthorsused,anindexofagreementwascalculatedforthe

studysample.Thecorrelationbetweentheresultsoftwoindependentscorersfor

20%ofthestorieswas.91forContextualConventionsand.83forStory

Composition.AccordingtoHammillandLarson(2009),coefficientsinthe.80sare

highenoughtobeacceptedasscorerreliability.Theaveragemeancorrelation

(FormsAandB)reportedbythetestauthorswas.97forContextualConventions

and.80forStoryComposition.Icalculatedpercentadjacentagreementbetweenthe

scaledscoresasasecondmeasureofinterscoreragreement.ForContextual

Conventions,77%ofscaledscoresfellwithin1pointofeachother,and100%fell

within2points.ForStoryComposition,55%ofscaledscoresfellwithin1pointof

eachother,and82%fellwithin2points.

Intervention

GeneralInstructionalProcedures

Theprincipalinvestigator,aformerelementaryschoolteacher,providedthe

smallgroupinstruction.Theinterventiontookplacetwotimesperweekforseven

weeks.Eachsessionwas35minutesinlengthandscheduledsostudentsdidnot

misswritinginstructionintheirgeneraleducationclassroom.Onaverage,students

missedlessthanonesession.AttendancedataareprovidedinAppendixC.Afteran

absence,theinterventionisttaughtthestudentmissedmaterialduringthe

independentworkportionofthesession.

InstructionalSequence

Therewere14interventionsessions.Generaltopicsintroducedineach

lessonareprovidedinAppendixD,andasamplelessonplanisprovidedin

45

AppendixE.TheinterventionfollowedthesixstagesofinstructionintheSRSD

framework(Graham&Harris,2005).Throughtheintervention,studentswere

taughtdiscreteskillsforcomposingsentences,amnemonictoguidetheapplication

ofthecompositionskills,andmeta-cognitiveself-regulationstrategies.Prerequisite

knowledgeandskillsneededtounderstandandexecutethenewstrategywere

taughtintheDevelopBackgroundKnowledgestageduringlessonsonethroughsix.

MaterialtaughtduringtheselessonswasbasedontheSentenceStructureportionof

FramingYourThoughtswrittenexpressionprogramcreatedbyProjectRead

LanguageCircle(Greene&Enfield,1997).FramingYourThoughtsisasequential

andsystematicprogramdeliveredusingexplicitinstructionalmethods.The

programobjectiveistoinstructstudents"tobuildsentenceswithconfidence,

accuracy,andcreativity"(Greene&Enfield,1997).

Stagetwo,DiscussIt,consistedoftheteacherandstudentmeetingone-on-

onetoexaminethestudent’sownwritingsamples.Strengthsandareasinneedof

improvementwerediscussedpriortosettingspecificgoals.Duringstagethree,

ModelIt,theinterventionistmodeledtheproperuseofthestrategymnemonic(F-

SPEED)thatwasdesignedtosupportsentencecomposition,andself-statementsto

helpregulatestrategyuse.Studentswererequiredtomemorizethestepsofthe

strategyduringstagefour,MemorizeIt.Todoso,studentsreceivedflashcardsand

werequizzedonthestepsatthebeginningofeachsession.Duringstagefive,

SupportIt,studentshadtheopportunitytopracticethestrategywithassistance

fromtheinterventionistandpeers.Studentscontinuedtouseinstructionalaids

whiletheteacherprovidedcorrectivefeedback.Dataontheinclusionofstrategy

46

specificelementsofthesentencewerecollected,allowingstudentstoreflectand

compareperformancetogoals.Scaffolding,anchorcharts,andchecklistswere

graduallyremovedasstudentsbecamemoreadeptatusingthestrategy.Practice

occurredrepeatedlyuntilthestudentscouldindependentlyapplythestrategywith

successduringthefinalstageofSRSD,IndependentPerformance.

F-SPEED

BeginninginLesson8,studentslearnedasentenceconstructionstrategyand

itsmnemonic,F-SPEED,whichincorporateslanguageandskillsexplicitlytaught

throughtheFramingYourThoughtsprogram.Studentswereguidedtoediteach

sentence,determiningifitwasacompletethoughtbyaskingthemselvestwo

questions:1)IsmysentenceFramedwithacapitalletterandendingpunctuation?

and2)DoesmysentencehaveaSubjectandaPredicate?Nextthestudentswere

guidedtoEvaluatetheirsentence.Duringthisstep,studentsaskthemselves,a)Will

thereaderbeconfusedbymysentence?andb)Willthereaderfindmysentence

interesting?.Finally,thestudentsaskthemselves,CanIExpandmypredicate?and

CanIDescribemysubject?.

Self-regulationProcedures

Inthefirstlesson,studentsweregenerallyintroducedtogoalsetting.Inthe

earlystagesoftheintervention,allstudentshadthesamegeneralgoal;towritetexts

filledwithwell-craftedandinterestingsentences.Afterdiscussingeachindividual's

ownwritingduringtheDiscussItstage,specificgoalswereincorporated.Students

eventuallywrotetheirowngoalssuchas,"Iwillexpand2sentencesusingpredicate

expandersandatleast2sentenceswithsubjectdescribers,”"Iwillframeeverysingle

47

sentencewithacapitalletterandastopsign,"and"WhenIrevise,Iwillmakemore

sentencevarietybymovingsomepredicateexpanderstobeginsentences[sic]."

Self-monitoringwasintroducedwhenstudentsbeganindividualizingtheir

goals.Studentsreceivedagoalandself-monitoringsheetthatincludedthegroup's

overallgoalandaspacetowritetheirindividualgoalbeforeeachpracticeprompt.

Followingthewritingactivity,studentscheckedoffwhetherornottheymettheir

goal,thenrecordedthenumberofcompletesentences,thenumberofpredicate

expandersused,andthenumberofsubjectdescribersusedastheyrevised.

Accuracyofcountswascheckedandcorrectedpriortothenextsession.

FidelityofImplementation

Theinterventionistusedascriptfortheexplicitinstructionportionofevery

lesson,andallexampleswereincludedinslideshowsusinginteractivewhiteboard

software.Alongwiththescript,eachlessonincludedan"EssentialStepsChecklist"

whichtheinterventionistcompletedtoensureallinstructionwasdelivered.All

stepswerecompletedexceptfortwosessionswhenlessonclosureandindependent

practicecomponentsdidnotoccurduetotimeconstraints.

RegressionDiscontinuityDesignandDataAnalysis

IimplementedaRDdesigntotestwhetherstudentsincludedinthe

interventiongroupoutperformedtheirpredictedscoresoneachoutcomemeasure.

Withinthefieldofeducationalresearch,randomizedexperimentsarenotalways

practicalorfeasible,andtheRDdesignisastrongalternativewhenthepurposeof

thestudyistoevaluatetheefficacyofaninterventionprogram(Shadishetal.,2002;

Trochim,2006).RDisaquasi-experimentaldesignwhereparticipantsareassigned

48

totreatmentorcontrolbasedonwhethertheyfallaboveorbelowacutoffonan

assignmentvariable(Shadishetal.,2002).Forthisreason,theuseofRDdesigns

effectivelyalignstoapreventativeinstructionalframeworkwherestudents

identifiedasat-riskonascreeningmeasurereceivesupplementalinstruction.

EducationalresearchersareincreasinglyusingtheRDdesigntoevaluatethe

efficacyofinstructionalinterventions.Thedesignhasbeenusedtoexaminethe

effectsofaTier2mathematicsintervention(Bryantetal.,2008),aTier3reading

intervention(Vaughnetal.,2009),andanintensivevocabularyintervention

(Ashworth&Pullen,2015;Tuckwilleretal.,2010).

TheRDdesignyieldsunbiasedestimatesoftreatmenteffectsiffivecentral

assumptionsaremet(Shadishetal.,2002;Trochim,2006).First,thecutoffcriterion

muststrictlybefollowedwhenassigningstudentstotheinterventionand

comparisongroups.Second,therelationshipbetweenpre-andposttestscoresmust

bedescribableasapolynomialfunction.Third,thecomparisongroupmustbelarge

enoughtoadequatelypredicttheregressionline.Fourth,allparticipantsinboth

interventionandcomparisongroupsmustcomefromthesamecontinuouspre-

interventiondistributioninordertoavoidselectionbias.Lastly,theintervention

mustbedeliveredtoallparticipantsinaconsistentmanner.

IfollowedstepsoutlinedbyTrochim(2006)toconducttheRDanalysesafter

ensuringallcentralassumptionsweremet.First,Itransformedthepretestscoresso

thatthecutscorewasequalto0.InaRDdesign,amaineffectisindicatedthrougha

changeinlevelwhileaninteractioneffectisindicatedthroughachangeinslope.

Next,Ivisuallyexaminedthescatterplotofthetransformedpretestandposttest

49

scorestodetermineiftherewasacleardiscontinuityatthecutscoreandifthe

relationshipbetweenscoresontheassignmentmeasureandoutcomemeasurewas

linearorcurvilinear.Multipleregressionwasusedtoanalyzethedata.AsTrochim

(2006)suggestedIstartedwithanoverspecifiedinitialmodeltominimizebias

despitesacrificingstatisticalpower.Therefore,amultipleregressionmodelwas

usedtofitthedataforeachoutcomemeasureusingthetransformedpretestscores,

atreatmentvariable(0=control,1=treatment)andtwopolynomialterms

(squaredandcubicterms)aspredictors.Lastly,themodelwasrefinedforefficiency

byremovingnonsignificanttermsonetermatatime.Onceefficiencywasachieved

withoutintroducingbias,theregressioncoefficientforthetreatmentvariablewas

theestimateofthetreatmenteffect.Theassociatedt-statisticdeterminedwhether

thetreatmenteffectwasstatisticallysignificant.

50

Table1.SampleDemographics

VariableTotalSamplen=107

NotAtRiskn=88

AtRiskn=19

Gender Male 43.93 39.77 63.16Female 56.07 60.23 36.84

Race White 92.52 92.05 94.74Hispanic 1.87 2.27 0.00Asian/PacificIslander 4.67 5.68 0.00AfricanAmerican 0.00 0.00 0.00NativeAmerican 0.93 0.00 5.26

SpecialEducationServices Yes 8.41 6.82 15.79No 91.59 93.18 84.21

Note:AtRiskstudentsincludethosewhoscoredbelow43CorrectMinusIncorrectWritingSequencesonthescreeningmeasure.NotAtRiskstudentsincludethosewhoscoredatleast43CorrectMinusIncorrectWritingSequencesonthescreeningmeasure.

51

CHAPTER4

RESULTS

Thepurposeofthisstudywastotestwhetherasupplementalwriting

interventionthatexplicitlytaughtsentenceconstructionstrategiesandself-

regulationprocedureswouldresultinsignificantimprovementstotheperformance

ofstrugglingfourthgradewriters.Thequalityoftheobservedwritingconventions

andtheobservedstoryqualityweremeasuredfromstudentparticipants'

standardizedwritingsamples.IhypothesizedIwouldobserveimprovementsonthe

standardconventionsmeasureforthestrugglingwriterswhoreceivedthe

interventionthatwasspecificallyaimedatbuildingfluencyinfoundational

sentence-levelskills.Additionally,Ihypothesizedimprovementsinsentence-level

skillswouldallowthestudentstoallocatemorecognitiveefforttowardsthehigher

orderthinkingskillsinvolvedinthewritingprocess,andthusIwouldobserve

significantimprovementsinstoryquality.Thestudymadeuseofaregression

discontinuity(RD)designtotestwhetherstudentsincludedintheintervention

groupoutperformedtheirpredictedscoresoneachoftheoutcomemeasures,

becausethismethodallowsquasi-experimentalresearchtobeconductedinthe

multi-tieredsystemsofinterventiondeliverycommonlyusedinschools.Iused

regressionanalysistopredictinterventiongroupparticipants'(n=19)posttest

scoresbasedonthefunctionalrelationshipbetweenthecomparisongroup

participants'(n=88)screeningandposttestscores.

52

AnalysesofUnderlyingAssumptions

ThedatametallunderlyingassumptionsnecessaryforconductingaRD

design.Studentswereassignedtothetreatmentbystrictlyadheringtothe

assignmentscore,andbasedonvisualinspectionofthescatterplot(Figures1and

2),therelationshipbetweenthetransformedassignmentscoreandtheposttest

measurescouldbefitusingapolynomialfunction.

Thecomparisongroup(n=88)waslargeenoughtoadequatelypredictthe

regressionline,andallparticipantsinbothinterventionandcomparisongroups

wereincludedbasedonthesamecontinuousassignmentscore.Finally,nearlyall

interventioncomponentsweredeliveredtoallparticipantsinaconsistentmanner,

withtheexceptionofthelessonclosureandindependentpracticefromtwo

interventionsessions.Theunderlyingassumptionsoflinearregressionwere

analyzedbecauseinferencesaredrawnfromthefunctionalrelationshipbetween

thecomparisongroupparticipants'screeningandposttestscores.Aspreviously

stated,thelinearityassumptionwastestedthroughvisualinspectionofthe

scatterplots(Figures1and2).

Normalitywastestedforthetransformedscreeningscorefortheentire

sample(n=107).TheSkewnessoftheCMIWSscreeningscoreswas.446(SE=

.234).TheSkewnessstatisticfallsjustinsidetherangeof+/-twicethestandard

errorofSkewnessindicatingthedistributionisapproximatelynormal.TheKurtosis

oftheCMIWSscreeningscoreswas.080(SE=.463).TheKurtosisstatisticfalls

withintherangeof+/-twicethestandarderrorofKurtosisindicatingthe

53

distributionisapproximatelynormal.ExaminationofthehistogramandNormalQ-Q

Plot(Figures3and4)alsoindicatethedistributionisapproximatelynormal.

Normalityofthetwoposttestmeasureswastestedforthecomparisongroup

only(n=88).TheSkewnessoftheContextualConventionsscoreswas.374(SE=

.257)andtheStoryCompositionscoreswas.467(SE=.257).BothSkewness

statisticsfallwithintherangeof+/-twicethestandarderrorofSkewnessindicating

thedistributionsareapproximatelynormal.TheKurtosisoftheContextual

Conventionsscoreswas-.463(SE=.508)andtheStoryCompositionscoreswas-

.184(SE=.508).BothKurtosisstatisticsfallwithintherangeof+/-twicethe

standarderrorofKurtosisindicatingthedistributionsareapproximatelynormal.

ExaminationoftheContextualConventionshistogramandNormalQ-QPlot(Figures

5and6),aswellastheStoryCompositionhistogramandNormalQ-QPlot(Figures7

and8)alsoindicatethedistributionsareapproximatelynormal.However,the

Kolmogorov-SmirnovstatisticforbothContextualConventionsandStory

Compositionweresignificantsuggestingaviolationofthenormalityassumption.

DescriptiveStatistics

Table2providesdescriptivestatisticsforthescreeningmeasureandtwo

posttestmeasuresfortheinterventionandcomparisongroup.

RelationshipBetweenVariables

CorrelationsbetweeneachmeasureusedinthestudyarepresentedinTable

3.AstrongcorrelationbetweenCMIWSderivedfromthestorystarterpromptwith

a10-minutesamplingperiodandtheContextualConventionssubtestforthe

comparisongroupsuggestthetwomeasurescapturedsimilarconstructs.Both

54

measurethestudent'sabilitytoaccuratelyuseacceptedgrammaticand

orthographicconventions.Thecorrelationbetweenthesemeasuresforthe

interventiongroupwasweak,presumablyduetotheeffectsoftheinterventionon

thestudents'abilitytouseconventionsintheirwriting.

ContextualConventions

Visualanalysisofthescatterplotsuggestedalinearrelationshipbetween

ContextualConventionsscoresandtransformedscreeningscores.Thefirstmodel

testedwasaquadraticrelationshipbecauseitwastwodegreeshigherthanthe

numberofbendsobserved.Isquaredthetransformedassignmentscoreandthen

createdinteractiontermsforboththetransformedassignmentscoreandits

squaredcounterpartbymultiplyingthembythedichotomousgroupvariable.I

regressedtheContextualConventionsscoreonthetransformedscreeningscore,the

quadraticterm,theinteractionterms,andthegroupingvariable.Themodelwas

statisticallysignificant(F(5,101)=26.303,p<.001)andaccountedfor

approximately56.5%ofthevarianceintheposttestscore.Ithenremovedthe

quadratictermalongwithitsinteractiontermbecausetheydidnotreach

significance.Themodel,again,wasstatisticallysignificant(F(3,103)=44.603,p<

.001)andaccountedforapproximatelythesameamountofvariance(R2=.565).

Lastly,Iremovedthetransformedassignmentscore'sinteractiontermasitwasnot

statisticallysignificant.Theresultinglinearmodelwasstatisticallysignificant(F(2,

104)=67.295,p<.001).Again,themodelaccountedforapproximatelythesame

amountofvarianceintheContextualConventionsscore(R2=.564).Theslopefor

thegroupassignmentvariable,whichisanestimateofthetreatmenteffect,

55

indicatedthosewhoreceivedthesupplementalinterventionperformedonaverage

4.09pointshigherthanwouldbepredictedhadtheyonlyreceivedinstructionas

usualintheclassroom.Thedifferenceisillustratedbythediscontinuousregression

lineillustratedinFigure9.

Table4reportstheresultsfromthefinalregressionmodel.Theeffectsize,

whichwasdeterminedbydividingthetreatmenteffectbythestandarddeviationof

thecontrolgroupwaslarge(2.36).

StoryComposition

Visualanalysisofthescatterplotsuggestedalinearrelationshipbetween

StoryCompositionscoresandtransformedassignmentscores(Figure10).A

discontinuityatthecutscorewasnotapparent.

Followingthesameprocedureswherenonsignificanttermswereremoved

fromtheoverspecifiedmodels,Iobservednosignificantdifferencebetweenthe

controlandtreatmentgroups,whichisconsistentwiththelackofdiscontinuity

observedinFigure10.Statisticalanalysesconfirmedtherewasnotreatmenteffect

observedfortheStoryCompositionscores(Table4).

56

Table2.MeansandStandardDeviationsbyGroup

CMIWSContextualConventions StoryComposition

Intervention(n=19) 25.53(12.88) 12.37(1.86) 9.00(1.63)Comparison(n=88) 87.92(33.33) 12.26(2.75) 11.14(2.37)Total(n=107) 76.84(38.91) 12.28(2.61) 10.76(2.40)

Table3.Correlations

CMIWSContextualConventions

StoryComposition

ComparisonGroup(n=88) CMIWS -- .78 .53ContextualConventions .78 -- .40StoryComposition .53 .40 --InterventionGroup(n=19) CMIWS -- .34 .57ContextualConventions .34 -- .68StoryComposition .57 .68 --TotalSample(n=107) CMIWS -- .58 .60ContextualConventions .58 -- .39StoryComposition .60 .39 --Table4.StatisticsFromtheFinalRegressionAnalysis Unstandardized

coefficientsStandardizedcoefficients

Β β t SignificanceContextualConventionsPosttest Grouping/Condition 4.09 .60 7.33 <.0001TransformedAssignmentScore .06 .95 11.60 <.0001StoryCompositionPosttest Grouping/Condition .30 .05 .48 .63TransformedAssignmentScore .04 .63 6.39 <.0001

57

Figure1.ContextualConventionsScatterplot

Figure2.StoryCompositionScatterplot

58

Figure3.HistogramoftheTransformedScreeningScores

Figure4.NormalQ-QPlotofTransformedScreeningScores

59

Figure5.HistogramforComparisonGroupContextualConventionsScores

Figure6.NormalQ-QPlotforComparisonGroupContextualConventions

60

Figure7.HistogramforComparisonGroupStoryCompositionScores

Figure8.NormalQ-QPlotforComparisonGroupStoryComposition

61

Figure9.ContextualConventionsScatterplotandRegressionLine

Figure10.StoryCompositionScatterplotandRegressionLine

62

CHAPTER5

DISCUSSION

Thepresentinvestigationexaminedtheeffectsofasupplemental

interventiononthewritingskillsoffourthgradestudentswhowereidentifiedas

strugglingwriters.TheinterventionusedexplicitinstructionandtheSRSD

framework(Graham&Harris,2005)toteachstudentsasentenceconstruction

strategyalongwithself-regulationprocedures.ARDdesignwasusedtotest

whetherstudentsincludedintheinterventiongroupoutperformedtheirpredicted

scoresontheContextualConventionsandStoryCompositionsubtestsoftheTOWL-

4basedontheregressionlineoftheirpeercontrolgroup.

Theinterventioninthisstudywasdesignedtoimproveaccuracyandfluency

inconstructingcompletesentenceswithinconnectedtext.Poorlydeveloped

sentence-levelskillsmayconstrainmorecomplexwritingtasks.Buildingfluencyin

componentskillssuchasspelling,handwriting,andsentence-construction,

theoreticallyreducescognitiveload.Thisthenallowswriterstofocusonthemore

cognitivelycomplexaspectsofwritingsuchasplanningandrevisingtoimprove

overalltextquality.Sentence-levelconventionsincludingsyntax/grammarand

mechanicsarecriticaltextgenerationskillsintheintermediateelementarygrades

(Berninger&Swanson,1994;Fitzgerald&Shanahan,2000).Additionally,the

LanguageandWritingstrandsoftheCommonCoreStateStandards(CCSS;National

GovernorsAssociation&CouncilofChiefStateSchoolOfficers,2010)placeaheavy

emphasisongainingmasteryofstandardEnglishconventionsandothersentence-

63

levelskills(CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.1;CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.2).Inorderto

moredirectlyaddresstheconventional,linguistic,andcognitivecomponentsof

writingtargetedwithintheStandards,manyteachersneedtoshifttheirapproachto

writinginstruction.MuchK-12writinginstructionisbasedontheoreticalmodelsof

adultorexpertwriting.Theseapproachestendtooveremphasizethemacro-level

writingprocesseswhilediscountingtheimportanceofprerequisiteskillsand

knowledge(Wakelyetal.,2006).ToomanystudentsarecompletingtheirK-12

educationwithoutevermasteringthebasicsentence,letalonedevelopingthemore

complexcompositionalskillsexpectedofthemtobecollegeandcareerready(Foltz-

Gray,2012;NationalCommissiononWriting,2004;Sanoff,2006).Therefore,

evidence-basedinstructionalinterventionstargetingbasic,sentence-levelskillsare

necessary.Aswasdonewiththeinterventioninvestigatedinthisstudy,sentence

constructioninterventionsforstrugglingwriterscanbeincorporatedintoanoverall

process-orientedprogramthatcontinuestoprovideauthenticwriting

opportunities.

SummaryofFindings

Wehypothesizedthesupplementalsentenceconstructionintervention,

facilitatedthroughexplicitinstructionandSRSDwoulddirectlyimprovestudent

performanceonmeasuresofcontextualconventionsandthatimprovementsin

thesefoundationalsentencewritingskillswouldresultinsignificantimprovements

instoryquality.Resultsfromthisstudyindicatetheinterventionwassuccessfulfor

improvingstrugglingwriters'abilitytouseacceptedorthographicandgrammatic

conventionsduringcomposition.ThescoringcriteriafortheTOWL-4Contextual

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Conventionssubtestincludeseightitemsmeasuringbehaviorsdirectlyrelatedto

skillstaughtduringtheintervention.Forexample,pointsareawardedifsentences

beginwithacapitalletter,includecoordinatingconjunctionsotherthan"and,"and

containintroductoryphrasesandclauses.Additionally,pointsareearnedforthe

inclusionofcompoundsentencesandtheexclusionoffragmentsandrun-on

sentences.TheCMIWSscoresderivedfroma10-minutewritingsample,whichwere

usedasthescreenerpriortointervention,similarlycapturedtheaccuracywith

whichthestudentsusedacceptedorthographicandgrammaticconventions.There

wasastrongcorrelation(r=.78)betweenthescreeningscoresandContextual

Conventionsoutcomescoresforthecomparisongroup.Thediscontinuityinscores

atthecutpoint,aswellastherelationshipbetweenthescreeningmeasureandthe

subtestsuggesttheresultsaremeaningful,aspredicted.

Thenonsignificantresultsforthehigherorderoutcomeindicatethe14-

sessioninterventionfocusedonsentencecompositionwasnoteffectivefor

improvingthebroaderdomainofstoryquality.Icanhypothesizealternative

theoriesfortheseresults.First,iffluencyenablestheapplicationofskillsinbroader

contexts,Iwouldhavehopedtoseeimprovementsincompositionquality.However,

becausetherewasnofluencymeasureoutcome,Icannotdetermineifstudentswho

receivedtheinterventionbecamefluentinapplyingthesentenceconstructionskills

duringcomposition.Accuratesentenceconstructionmaynothavebecome

automatic,meaningtheskillsandprocedureshadnotyetbeentransferredinto

long-termmemory,andapplyingtheseskillsandprocedurescontinuedtodemand

disproportionatecognitiveeffort.Afollow-upstudymaymeasuresentence

65

compositionfluencytoexamineitseffectsoncompositionqualitylikeIoriginally

hypothesized.

Alternatively,thesestudentsmayhaveprimarilyfocusedonindividual

sentencesduringrevisionratherthanrevisingthemaspartofthelargertext,a

behaviortypicalforstrugglingwriters(Graham,1997;McCutchen,2006).Struggling

writerstendtomakerevisionsthatdonotaffectplot,characterdevelopment,pace,

orstructure,andthereforedonotinfluenceoveralltextquality(Graham,

MacArthur,Schwartz,1995).Strugglingstudentsbenefitfromexplicitinstruction

fortheskillsandbehaviorsexpectedofthem.Subsequentstepsoftheir

supplementalinterventionmayexplicitlyaddressplanningandmakingsubstantive

revisionsthroughSRSD.ResearchindicatesSRSDiseffectiveinincreasingstruggling

writers'knowledgeanduseofplanningstrategies(e.g.Harris,Graham,&Mason,

2006;Laneetal.,2011)aswellasthenumberandqualityofsubstantiverevisions

made(e.g.DeLaPazetal.,1998;Graham,1997;MacArthur,Schwartz,&Graham,

1991).Thecoreinstructionprovidedintheregularclassroomregardingplanning

andrevising,componentsofwritingthatinfluencestoryquality,maynothavebeen

powerfulenoughforthestrugglingwriters.Corewritinginstructionoccurred

throughtheWriters'WorkshopmodelusingLucyCalkins'(2013)UnitsofStudyin

Opinion,Information,andNarrativeWriting.Researchsuggests,thatwithoutexplicit

instructioninspecificskillsandstrategiesnecessaryateachstageofthewriting

process,simplyengagingstudentsintheprocessthroughWriters'Workshopand

providinginstructionthroughmini-lessonsandteachablemomentsisnotpowerful

66

enoughforstudentswhostrugglewithwriting(Graham&Harris,1997a,1997b;

Graham&Sandmel,2011).

LimitationsandFutureDirections

Severallimitationsmustbenoted.First,theprimaryresearcherdeliveredall

instruction.Futureresearchevaluatinginterventionefficacywhendeliveredbyan

in-houseinterventionistorclassroomteachershouldbecompleted.Additionally,

thesampleonlyincludedfourthgradestudents,limitingthegeneralizabilityof

findings.Moreover,thediversityofthesamplewasrestrictedasIexcludedstudents

whohadsupplementalwritinggoalsintheirIEPs.Coincidentally,thiscriterion

excludedallbuteightminoritystudentsfromparticipating.

Therearealsolimitationsregardingoutcomemeasures.First,outcome

measureswereadministeredwithintwoweeksofcompletingtheinterventionand

therewasnomaintenancemeasure.Futurestudiesmayalsoincludeanassessment

directlyaftertheinitialinstructionalphaseoftheinterventiontoexamineeffectsof

explicitinstructionpriortostrategyinstruction.Additionally,aspreviously

discussed,afluencymeasurecouldbeincludedaswellasamethodtodetermine

whetherstudentsappliedself-regulatoryprocedures.

Futurestudiesmayalsoextendthelengthoftheinterventionandemploy

furtherfluency-buildingproceduressimilartothoseusedbyDatchuk(2015)and

Datchuk,Kubina,andMason(2015)toensureautomaticitypriortoapplicationin

largertext.Lastly,SRSDinstructioninsentenceconstructionshouldbetaughtin

tandemwithresearchsupportedSRSDplanningstrategiessuchasPOW+TREEand

POW+WWWorrevisionstrategiessuchasSCAN(Harris,Graham,Mason,&

67

Friedlander,2008).Thecombinationcouldpotentiallyimprovewritingconventions

andoverallqualityandcontentoftextproducedbystrugglingwriters.

ContributionstoExtantResearchandPractice

Thecurrentresultsextendthebodyofresearchsuggestingexplicit

instructioniseffectivetoteachwriterswhoareidentifiedasat-riskmissing

foundationaltextgenerationskills(Datchuk,2015;Datchuketal.,2015),strategies

toapplytheskills,andprocedurestoself-regulatewritingprocesses(Grahametal.,

2012).Morespecifically,liketheLimpoandAlves(2013)study,resultsindicate

teachingsentenceconstructionskillsthroughtheSRSDframeworkiseffective.The

currentstudy,alongwiththoserecentlyconductedbyDatchuk(2015;Datchuket

al.,2015),beginstofillinthegapidentifiedbyGraham,Harris,andSantangelo

(2015)intheextantresearchregardingtheinvestigationofsentenceconstruction

interventions.Whiletheyrecommendincludingsentenceconstructioninstruction

aspartofanoveralleffectivewritingprogramtoensurestudentslearnthe

conventionalandlinguisticcomponentsofwritingoutlinedintheCCSS,theynoted

moreresearchintheareaisnecessarytodetermineevidence-basedpractice.

Similartostudieswherethesentence-levelinstructionwasembeddedwithin

largerunitscoveringmultipleaspectsofwriting(Anderson&Keel,2002;Buietal.,

2006;McCurdyetal.,2008;Viel-Rumaetal.,2010;Walkeretal.,2005),thestudents

inthecurrentstudycontinuedreceivinginstructiononothercomponentsofwriting

throughcoreinstructionintheregularclassroom.Thedifference,however,isthatin

theotherstudies,sentence-levelinstructionwaspartofanoverallsystematic

progressionratherthananisolated,supplementalinterventionseparatefromcore

68

instruction.Itispossiblethelinkbetweenthesentenceconstructionskillsandother

componentsofwritingcoveredintheregularclassroomwasnotfullyclearforthe

studentswhoreceivedthesupplementalintervention.Theymaynothavebeenable

toincorporatetheirlearnedsentenceconstructionstrategyandskillswithwhat

theylearnedaboutotheraspectsofwritingsuchasplanningandrevisionintheir

regularwritinginstructionalblock.Thislackofconnectionmayhavecontributedto

theabsenceofasignificanteffectonoverallwritingquality.Incontrast,inthe

studiesofsentence-levelinstructionwhereasignificantimprovementordifference

inoverallwritingqualitywasfound(Anderson&Keel,2002;Buietal.,2006;

McCurdyetal.,2008;Viel-Rumaetal.,2010;Walkeretal.,2005),theconnection

mayhavebeenmoreclearassentenceconstructionwasonepartofthesystematic

unit.Thissuggeststheimportanceofeducatorsexplicitlylinkingsupplemental

instructiontocoreinstructioninatieredservicedeliverymodel.

Additionally,thisstudy,alongwithfindingsfromAshworthandPullen

(2015)whofoundresultsfromaRDdesignandanexperimentaldesigntobe

comparable,highlightsthepotentialofusingRDwhenexamininginterventionsfor

at-riskstudentswithinatieredinstructionalframework.Theuseofrandomized

controlledexperimentsineducationalsettingsisnotalwaysfeasible.Ashworthand

Pullen(2015)pointedtoethicalreasonswhyRDismoreappropriatethan

randomizedexperimentsforeducationalinterventionresearch,andwhyschool

administratorsmaybemorewillingtocooperateinresearchendeavors.InRD,

thereisnocontrolgroupwhereat-riskorstrugglingstudentsarewithheld

instructionthatcouldpotentiallybebeneficial.Allat-riskstudentsreceivethe

69

targetedintervention.Becauseofitscompatibilitywiththetieredinstructional

model,educationalresearchersareincreasinglyusingRDtoinvestigateeffectsof

specificinterventions(Ashworth&Pullen,2015;Bryantetal.,2008;Tuckwilleret

al.,2010;Vaughnetal.,2009)aswellasthetieredinstructionalmodelitself(Baluet

al.,2015).

TheIESNCEEreportevaluatingRtIpracticesforelementaryschoolreading

(Baluetal.,2015),highlightstheimportanceofinvestigatingspecificTier2

supplementalinterventionsaswasdoneinthecurrentstudy.Thelarge-scaleRD

investigationfoundthatsupplementalTier2readingsupportinanRtImodelhada

negativeeffectonthereadingachievementoffirstgradestudentsidentifiedasat-

risk.Therewasnosignificanteffectforat-risksecondandthirdgradestudents.Due

tothenatureofthestudy,however,specificsregardingtheTier2interventions

providedateachparticipatingschoolarenotknown.Whereassomeareinterpreting

theresultsasafailureoftheRtImodel(e.g.Sparks,2015),theresultsinsteadshow

theimportanceoffirstdeterminingthroughresearchwhatsupplemental

interventionsareeffective,andthenprovidingtheseresearch-supported,evidence-

basedinterventionswithfidelity.Thepreventativetieredinstructionalmodel

requiresaccesstoeffectiveinterventionsacrosseachacademicdomain,soresearch

investigatingtheeffectsofinterventionssuchastheoneinthecurrentstudymust

becompleted.

Additionally,itisofinteresttolookattheresultsofthecurrentstudyand

explorewhatisconsideredsuccessfulandeffectiveinstruction,andwhattypesof

measuresshouldbeusedtodetermineefficacy.Thesignificantresultsonthe

70

proximalmeasure,thesentence-levelskillsdirectlytaughtthroughtheintervention,

andthenonsignificantresultsonthemoredistalmeasureofwritingquality,can

leadtodifferentinterpretations.Ifonesolelydefinessuccessasimprovementtothe

overallcompositeskill,theinterventiontestedinthisstudywouldnotbeeffective.If

onedefinessuccessasimprovementtoaprerequisiteskillthatisonenecessary

componentoftheoverallcomposite,theinterventiontestedwouldbeconsidered

effective.Whiletheremightnotbeimmediateeffectsontheoverallcomposite,

solidifyingprerequisiteskillspreventsfurtherdifficultyinthefutureandprovides

thefoundationforfurtherskilldevelopment(Kame'enui&Simmons,1990).A

strugglingwriteroughttobesupportedthroughthecombinationofmultiple

evidence-basedinstructionalinterventionstargetingvariouscomponentskills.In

additiontoreceivingsentenceconstructioninstructiontosolidifytextgeneration

skillsandtheuseofacceptedconventions,strugglingwritersshouldreceive

interventionstargetingtranscriptionskillsaswellastheexecutivefunctions

involvedinplanning,monitoring,andreviewingduringcomposition.Furthermore,

attainmentofeachcomponenttargetedthroughinstructionshouldbemonitored

throughproximalmeasuresinadditiontoageneraloutcomemeasureofoverall

writingquality.

Whilemuchisknownaboutwritinginstruction,writingassessment,and

differencesbetweenskilledandless-skilledwriters,Troia(2013)aswellasSaddler

andAsaro-Saddler(2013)notedmoreresearchdirectlyaddressingscreeningand

interventionforwritingwithinatieredservicedeliverymodelisneeded.Thisstudy

representsmovementtowardseffectivelyincorporatingwritinginstructionintoa

71

preventativetieredinstructionalmodel.At-riskwriterswereidentifiedthrough

universalscreeningandprovidedsupplementalinstructiontargetingandimproving

animportantcomponentofwrittenexpression.Asfurtherresearchisconductedto

identify1)accuratescreeningtools,2)effectiveinterventionstargetingthevarious

cognitive,linguistic,andphysicalskillsandknowledgenecessaryforproficient

writtenexpression,and3)methodstomonitorprogressinskillattainment,schools

willhopefullyusetheresultstointegratewritinginstructionintoatieredmodelas

hasalreadybeendonewithreadingandmathematics.

72

APPENDICES

73

APPENDIXA

RECRUITMENTMATERIALS

StudyOverviewTheproposedstudywillexaminetheeffectivenessofapreventive,Tier2

writinginterventionaimedtoteachafoundationalskillinwritingandaddresstheneedsoffourthgradestudentsat-riskforwritingfailure.Theinterventioncombinesasentence-levelcompositionandrevisionstrategywithself-regulationinstruction.Byfourthgrade,instructionshiftstowardsmorecomplexaspectsofwritingsuchastheinclusionofgenrespecificelementswhilemanystudentscontinuetostrugglewithwrittenexpressionduetotheirinabilitytoclearlyexpresstheirthoughtsinbasicsentences.Sentencelevelinterventionsarenecessarytoprovidestrugglingwriterswithfoundationallinguisticskillsthatarecriticaltoproficientwrittenexpression. Thestudy’sdesignmapsdirectlyontoResponse-to-Intervention(RtI)practices.Allfourthgradestudentswillparticipateinuniversalscreening,andthesupplementalTier2interventionwillbeprovidedtostudentsidentifiedasat-riskforwritingfailure.Post-intervention,allfourthgradestudentswillparticipateinoutcomeassessments,andtheperformanceofstudentswhoreceivedtheTier2interventionwillbecomparedtotheirpredictedscoreshadtheyreceivedTier1instructiononly.GeneralTimeline(Flexible:willworkwithschooltocreatetimelineconducivetotheirschedule)

UniversalScreening:• Between October 5th and 23rd based on school availability

Interventionwithat-riskwriters(approximately20-30students):• 2x/week in 30 minutes sessions for 8 weeks

OutcomeMeasures/Benchmarking:• Between December 7th and December 22nd

AssessmentDataprovidedtoschool Allassessmentswillbeadministeredandscoredbyresearchers.Theschoolwillbeprovidedthedataonthewritingperformanceoftheentirefourthgrade.Descriptionsofeachassessmentcanbefoundintheattachedtable.ThescoresontheTOWL-4,astandardizednorm-basedassessment,canbeutilizednotonlybyteacherstolookatindividualstudentperformancetodriveinstruction,butasawholebyprincipalsandcurriculumleaderstoevaluatetheuniversalwritinginstructionprovidedatTier1ingeneraleducation.Additionally,universalscreeningdatawillidentifystudentsat-riskoflaterwritingfailuresotheycanbeprovidedwithsupplementalwritinginstructionatTier2.Theclassificationaccuracyofthescreeninginstrumentwasrecentlyexaminedtoseehowwellitpredictedfourthgradestudents’proficiencyontheCompositioncomponentoftheMCAS.Whenusingthe25thpercentileasacutpoint,therewasa.07falsenegative

74

ratemeaningveryfewstudentswhoseperformancedidnotmeettheproficientlevelonthecompositionsubtestofMCASwerenotalreadyidentifiedasat-riskbythescreeningtool.Allstudentswhosescoresfallbelowthe25thpercentile,andarethereforeat-risk,willbeprovidedwithsupplementalwritinginstruction.InterventionInstructionprovidedtoat-riskwriters

FollowingtheSelf-RegulatedStrategyDevelopment(SRSD;Harris&Graham,1999)model,studentswillbetaughtastrategytoexpandtheirsentencesthatcanbeusedduringinitialsentencecompositionaswellasduringrevision.ComponentsfromtheSentenceStructureportionofFramingYourThoughtswrittenexpressioncurriculumcreatedbyProjectReadLanguageCircle(Greene&Enfield,1997)willprovidenecessarybackgroundknowledgetosuccessfullyapplythewritingstrategy.Inadditiontothespecificwritingstrategy,studentswillbeguidedindevelopingtheself-regulatoryproceduresofgoalsettingandself-monitoring.Anoutlineofthebasictopicscanbefoundintheattachedtable.Interventionists Thosedeliveringtheinterventionwillbedependentupontheparticipatingdistrict.Ifyouwouldliketousein-houseinterventionists,para-educatorsand/orliteracyspecialistswillbetrainedtoimplementtheintervention.Ifyoupreferoutsideinterventioniststodeliverinstruction,graduatestudentsineducationwillbetrainedtoimplementtheinterventionalongwiththeprimaryresearcher,aformerelementaryschoolteacher.

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APPENDIXB

ASSENTANDCONSENTMATERIALS

October___,2015Dearparentorguardian:IamadoctoralcandidateintheSchoolofEducationattheUniversityofMassachusettsAmherst.UnderthesupervisionofDr.AmandaMarcotte,Iconductresearchaboutwritinginstructionanddifferentteststhataredesignedtomeasurewritingskillsofelementaryschoolstudents.Ihavepermissionfromyourchild’sschooltogatherdatafromfourthgradestudentsusingvariousbriefassessments.Principal____willshareallofthegatheredinformationwiththefourthgradeteachersandELAspecialisttohelpguidedecisionsandbetterwritinginstructionintheschool.Forresearchpurposes,however,alldatawillremainconfidentialandallpersonalidentifierswillberemovedtoprotecttheidentityofthestudentsandtheschool.Attachedyouwillfindaconsentformthatoutlinesthedetailsofmystudyandthetasksthatwillbeaskedofyourchild.Theparticipationofeachstudentinanystudyactivityoutsidethenormalscopeoftheschooldayisstrictlyvoluntary.Pleasereadthedetailsofthisstudyontheattachedform.Ifyouhaveanyquestionsorconcernsaboutyourchild’sparticipationinthisprocess,pleasefeelfreetocontactPrincipal_____at_______ormeatwfurey@educ.umass.edu.Thankyouforyourconsiderationinlettingyourchildparticipateinmystudy.Sincerely,Mac---WilliamFurey,M.A.T.,M.Ed.GraduateStudentSchoolPsychologyProgramUniversityofMassachusettsAmherst

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WHATISTHEPURPOSEOFTHISSTUDY?Thepurposeofthestudyistoevaluatetheeffectivenessofasupplementalwritinginterventionforstrugglingwriterswithinapreventativeinstructionalframework.Studentsidentifiedasat-riskonascreeningmeasurewillreceivethesupplementalinstruction.Theperformanceofthesestudentswillbecomparedtotheirpredictedscoreshadtheyreceivedcoreinstructiononly.Thepredictedscoreswillbedetermineusingthescreeningandoutcomescoresofstudentswhodidnotreceivetheintervention.WHEREWILLTHESTUDYTAKEPLACEANDHOWLONGWILLITLAST?TheassessmentportionofthestudywilltakeplaceononedayinOctoberlastingapproximately12minutes,andontwodaysduringDecembertotalingapproximately45minutesto1hour.Allassessmentactivitieswilloccurinyourchild’sregularclassroom.WHATWILLYOURCHILDBEASKEDTODO?InOctober,studentswillbegivenastorystarterpromptandinstructedtothinkaboutthetopicfor2minutes.Theywillthenbeaskedtowriteaboutthetopicfor10minutes.InDecember,studentswillbeadministeredtheSentenceCombining,ContextualConventions,andStoryCompositionsubtestsoftheTestofWrittenLanguage–FourthEdition(TOWL-4;Hammill&Larson,2009).OntheSentenceCombiningsubtest,studentsareaskedtocombinemultiplesetsof2to6shortsentencesintosinglecomprehensiveandgrammaticallycorrectsentences.Thetestisuntimedbuttypicallytakesbetween15and20minutes.FortheContextualConventionsandStoryCompositionsubtests,amodelstoryandpicturepromptarepresentedtostudents,andtheexaminerpointsoutimportantstoryelements.Studentsareprovidedwithpictureprompt,given5minutestoplan,and15minutestowrite.Additionally,studentswillcompletetheWriter’sSelfPerceptionScale(Bottomley,Henk,&Melnick,1998)whichis38-item“fillinthebubble”instrumenttoassessstudents’self-efficacybeliefsregardingtheirwritingskills.Thesetestsresembletypicalclassroomwritingactivitiesandtests.Aswithanytest,thereisthepossibilityyourchildmayexperiencemildanxiety.Whilethisisunlikely,theymayasktostopparticipatingatanypoint.Inadditiontothedatawegatherfromyourchild’swrittenresponses,wewillalsoaskyourschooladministratorstoreportyourchild’sdemographicdatatousincludingtheirgender,race,languagestatus,specialeducation,andinstructionalsupports.Thesedatawillnotbeusedtoidentifyyourchildinanyway,butarenecessarytoreflectthediversityofstudentswhoparticipatedinourstudy.Wewillalsorequesttoaccesstothe2015ELAscoresontheMCASorthePARCCforallstudentsinthesample.Allpersonalidentifierswillberemovedinthedatasetupondataentry.Wewillworkcloselywiththeschool’sdatamanagertogatherthesedataandprotecttheidentityofyourchild.Thisisavoluntaryproject.Youarefreetodecidewhetheryourchildwillparticipate.Ifyoudonotwishtohaveyourchildparticipateorifyouhaveanyquestionsorconcernsaboutyourchild’sparticipationinthisprocess,pleasefeelfreetocontactPrincipal_____at_______ormeatwfurey@educ.umass.edu.Therewillbenopenaltiestoyouoryourchildifyouchooseforthemnottoparticipate.

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October___,2015Dearparentorguardian:Asyoumayremember,IamworkingwithPrincipal___andthefourthgradeteamtoconductastudyevaluatingtheeffectivenessofasupplementalwritingintervention.Followingsimilarproceduresalreadyusedwithintheschool’sRtIframeworkintheareasofreadingandmath,werecentlyconductedascreeningforwrittenexpression.Yourchild’sscoreonthescreeningmeasuresuggestssheorhemaybenefitfromsupplementalwritinginstructionbeyondthecoreinstructionprovidedintheclassroom.Withyourpermission,yourchildwillreceivesupplementaryinstructionalsupporttwodaysperweekoverthecourseofeightweeks.Attachedyouwillfindaconsentformthatoutlinesthedetailsofmystudyandthetasksthatwillbeaskedofyourchild.Theparticipationofeachstudentisstrictlyvoluntary.Pleasereadthedetailsofthisstudyontheattachedconsentformanddecidewhetherornotyouwishforyourchildtoreceivethesupplementalwritinginstruction.Pleasechecktheappropriatebox,signtheform,andhaveyourchildreturnthesignedformtohisorherteacher.Ifyouhaveanyquestionsorconcernsaboutyourchild’sparticipationinthisprocess,pleasefeelfreetocontactPrincipal_____at_______ormeatwfurey@educ.umass.edu.Thankyouforyourconsiderationinlettingyourchildparticipateinmystudy.Sincerely,Mac---WilliamFurey,M.A.T.,M.Ed.GraduateStudentSchoolPsychologyProgramUniversityofMassachusettsAmherst

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WHATISTHEPURPOSEOFTHISSTUDY?Thepurposeofthestudyistoevaluatetheeffectivenessofasupplementalwritinginterventionforstrugglingwriterswithinapreventativeinstructionalframework.Studentsidentifiedasat-riskonascreeningmeasurewillreceivethesupplementalinstruction.Theperformanceofthesestudentswillbecomparedtotheirpredictedscoreshadtheyreceivedcoreinstructiononly.Thepredictedscoreswillbedetermineusingthescreeningandoutcomescoresofstudentswhodidnotreceivetheintervention.WHEREWILLTHESTUDYTAKEPLACEANDHOWLONGWILLITLAST?Theinterventionportionofthestudywilltakeplaceoverthecourseof8weeks.Studentswillreceivesmallgroupinstructionin30-minutelessonstwotimesperweek.Theinterventionwilloccurwithintheschool,eitherinthestudents’regularclassroomoranotheravailableclassroom.Amemberof____IntermediateSchool’sstaffwillbepresentatalltimes.WHATWILLYOURCHILDBEASKEDTODO?Studentswillreceiveexplicitinstructiononsentence-levelwritingskillsandastrategytoapplytheseskillsduringthecompositionandrevisionphasesofthewritingprocess.Additionally,theywillreceiveinstructionontheself-regulatoryproceduresofgoalsettingandself-monitoringduringthewritingprocess.Studentswillengageinvariousgroup,pair,andindependentwritingactivitieswhichprovideopportunitiestopracticeapplyingtheskillsandstrategiestaught.WHOWILLPROVIDETHEINSTRUCTIONSmallgroupswillberandomlyassignedtoeitherreceiveinstructionfromatrainedinterventionistormyself.Thetrainedinterventionistisadisabilitystudiesandeducationminoratanearbyuniversity.Priortograduateschoolforschoolpsychology,IwasacertifiedelementaryschoolteacherinConnecticutandRhodeIslandfor6years.IalsocurrentlyworkintheelementaryteacherpreparationprogramattheUniversityofMassachusettsAmherst.AllCORIprocedureswillbeadheredtopriortoanyinteractionwithstudents,anda_______IntermediateSchoolstaffmemberwillbepresentatalltimes.Thisisavoluntaryproject.Youarefreetodecidewhetheryourchildwillparticipate.Ifyouhaveanyquestionsorconcernsaboutyourchild’sparticipationinthisprocess,pleasefeelfreetocontactPrincipal_____at_______ormeatwfurey@educ.umass.edu.Pleasesignthisletterandreturnittoyourchild’steacher.Therewillbenopenaltiestoyouoryourchildifyouchooseforthemnottoparticipate.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Pleasechecktheappropriatebox,signandreturntoyourclassroomteacher.___Iagreetomychildreceivingthesupplementalwritinginstruction.___Idonotwishformychildtoreceivethesupplementalwritinginstruction.Child’sname:

Parent/GuardianSignature:

Date:

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APPENDIXC

ATTENDANCEDATA

Session

Student 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14TotalSessions

MissedA A 1B A 1C 0D A A 2E 0F A 1G A 1H 0I A 1J 0K A A 2L A 1M A 1N 0O A 1P 0Q 0R A A 2S A 1Note:A=Absent

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APPENDIXD

INSTRUCTIONALSEQUENCE

SRSDStage:DevelopBackgroundKnowledgeLesson1

• Whycomplete,well-crafted,andinterestingsentencesareimportant• Generalgoalsetting:Towritetextsfilledwithwell-craftedandinteresting

sentences• Fundamentalsofabasicsentence

o Framedwithacapitalletterandendingpunctuationo SubjectandPredicate

Lesson2• “Where”predicateexpanderandassociatedstarterwords• “How”predicateexpanderandassociatedstarterwords

Lesson3• Mobilityofpredicateexpanderstoincreasesentencevariety• Confusingrun-onsentences

Lesson4• “When”predicateexpanderandassociatedstarterwords• “Why”predicateexpanderandassociatedstarterwords

Lesson5• “Physical,”“Behavior,”and“Number”subjectdescribers

Lesson6• “Ownership”and“Set-apartinterrupter”subjectdescribers

SRSDStage:DiscussItLesson7

• Examinestudentwritingandsetgoals• Introduce“GoalandSelf-monitoringsheet”

SRSDStages:ModelItandMemorizeItLesson8

• IntroduceandmodelF-SPEED• GuidedrevisionofscreeningprobeusingF-SPEED

SRSDStages:MemorizeIt,SupportIt,andIndependentPerformanceLessons9-14

• PracticeF-SPEEDforsentenceconstructioninresponsetopictureprompts• Complete10-minutestoryprompts

o GuidedrevisionoftextusingF-SPEEDand“GoalandSelf-monitoringsheet”

• Graduallyfadeteachersupportanduseofstarterwordsanchorcharts

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APPENDIXE

SAMPLELESSONPLAN

LESSON3AdaptedfromFramingYourThoughts:SentenceStructure(Greene&Enfield,1997)

INTRO• Quicklyreviewwhyitisimportanttowritecompleteandinteresting

sentences.Reviewthedefinitionofsimplesentence,subject,andpredicateusingcorrespondingactions.

• Asentenceisframedwithacapitalletterandendswithastopsign.Everysentencehastwoparts.Thesubjectnamestheperson,place,thing,orideathatthesentenceisabout.Thepredicateshowstheactionofthesubject.

• Askstudentstopicturethepredicatesymbolintheirmind’seyeandthenask,Howmanymountainsortrianglesmakeupthepredicatesymbol?Answer:Four

SLIDE1• Remember,eachofthesemountainsortrianglesrepresentsaquestion

wecananswertoexpandthepredicate.Expandingthepredicatemakesoursentencesmoreinterestingforthereader.Whocantellmethefirstpredicateexpanderquestionwordwelearnedaboutlasttime?Removetheboxtorevealtheanswer,‘where.’Welearnedthatthewherepredicateexpanderbeginswithapositionword.Wehaveoursheetofwherestarter/positionwordswecanreferbacktoinournotebooks.

• Removethesecondboxtorevealtheword‘how.’Today,wewillfocusonthe‘how’predicateexpander.Wewillanswerthe‘how’predicateexpandertogivethereadermoredetailabouttheactionofthesubject.

SLIDE2• Thestarterwordsforthe‘how’predicateexpanderaresinglewords

endingin_ly,like,with,andwithout.• Wearefirstgoingtostartwithsinglewordsthatendin_ly.• Directstudentstolookatthe_lywordlistintheirbinders.Statethatthiswill

beahelpfulreferenceforthemtouse.SLIDE3

• Lookatyourlistof_lywords.Thinkaboutawordthatwouldappropriatelyexpressthe‘how’ofthissentence.

SLIDE4• Modelyourchoiceof‘confidently’forthestudents.• The‘how’–lyexpandershouldstayasclosetothepredicatewordas

possible.• Movearoundsentencepartstoshowhowyoucanwritethesentenceas:

o Jordanskisconfidentlydownthesteepsnow-packedhill.o Jordanconfidentlyskisdownthesteepsnow-packedhill.

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• Notethatyoucantechnicallymoveconfidentlytotheend,however,whensentencesbegintohavemoreparts,itgetsconfusingforthereaderif–lyisnotreallyclosetotheaction/predicateword.

SLIDE5• Repeatthesameprocesswith“Therabbitdarted.”

ACTIVITY• Distributebagswithcutupsentencestostudents.• Arrangethesentencepiecesintoasentenceinfrontofyou.Pickan

appropriate–lywordandwriteitonthe‘how’predicateexpanderpiece.• Checkstudentworkandprovidepromptcorrectivefeedbackifnecessary.

Praisestudentschoicesof–lywordsandtheplacementofthe–lyexpanderclosetothepredicateword.

SLIDE6• Howexpandersoftenstartwiththewords,like,with,without,whenthe

expanderisagroupofwords.Whenasingle–lywordisused,thehowexpanderneedstostayclosetothepredicateword.

SLIDE7• Modelhowthesentencecanbeeither

o Thelightningflashesbrightlylikeaneonsigninthenightsky.o Thelightningbrightlyflasheslikeaneonsigninthenightsky.

SLIDE8• Askthestudentstobrainstormappropriatehowexpandersthatbeginwith

likeforthesentence.SLIDE9

• Possibleanswertoshowafterfieldingstudentresponses:o Thechildjumpslikeabunnyaroundtheroom.o Thechildjumpsaroundtheroomlikeabunny.

SLIDE10• Showthestudentsthesentenceusingahowexpanderstartingwith‘with’.

o Theaudienceapplaudswithenthusiasm.• Askstudentstobrainstormotherhowexpandersstartingwith‘with.’

o Possibleanswers:withdelight,withappreciation,withglee,etc.SLIDE11

• Showthestudentsthesentenceusingahowexpanderstartingwith‘without.’o Megskatedwithouthelp.

• Askstudentstobrainstormotherhowexpandersstartingwith‘without.’o Possibleanswers:withoutacareintheworld,withoutfalling,without

usingtheboardstohelp,etc.SLIDE12

• HavestudentsturntoWorksheet3.Modelidentifyingeachpartofthesentencefornumber1.Havestudentshelponnumber2.

INDEPENDENTPRACTICE• Havestudentscompletenumbers3through10independently.Provide

praiseandcorrectlyfeedback.

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SLIDE13,CLOSURE,andEXITTICKET• Writers,let’suseeverythingwehavelearnedsofartowriteacomplete

andinterestingsentenceaboutthispicture.Rememberthatyoursentenceshouldbeframedwithacapitalletterandendingpunctuation.Makesureyouhaveasubjectandpredicate.Trytomakeyoursentenceinterestingbyincluding2or3predicateexpanders.Youmayrefertothewhereandhowstarterwordsheetsforideas.Rememberthat–lyhowexpandersshouldbeclosetothepredicateword.Ontheboardwrite,“a)Framedwithcapitalletterandendingpunctuation,b)subjectandpredicate,c)2or3predicateexpanders

Iftimeremains,havestudent(s)whometobjectiveshareout.

84

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