The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study
Writing is a foundational skill throughout school grades. This study analyzed the development of different levels of written language (word, sentence, and discourse) and explored the relationship between these levels and writing performance. About 95 Portuguese students from two cohorts—Grades 4–7 (...
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2021-08-01
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doaj-325fa2daaf8145e1b8a895ace5b74dbb2021-08-03T04:56:03ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782021-08-011210.3389/fpsyg.2021.668139668139The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal StudyLénia Carvalhais0Teresa Limpo1Luísa Álvares Pereira2Luísa Álvares Pereira3Portucalense Institute for Human Development (INPP), Department of Psychology and Education, Universidade Portucalense, Porto, PortugalFaculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, PortugalDepartment of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, PortugalCentro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, PortugalWriting is a foundational skill throughout school grades. This study analyzed the development of different levels of written language (word, sentence, and discourse) and explored the relationship between these levels and writing performance. About 95 Portuguese students from two cohorts—Grades 4–7 (n = 47) 6–9 (n = 48)—were asked to produce a descriptive text two times, with a 3-year interval. The produced texts were used to assess spelling, syntactic correctness and complexity, and descriptive discourse as well as text length and quality. The main results showed that there were improvements from Grades 4 to 7 and 6 to 9 in word- and sentence-level skills, along with increases in some dimensions of the descriptive discourse. Moreover, the older cohort performed better than the younger cohort in terms of spelling, syntactic complexity, and text quality, but not in terms of syntactic correctness, one dimension of the descriptive discourse, and text length. Regression analyses showed that writing performance was predicted by word and sentence levels in the younger cohort only, and by discourse-level variables in both cohorts. Overall, despite indicating a generalized growth in writing skills throughout schooling, this study also highlighted the areas that may need additional attention from teachers, mainly in terms of the descriptive features.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.668139/fullwriting performancelevels of languagegrade levellongitudinal studyspellingsyntactic complexity measures |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Lénia Carvalhais Teresa Limpo Luísa Álvares Pereira Luísa Álvares Pereira |
spellingShingle |
Lénia Carvalhais Teresa Limpo Luísa Álvares Pereira Luísa Álvares Pereira The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study Frontiers in Psychology writing performance levels of language grade level longitudinal study spelling syntactic complexity measures |
author_facet |
Lénia Carvalhais Teresa Limpo Luísa Álvares Pereira Luísa Álvares Pereira |
author_sort |
Lénia Carvalhais |
title |
The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study |
title_short |
The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study |
title_full |
The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study |
title_fullStr |
The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Contribution of Word-, Sentence-, and Discourse-Level Abilities on Writing Performance: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study |
title_sort |
contribution of word-, sentence-, and discourse-level abilities on writing performance: a 3-year longitudinal study |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Psychology |
issn |
1664-1078 |
publishDate |
2021-08-01 |
description |
Writing is a foundational skill throughout school grades. This study analyzed the development of different levels of written language (word, sentence, and discourse) and explored the relationship between these levels and writing performance. About 95 Portuguese students from two cohorts—Grades 4–7 (n = 47) 6–9 (n = 48)—were asked to produce a descriptive text two times, with a 3-year interval. The produced texts were used to assess spelling, syntactic correctness and complexity, and descriptive discourse as well as text length and quality. The main results showed that there were improvements from Grades 4 to 7 and 6 to 9 in word- and sentence-level skills, along with increases in some dimensions of the descriptive discourse. Moreover, the older cohort performed better than the younger cohort in terms of spelling, syntactic complexity, and text quality, but not in terms of syntactic correctness, one dimension of the descriptive discourse, and text length. Regression analyses showed that writing performance was predicted by word and sentence levels in the younger cohort only, and by discourse-level variables in both cohorts. Overall, despite indicating a generalized growth in writing skills throughout schooling, this study also highlighted the areas that may need additional attention from teachers, mainly in terms of the descriptive features. |
topic |
writing performance levels of language grade level longitudinal study spelling syntactic complexity measures |
url |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.668139/full |
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