Writing Development in Children With Hearing Loss, Dyslexia, or Oral Language Problems

Writing Development in Children
with Hearing Loss, Dyslexia, or

Oral Language Problems
Writing Development
in Children with
Hearing Loss,
Dyslexia, or Oral
Language Problems
Implications for Assessment and Instruction
Edited by
Barbara Arfé
Julie Dockrell
Virginia Berninger
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Writing development in children with hearing loss, dyslexia, or oral language problems: implications for
assessment and instruction / edited by Barbara Arfé, Julie Dockrell, and Virginia Berninger.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–982728–2
1. Children—Writing. 2. Children with disabilities. 3. Child development. I. Arfé, Barbara,
editor of compilation.
LB1139.W7W75 2014
371.9′0446—dc23 2014004456
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
This book is dedicated to Karen, Michael, Stephen, Ray and Vanessa and all the
young writers who collaborated over the years in our studies as well as those
who participated in the writing studies of all the contributors to this volume.
Our greatest thanks goes to them, for their personal contribution to the work of
writing researchers.
CONTENTS
Preface xi
Contributors xiii
Introduction xvii
PART ONE: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

1. Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Framework 3
John R. Hayes and Virginia W. Berninger
2. Linguistic Perspectives on Writing Development 16
Ruth A. Berman
3. Two Metaphors for Writing Research and Their Implications for
Writing Instruction 33
Pietro Boscolo
PART TWO: The Impact of Oral Language Problems on Written

Text Production
Children with Hearing Loss
4. Spelling in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants: Implications
for Instruction 45
Heather Hayes, Rebecca Treiman, and Ann E. Geers
5. Spelling Acquisition in French Children with Cochlear Implants:
A Case-Study Investigation 55
Sophie Bouton and Pascale Colé
6. Spelling Abilities in Hebrew-Speaking Children with Hearing Loss 70
Ronit Levie, Dorit Ravid, Tal Freud, and Tova Most
7. The Influence of Verbal Working Memory on Writing Skills in Children
with Hearing Loss 85
Barbara Arfé, Federica Nicolini, and Elena Pozzebon
8. Composing Academic Essays: Using Dictation and Technology to
Improve Fluency 100
John Albertini, Michael Stinson, and Argiroula Zangana
Children with Oral Language Difficulties
9. Examining Early Spelling and Writing Skills: A Comparative Analysis of
Kindergarteners with Speech and Oral Language Impairments and Their
Typically Developing Peers 112
Cynthia S. Puranik, Stephanie Al Otaiba, and Feifei Ye
10. Morphological Awareness and Spelling Difficulties in
French-Speaking Children 130
Monique Sénéchal
11. Writing Abilities of Pre-adolescents with and without Language/Learning
Impairment in Restructuring an Informative Text 143
Orna Davidi and Ruth A. Berman
12. Writing Development of Spanish-English Bilingual Students with
Language Learning Disabilities: New Directions in Constructing
Individual Profiles 158
Robin L. Danzak and Elaine R. Silliman
13. Written Narratives from French and English Speaking Children with
Language Impairment 176
Judy S. Reilly, Josie Bernicot, Thierry Olive, Joël Uzé, Beverly Wulfeck,
Monik Favart, and Mark Appelbaum
Children with Dyslexia
14. A Review of Dyslexia and Expressive Writing in English 188
Emma Sumner, Vincent Connelly, and Anna L. Barnett
15. Written Spelling in French Children with Dyslexia 201
Séverine Casalis
16. Written Spelling in Spanish-Speaking Children with Dyslexia 214
Francisca Serrano and Sylvia Defior
17. The Writing Development of Brazilian Children with Dyslexia:
An Evidence-Based Clinical Approach 228
Jane Correa
18. Expressive Writing in Swedish 15-Year-Olds with Reading and
Writing Difficulties 244
Åsa Wengelin, Roger Johansson, and Victoria Johansson
19. Improving Expressive Writing in Children with Learning Disabilities:
The Effects of a Training Focused on Revision 257
Martina Pedron, Anna Maria Re, Chiara Mirandola, and Cesare Cornoldi
PART THREE: Linking Research to Practice in Oral and Written Language

Assessment and Intervention
20. Integrating Language Assessment, Instruction, and Intervention in an
Inclusive Writing Lab Approach 273
Nickola Wolf Nelson
[ v i i i ] Contents
21. Integrating Oral and Written Language into a New Practice Model:
Perspectives of an Oral Language Researcher 301
Elaine R. Silliman
22. Integrating Writing and Oral Language Disorders: Perspectives of a
Writing Researcher 313
Vincent Connelly
23. The Role of Oral Language in Developing Written Language Skills:
Questions for European Pedagogy? 325
Julie E. Dockrell and Barbara Arfé
Bridging Research and Practice: Conclusions 336
Index 343
C o n t e n ts [ i x ]
P R E FA C E
“Today, in addition to the 10% of children who do not have access to schooling of any kind, we
know that millions more are in school but are not achieving minimal levels of learning”
(Bernard, 1999, p.v).
Language problems are considered to be a significant barrier to learning, partici-

pating in academic and professional activities, and developing as a person. Spoken
language and written language are representational systems, which allow us to
understand the world and express our views and ideas. Both reading and writing
are tools of personal empowerment and a means of social and cultural development
(UNESCO, 2013). Educational systems should equip children with writing skills
which allow them to engage in wider communication and progress in the work-
force. However, children with oral language problems frequently fail to develop
developmentally appropriate writing skills, and, as such, are at disadvantage.
This handbook focuses on the way oral language acts as a barrier to the produc-
tion of written texts and the strategies that can be used to ameliorate these prob-
lems. To locate the children’s problems with language alone is insufficient. Such an
explanation fails to clarify all the mechanisms which limit children’s text produc-
tion and how oral language problems may interact with the structure of the oral and
written language that the child is learning.
Improving the quality of education children and young adults with oral lan-
guage and speech problems receive is the ultimate goal. To achieve this goal, we
need to understand how the language learning mechanisms interact with (a) the
linguistic, social, and cultural factors that characterize the oral language learning
environment and (b) the task and motivational factors that characterize the writ-
ten language learning environment (Boscolo, c hapter 3, this volume; Danzak &
Silliman, c hapter 12, this volume). Models and views of writing development that
we present in Part I of this volume (Hayes & Berninger; Berman and Boscolo)
underpin this analysis, which is presented in Part II. Chapters in Part II describe the
main characteristics of writing difficulties in children with hearing loss, speech and
language impairment, and dyslexia. Authors from three continents and nine coun-
tries contributed their research work to extend our understanding of the problems
that the children face. The product is a rich overview of writing problems across
different types of oral language difficulties in different languages.
Another important theme of this volume is oral language and writing assess-
ment. Part III develops this issue with links to intervention. Berman and Connelly
show how the measures we examine (such as syntactic complexity, word diversity
and writing fluency) must consider both the nature of the language learner’s profile
and the features of the language. Some measures may be more sensitive to improve-
ments and developmental changes in one language and less in another language,
requiring language-specific scaffolding (Reilly et al., c hapter 13, this volume).
Finally, decisions about the assessment of the children’s writing must consider
the most sensitive measures for the question at hand, be that static or dynamic
assessment or standardized or natural tasks. Nelson suggests that dynamic assess-
ment, at least in situations where assessment is linked to intervention, is the more
powerful tool. Some authors emphasize the importance of considering authentic
and meaningful writing practices in writing assessment (Boscolo, chapter 3, and
Silliman, c hapter 21) and to examine children’s ability to use language across dif-
ferent genres (Danzak & Silliman, c hapter 12; Silliman, c hapter 21). Other authors
present a more “cognitive” approach to language and writing assessment where
skills are assessed by standardized tests.
The authors have worked with us to present their arguments succinctly and draw
out implications for researchers and practitioners alike. We would like to thank all
the authors for their patient and hard work on the chapters. We have learned much
from all authors and hope our readers will learn from and value their work.
Barbara Arfé, Julie Dockrell, and Virginia W. Berninger
REFERENCES
UNESCO (2013). Literacies for the 21st century. Downloaded from: http://unesdoc.unesco.

org/images/0022/002230/223029E.pdf
Bernard, A. (1999). The child-friendly school: a summary. Paper prepared for UNICEF.
[ x i i ] Preface
CONTRIBUTORS
John Albertini Virginia W. Berninger

National Technical Institute for the Department of Educational Psychology
Deaf University of Washington
Rochester Institute of Technology Seattle, Washington
Rochester, New York
Ruth A. Berman
Stephanie Al Otaiba Department of Linguistics
Department of Teaching and Learning Tel Aviv University
Southern Methodist University Tel Aviv, Israel
Dallas, Texas
Pietro Boscolo
Mark Appelbaum Department of Developmental
Department of Psychology Psychology and Socialization
University of California, San Diego University of Padova
San Diego, California Padova, Italy
Barbara Arfé Sophie Bouton

Department of Developmental Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives
Psychology and Socialisation École Normale Supérieure
University of Padova Paris, France
Padova, Italy
Séverine Casalis
Anna L. Barnett URECA
Department of Psychology Université de Lille
Oxford Brookes University Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France
Oxford, United Kingdom
Pascale Colé
Josie Bernicot Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive
Department of Psychology Aix-Marseille Université
Université de Poitiers-CNRS Marseille, France
Poitiers, France
Vincent Connelly Tal Freud
Department of Psychology Department of Communications
Oxford Brookes University Disorders and School of Education
Oxford, United Kingdom Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel
Cesare Cornoldi
Department of General Psychology Ann E. Geers
University of Padova Dallas Cochlear Implant Program,
Padova, Italy Callier Advances Research Center
University of Texas at Dallas
Jane Correa Dallas, Texas
Instituto de Psicologia
Universidade Federal do Rio Heather Hayes
de Janeiro Program in Audiology and
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Communication Sciences
Washington University School of
Robin L. Danzak Medicine
Department of Speech-Language St. Louis, Missouri
Pathology
Sacred Heart University John R. Hayes
Fairfield, Connecticut Department of Psychology
Carnegie Mellon University
Orna Davidi Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
School of Cultural Studies
Tel Aviv University Roger Johansson
Tel Aviv, Israel Centre for Languages and
Literature
Sylvia Defior Lund University
Facultad de Psicologia Lund, Sweden
University of Granada
Granada, Spain Victoria Johansson
Centre for Languages and
Julie E. Dockrell Literature
Department of Psychology and Lund University
Human Development Lund, Sweden
Institute of Education
London, United Kingdom Ronit Levie
Department of Communications
Monik Favart Disorders and School of
Department of Psychology Education
Université de Poitiers-CNRS Tel Aviv University
Poitiers, France Tel Aviv, Israel
[ x i v ] Contributors
Chiara Mirandola Dorit Ravid
Department of General Psychology Department of Communications
University of Padova Disorders and School of Education
Padova, Italy Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel
Tova Most
Department of Communications Anna Maria Re
Disorders and School of Education Department of General Psychology
Tel Aviv University University of Padova
Tel Aviv, Israel Padova, Italy
Nickola Wolf Nelson Judy S. Reilly

Department of Speech Pathology and Department of Psychology
Audiology San Diego State University
Western Michigan University San Diego, California
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Monique Sénéchal
Federica Nicolini Department of Psychology
Servizio di Audiologia e Foniatria Carleton University
Università di Padova—Treviso Ottawa, Ontario
Treviso, Italy
Francisca Serrano
Thierry Olive Facultad de Psicologia
Department of Psychology University of Granada
Université de Poitiers-CNRS Granada, Spain
Poitiers, France
Elaine R. Silliman
Martina Pedron Department of Communication
Department of General Psychology Sciences and Disorders
University of Padova University of South Florida
Padova, Italy Tampa, Florida
Elena Pozzebon Michael Stinson

Servizio di Audiologia e Foniatria National Technical Institute for the
Università di Padova—Treviso Deaf
Treviso, Italy Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, New York
Cynthia S. Puranik
Department of Communication Emma Sumner
Science and Disorders Department of Psychology
University of Pittsburgh Goldsmiths, University of London
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania London, United Kingdom
C o n t r i b u to r s [ x v ]
Rebecca Treiman Feifei Ye
Department of Psychology Department of Communication
Washington University in St. Louis Science and Disorders
St. Louis, Missouri University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Joël Uzé
CRTL-Centre Hospitalier H. Laborit Argiroula Zangana
Poitiers, France Institute for Language and Speech
Processing
Åsa Wengelin Athens, Greece
Department of Swedish
University of Gothenburg
Göteborg, Sweden
Beverly Wulfeck
School of Speech, Language, and
Hearing Sciences
San Diego State University
San Diego, California
[ x v i ] Contributors
INTRODUCTION
I n his Nobel Prize lecture, V.S. Naipaul, described the difficulties he experienced
growing up in a world that he initially did not understand and explains how he
progressively discovered and understood this world: “When I became a writer those
areas of darkness around me as a child became my subjects. The land; the aborigi-
nes; the New World; the colony; the history; India; [..] knowledge and ideas came
to me [..], principally from my writing” (2013). Writing is a wonderful tool, which
has a unique role in our development. Through writing people communicate with
each other and themselves, learn, discover themselves and build their identities and
establish roles in society. Yet writing is also an extremely complex activity, an activ-
ity that is a struggle for many students and professionals alike (Dockrell, 2014).
Difficulties with written expression are currently one of the most common learn-
ing problems, involving between 6.9% and 14.9% of the school aged population,
depending on the formula used to identify written expression disorders (Katusic,
Colligan, Weaver, & Barbaresi, 2009). For children and young people with difficul-
ties related to oral language the prevalence of writing difficulties increases signifi-
cantly (Mayes & Calhoun, 2006), yet there is much to learn about the relationship
between oral and written language.
For students with oral language difficulties text production can be particularly
challenging, yet there have been few attempts to draw together the impact of dif-
ferent oral language problems on the production of written text. This book aims to
illuminate the nature of the writing process through its relationship with oral lan-
guage and oral language difficulties, and to understand how language systems and
educational contexts may contribute to shape this relationship in different ways.
Our aim is to provide a bridge between research and practice by presenting current
research evidence to help guide and support practitioners and researchers alike.
Models of writing represent the framework through which the writing process and
writing difficulties are examined and understood. Over the last 30 years psycholo-
gists have studied the ways in which the cognitive system supports the writing pro-
cess and how writing changes and develops over time (Hayes & Flower, 1980). This
research has led to the construction of models of expert writing (Hayes & Flower,
1986) and models of writing development (Berninger, 2012).
Cognitive models capture part of the writing process by focusing on the infor-
mation processing demands that are placed on the writer. But the writer produces
text within a social context that can support text production or can present specific
demands on the writer. The contexts in which writing occurs and the values and
meanings writing has for the writer are an important component of our under-
standing of writing and writing problems (see Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, this
volume).
In the first part of this book we present three different perspectives from which
writing difficulties can be understood. In c hapter 1, Hayes and Berninger present
a new cognitive framework for understanding the writing process. Berman, in
chapter 2, discusses how a linguistic perspective should guide our research work,
analyses of written expression and understanding of developmental difficulties.
In addition, Berman uses cross-linguistic data to broaden our conceptualiza-
tion of the writing process. Boscolo, in chapter 3, discusses the theoretical and
instructional implications of a cognitive perspective and a socio-cultural perspec-
tive to our understanding of the writing process. Research from a cognitive per-
spective has increased our understanding of the processes which underpin text
production, resulting in teaching and training packages, which can be used to
improve performance. However, to impact on learning and on an effective and
authentic use of writing, we also need to understand writing as a social act. Some
of the chapters in the second and third part of this volume specifically address
this issue (see Danzak & Silliman, c hapter 12, Nelson, c hapter 20, and Silliman,
chapter 21). This entails both an understanding of the context and situations in
which the written message is produced and of the written text as a product of an
authentic communication act. As Boscolo emphasizes, this component is often
forgotten in writing instruction.
The chapters in this book consider situations where the language system has
been compromised, and present current research on writing difficulties in the area
of deafness, language impairment and dyslexia. Clinicians and educators often work
with children who have these difficulties, but struggle in identifying the nature of
their writing problems. In many cases problems with language and writing result
from a complex mixture of cognitive and linguistic difficulties, which are addressed
by this handbook.
The book focuses on the ways in which aspects of the language system can
impact on oral/written language difficulties: (a) difficulties with oral and written
language learning which are caused by a difficult access to speech-sounds (deaf-
ness) ( Johnson & Goswami, 2010); (b) difficulties with oral and written language
learning, which involves the language learning mechanisms necessary for devel-
oping grammatical and semantic and pragmatic linguistic representations of spo-
ken language (as in Specific Language Impairment) (Bishop & Snowling, 2004;
Dockrell & Connelly, 2013; Dockrell, Lindsay, & Connelly, 2009); (c) difficulties
with oral and written language learning that selectively involve the mechanisms
required to process phonological information and the phonological structure of
[ x v i i i ] Introduction
words (such us in some cases of dyslexia, see Bishop & Snowling, 2004; Peterson
& Pennington, 2012).
A challenge for both practitioners and researchers is the plethora of terms used to
describe a child who has a specific set of problems. Different labels are used to refer
to the same group of children both within and across countries (Dockrell, Lindsay,
Letchford, & Mackie, 2006). Labels also often identify heterogeneous groups of
children. For example, specific language impairment often includes children who
have both problems with the structural aspects of the language system and prob-
lems with social communication (Conti-Ramsden & Botting, 1999). Sometimes a
group identified for research purposes does not reflect the reality in practice or illus-
trates significant comorbidity with other problems (between dyslexia and dyscal-
culia, or dyslexia and other reading difficulties, Wengelin et al., c hapter 18; Pedron
et al., chapter 19; language impairment and speech sound disorders, Puranik et al.,
chapter 9; dyslexia and language impairment, Peterson & Pennington, 2012). These
differences in nomenclature can be problematic for the field, but detailed descrip-
tions of the population under study allow informed comparisons. In this book the
terminology used by the authors reflects both their country of origin and research
focus. In each case details of the population will help the reader establish how the
research can be embedded within their own practice or research framework. The
variety of labels and definitions used in this book also represent the complexity of
identifying and understanding oral and written language difficulties. As Davidi and
Berman (chapter 11) and Danzak and Silliman (chapter 12) highlight, the term
Language Learning Disability emphasizes the linkages between spoken language
and literacy learning and suggests that we are examining a learning problem, not
just a linguistic problem, a conclusion that many of the chapters illustrate.
Part II provides studies that consider writing at different levels, word, sentence,
text and discourse. To date, most research work in the field of written language prob-
lems has focused on the single word level, spelling. Spelling is important because it
is the code writers need to discover and use to write (Ehri, 2005), but also because
it represents one of the greatest constraints to writing. Children who do not mas-
ter spelling processes continue to meet difficulties in text production (Berninger,
Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008) and problems in mastering spelling
taxes the writing process such that children not only produce short and inaccurate
texts, but avoid writing, leading to further delays in writing development (Graham
& Harris, 2000).
Various chapters in this book focus on spelling and spelling difficulties, in the
section on deafness (Hayes et al., c hapter 4, Bouton & Colé, chapter 5, and Levie
et al., chapter 6), oral language difficulties (Puranik et al., chapter 9, and Sénéchal,
chapter 10) and dyslexia (Casalis, chapter 15, and Serrano & Defior, c hapter 16).
The chapters on spelling show how children with writing problems make use of
regularities in the language to spell words, in a similar fashion to typically develop-
ing children. Different forms of language knowledge (phonological, orthographic,
and morphological) are exploited by these children to discover and use these
I n t r o d u ct i o n [ x i x ]
regularities. For example, Hayes et al. in c hapter 4, Levie et al. (chapter 6), Arfé
et al. (chapter 7), Sénéchal (chapter 10) and Casalis (chapter 15), emphasize the
role of morphology in spelling in combination with phonology and orthography.
These findings are important since they are derived from studies on different lan-
guage systems (Hebrew, French, English and Italian) and on different populations
(children with deafness, oral language problems and dyslexia).
As spelling is also a component of text production, spelling difficulties are also
treated in chapters which focus is on text production (see for example Arfé et al.,
chapter 7, Reilly et al., c hapter 13, Sumner et al., c hapter 14, and Wengelin et al.,
chapter 18). Difficulties with text production are related to difficulties with spelling
in children with dyslexia (Sumner et al., chapter 14 and Wengelin et al., chapter 18),
children who are deaf (Arfé et al., c hapter 7) and in children with oral language
problems (Reilly et al., chapter 13). However, writing and written communication
goes beyond spelling, involving the processing of words, sentences, ideas, and dis-
course structures (Arfé & Boscolo, 2006; Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, &
Raskind, 2008; Dockrell, Lindsay, Connelly, & Mackie, 2007). Analyses of spelling
alone fails to capture all the components in writing that are linked to oral language,
and the ways in which writing develops over time.
Many chapters in this book demonstrate how difficulties in writing are often
at a grammatical and discourse level (Albertini et al.,chapter 8, Davidi & Berman,
chapter 11, Danzak and Silliman, c hapter 12, Reilly et al., chapter 13, Wengelin
et al., chapter 18). These writing difficulties are discussed as both an expression
of problems with the development of oral language knowledge (e.g., grammatical
morphology, see Reilly et al., chapters 13) and in terms of basic language learning
mechanisms affecting concurrently both oral and written language production (see
for example, Arfé et al., chapter 7).
Some of the chapters in part II (in particular Arfé et al., chapter 7, Davidi &
Berman, chapter 11, Danzak & Silliman, c hapter 12, and Reilly et al., chapter 13)
point to the value of multi-level text analyses. Although this is an extremely com-
plex and time consuming activity, examining written expression, and its difficul-
ties, at word, sentence and text level is a particularly useful way to capture variation
in writing and to identify strengths and challenges in the writing performance of
children who show language problems. The multilevel analysis of writing can also
provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the ways in which language problems
at word (spelling and vocabulary), sentence (grammar) and text (discourse) level
interact in the production of the written text (Puranik, Lombardino, & Altmann,
2008; Wagner et al., 2011).
Implications of this research for assessment and intervention are discussed in
Part III. Difficulties in learning to write pose challenges for both the writer and
the teacher, in particular when teachers and their students are building on weak
oral language skills. The final chapters in the book discuss how the integration of
oral and written language in assessment and intervention can change our ways of
analyzing writing problems, providing appropriate instruction and empowering
[ x x ] Introduction
learning environments. The integration of oral and written language is examined
in the context of instructional and educational intervention (Nelson, chapter 20),
in terms of future instructional approaches (Silliman, c hapter 21) and at a more
conceptual level, as the result of progress in the field of writing research (Connelly,
chapter 22). Finally, Dockrell and Arfé (chapter 23) discuss the pedagogical ques-
tions that emerge from this volume.
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[ x x i i ] Introduction
PART ONE
Models and Perspectives on

Writing Development
CHAPTER 1
Cognitive Processes in Writing

A Framework
JOHN R . H AYES AND VIRGINI A W. BERNINGER
I n this chapter, we present a framework relating the cognitive processes that writ-
ers in general use when they create written texts, the mental resources that these
cognitive processes can draw on, and the task environment in which these cogni-
tive processes operate. We begin by clarifying how this approach to cognition con-
trasts with that most familiar to professionals who work with individuals who have
sensory, motor, or language disabilities that affect their oral or written expression.
We then explain the benefits of a theoretical framework of cognition specific to
the writing process and describe the details of this framework. Finally, we encour-
age professionals and researchers who work with individuals who have disabilities
related to hearing, speech, and language to adapt this cognitive framework to those
individuals’ disabilities and capabilities, evaluate the adaptations, and share the
results. Such results should extend knowledge of cognition during writing for writ-
ers in general to writers with specific sensory, motor, or language limitations.
Typically, IQ tests are used to assess cognition in individuals with a variety of
disabilities. IQ stands for intelligence quotient, which is not what these tests really
measure. To begin with, they do not assess all aspects of human intelligence, but
rather specific kinds of cognitive abilities, for example, verbal reasoning or non-
verbal reasoning, which are related to school achievement or specific kinds of
vocational aptitude. More importantly, they have not yielded quotients (mental
age divided by chronological age) ever since standard scores were developed in
the middle of the last century to compare an individual’s current score to others of
the same age and also the scores of the same individual across time. As such, these
tests may be useful indices of levels to which specific kinds of cognitive abilities are
currently developed and their stability across development. They do not assess the
specific cognitive operations during actual listening, speaking, reading, or writing,
four language tasks that differ in which sensory or motor systems they engage and
how cognitive systems are accessed and utilized. Language by ear (listening com-
prehension), language by eye (reading comprehension), language by mouth (oral
expression of ideas), and language by hand (written expression of ideas) are sepa-
rable language systems that may function together in integrated ways and draw on
both common and unique processes (Berninger & Abbott, 2010).
Thus, a framework that specifies writing-specific cognitive processes and oper-
ations provides useful information that goes beyond what IQ tests provide and is
more relevant to planning instructional treatment to improve the written expres-
sion of ideas, which is not fully identical with understanding ideas in other’s spo-
ken or written language or expressing one’s own ideas orally. We hope that this
framework will be useful to those who work with or study special populations of
writers who may be deaf, have difficulty processing the speech they hear or pro-
ducing speech others can understand, or have specific disabilities in learning to
understand or construct spoken or written texts with words, syntax, and discourse
structures.
The framework, based on over three decades of research on typical writing, is
presented graphically in Figure 1.1. The framework has three levels. The bottom,
or resource, level represents general cognitive resources that writers may draw on
as they compose. The middle, or process, level represents the cognitive processes
that writers may use to create texts together with the task environment in which
these processes operate. The top, or control, level represents the factors that control
operations at the process level.
THE FRAMEWORK
Resource Level
We have included four resources at the resource level: attention, long-term mem-

ory, working memory, and reading. These are resources that are used by many
activities including writing. By attention we mean the ability to maintain focus on a
task in the face of distraction. This ability is also often referred to as “executive func-
tion” or “executive control” and is a resource that the top-level control processes
can draw upon. Focused attention (inhibit what is not relevant) is often measured
by the Stroop task (Stroop, 1935); the participant is asked to name the print color
of a sequence of color words printed in a different color than the color named by
the word. For example, the participant may see the word RED printed in green, the
word BLUE printed in yellow, and so on. Many find it difficult to say the print colors
(e.g., green, yellow) and resist reading the distracting color word (e.g., red, blue).
Performance on the Stroop task and related tasks of attention and executive func-
tion improves from early childhood into the 20s (Diamond, 2006). Development
[ 4 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

Planner
Task Control
Initiator Level
Writing Schemas
Evaluator
Writing
Processes
Proposer Translator Transcriber
Process
Level
Transcribing
Task
Collaborators Technology Text-Written-
Environment
& Critks So-Far
Task Materials
Attention Long-Term
Memory
Resource
Level
Working
Memory Reading
Figure 1.1.
A framework representing the organization of cognitive processes involved in writing. Note: The
model does not include a revision process. We view revision not as a writing process but rather as a
specialized writing task that makes use of the processes in the writing model—proposing, translat-
ing, planning, reading, and so forth—to replace an earlier text. We have included arrows to indicate
some relations between processes but, to avoid visual clutter, we have not indicated all potential
relations. For example, although there are important relations among evaluating, reading and the
text-written-so-far, these relations have not been marked with arrows. Similarly, relations between
the TWSF and translation, long-term memory and proposing, writing schemas and writing pro-
cesses, and many other relations are not marked.
of the writer’s attention is a resource that enables executive function control and
may have an important impact on the writer’s choice of writing strategy.
Long-term memory is a complex resource that stores the individual’s knowledge
of facts, events, motor planning, control, and execution skills, letter form access and
production skills, and language including vocabulary, spelling, grammar/syntax,
and discourse schema, all of which are sources of knowledge that are important for
competent writing. Chenoweth and Hayes (2001) showed that the fluency with
which a person writes in a language depends critically on how many years of experi-
ence the person has with the language. Underdeveloped spelling knowledge and
illegible or nonautomatic handwriting may also interfere with writing development
in the first six grades (e.g., Berninger, Yates, Cartwright, Rutberg, Remy, & Abbott,
1992; Berninger, Cartwright, Yates, Swanson, & Abbott, 1994) and even in older
writers (Hayes & Chenoweth, 2006). Writers with ample knowledge in long-term
memory about the topic they are writing about produce essays of higher quality
and more quickly and with less effort than the less informed writers (Caccamise,
1987; Dansac & Alamargot, 1999; Voss, Vesonder, & Spilich, 1980).
Working memory is a memory system designed to store the required informa-
tion while the cognitive operations are performed to carry out a task. For example,
Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [5]

if we were to multiply 2 three-digit numbers mentally, we would need to remember
several lists of numbers—the partial products—and, in addition, we would need
memory for carrying out the arithmetic processes—multiplication and addition.
Since Daneman and Carpenter (1980) developed the first measure of individual
differences in working memory, measures of different kinds of working memory
have been created (Ransdell & Levy, 1999). Research indicates that interfering with
working memory resources can reduce the fluency and quality of writing (Daiute,
1984; Fayol, Largy, & Lamaire, 1994; Chenoweth & Hayes, 2003; Hayes, 2009).
Reading, which is another written language skill, is also an important resource for
writers. Kaufer, Hayes, and Flower (1986) found that adult writers spent a substan-
tial portion of their composing time reading the text they had just written. Much of
this rereading focused on the sentence currently under construction. For example,
a writer who had written down the first part of a sentence often reread the sentence
parts already written before completing the sentence. Such rereading (reviewing to
monitor what has been written so far to decide whether to revise as well as what to
write next) may serve to promote construction of cohesive text. When writers are
composing from sources, they typically read and reread the source texts written by
others (Alamargot, Dansac, Chesnet, & Fayol, 2007). Similarly, editing and revis-
ing typically involves the repeated reading of the target text the writer has written
(Hayes, Flower, Schriver, Stratman, & Carey, 1987).
These resources may also interact with each other. For example, Hyönä, Lorch,
and Kaakinen (2002) found that writers with high working-memory capacity con-
struct more accurate summaries of source texts in a writing-from-sources task than
do writers with low working memory capacity.
Process Level
Protocol studies (Kaufer, et al., 1986; Chenoweth & Hayes, 2001) showed that
adults typically compose texts in language bursts averaging 6–12 words in length
depending on the skill of the writer. These bursts consist of language that the writer
proposes for inclusion in the text. In the protocols, the bursts were separated by
pauses that often included statements suggesting planning of the next fragment or
evaluation of the text just written. Chenoweth and Hayes (2001) proposed that in
adult writers language bursts are produced through the interaction of four cogni-
tive processes: a proposer, a translator, an evaluator, and transcriber. See Figure 1.1.
The function of the proposer is to suggest a package of ideas for inclusion in the
text and to pass that package on to the translator. The proposer can take input from
the planner, from the task environment, from long-term memory, and from the text
written so far. Ideas suggested by the proposer are in nonverbal form.
The translator takes ideas from the proposer and represents them as grammatical
strings of language; that is, it translates nonverbal ideas into a verbal form of expres-
sion (Chenoweth & Hayes, 2003). The translator may also take language strings

presented in visual or auditory form that were coded in verbal long-term memory
as language and transform them into new language strings (Hayes & Chenoweth,
2007). Research by Chenoweth and Hayes (2001, 2003) suggests that the fluency
with which the translator operates depends on the writer’s linguistic experience and
on the amount of verbal working memory that is available to the writer. A series of
studies by Hayes and his colleagues (summarized in Hayes, 2009) attributes the
fact that texts are composed in such a choppy fashion, that is, by putting together
a sequence of fragmentary language bursts, to the high demands that the transla-
tor makes on available working memory resources. For adults, at least, translation
appears to be the bottleneck limiting fluency.
The transcriber takes the grammatical strings produced by the translator and
turns them into written text. For beginning and developing writers in cross-sectional
studies (Berninger et al., 1992; Berninger et al., 1994) transcription (handwriting
and spelling), if not age appropriate, may pose special challenges for the translation
process. Of these, spelling had the most consistent longitudinal influences across
adjacent grade levels from first to seventh grade on written composing (Abbott,
Berninger, & Fayol, 2010). For those who initially struggle with transcription, stud-
ies have shown that, with appropriate instruction and practice, these tasks become
more automated and demand fewer cognitive resources (e.g., Berninger & Amtmann,
2003). However, Hayes and Chenoweth (2006) found that even in adults the pro-
cess of transcription still places demands on working-memory resources.
The evaluator can examine the outputs of any of the other processes and pass
judgment on their adequacy. For example, the evaluator may reject an idea that
has been proposed before it is translated into language; it may reject a translated
language string before it is transcribed, and it may demand the revision of already
transcribed language. Hayes (2011) suggests that the evaluation process may be
minimal or absent in some of the writing strategies that very young writers may
adopt. However, these same children may respond to specific requests to evaluate
texts even if they may not do so in their self-regulated, independent writing.
The Task Environment
The task environment includes the immediate social and physical factors that influ-
ence the writing processes. The social task environment includes concurrent inputs
from collaborators and critics (“let’s do this,” “why did you do that?”), a teacher’s
admonition to finish up quickly, or simply the background of conversation in a
classroom or workplace. Because we represent the social factors as the immediate
social environment (what people are doing right now in the writer’s presence) one
might argue that we have left out the very important influences that society and
culture have on the writer. We don’t think this is true. We believe that these influ-
ences are represented in the writer’s long-term memory and in the task environ-
ment. Socially determined factors such as the social and physical structure of the
Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [ 7 ]

classroom and the nature of the writing technology are all represented in the task
environment. Long-term memory contains the writer’s knowledge of genre and of
writing strategies. It contains the writer’s understanding of how audiences are likely
to respond to particular language. It contains the writer’s episodic knowledge: the
memory of the writer’s interaction with the social and physical world. If the influ-
ence of society and culture were not represented in long-term memory and the task
environment, it is not clear how they could affect the writer.
The physical task environment includes the task materials, the transcribing
technology, and the text written so far (TWSF). The task materials might include
a written assignment sheet or, in the case of a writing-from-sources task, graphics
and/or texts that the writer must refer to while completing the assignment. In a
second-language writing task, the task materials might include a dictionary.
The nature of the transcription technology can influence the conduct of the writing
task in substantial ways. Researchers have investigated whether children produce lon-
ger texts of better quality if they dictate text orally rather than writing them on paper.
For example, De La Paz and Graham (1995) found that, if primary school children
dictated rather than wrote their texts, text quality improved significantly. Connelly,
Gee, and Walsh (2007) compared fifth and sixth graders’ essays written by hand and
by keyboard. Students wrote significantly faster by hand than keyboard. Handwritten
essays were significantly superior to typed essays on six analytic scoring categories: (1)
ideas and development, (2) organization, (3) unity and coherence, (4) sentence struc-
ture, (5) grammar, and (6) punctuation. Similarly, Hayes and Berninger (2010) found
that children in second, fourth, and sixth grades proposed more ideas for inclusion in
an essay when they transcribed the ideas by hand rather than by keyboard. One would
expect that writing in the interactive social media, for example, Twitter and Facebook,
might share more features with conversation than with formal school writing. Other
research found that practice within a particular transcription mode (handwriting or
typing) improved writing in that mode. Handwriting practice improved children’s
writing of high quality texts by hand (Jones & Christensen, 1999). For eighth and
ninth graders with low typing skills, typing practice improved the quality of typed
texts, but not the length or quality of handwritten texts (Christensen, 2004).
Kaufer et al. (1986) found that as college and graduate students composed, they fre-
quently re-read to TWSF. Most of this re-reading (more than 80%) involved re-reading
the early parts of the sentence currently under construction. For example, while com-
posing an essay about a trip, a writer may write down that their “experiences on the
trip to Asia made . . .” and pause. Then, while attempting to complete this sentence, the
writer may re-read the written fragment one or more times. Usually this was followed
by an addition extending the initial fragment. For example, the writer might add “me
appreciate . . .” and pause again. In about one fourth of cases, re-reading was followed by
a revision. For example, the writer might replace “made” with “helped me to. . .” These
observations suggest that the re-reading of the TWSF serves a coordinating function.
Since, as we noted earlier, sentences are composed in parts, it is possible that writers
may lose track of text features such as tone, number, and tense as they move from

composing one part to the next. Re-reading the TWSF may well help the adult writer
to keep such features consistent across sentence parts and thus to maintain text coher-
ence. Hayes (2011) has suggested that attention to the TWSF may develop over the
school years and contribute to the increasing coherence of writer’s texts as they mature.
He also suggests that very young writers may ignore the content of the TWSF and
attend only to its quantity using the quantity to determine if they have written enough.
Control Level
The task initiator may be a teacher who assigns an essay in class, a boss who assigns
a writing task at work, or it may be the writer herself who decides to write a story
or a journal entry. Usually, the task initiator will influence the planner by specifying
the topic, the audience, or other features of the text to be written.
The planner is responsible for setting goals for the writing activity. These goals
may be quite simple in young writers. For example, the primary school students
may start with the single goal of writing about a particular topic. More advanced
writers may plan a sequence of topics and subtopics together with the sequence in
which these topics should be addressed. Still more advanced writers may set goals
for tone and the intended impact on the audience.
Writing schemas represent the writer’s beliefs about the properties that the text
to be produced should have (genre knowledge) and also beliefs about how to go
about producing that text (strategic knowledge). Writing schemas vary from writer
to writer and change within writers as the writers develop. The strategies specified
by the writing schemas determine the selection of writing processes, how the writ-
ing processes operate and how the writing processes interact with each other and
with the task environment.
A recent study illustrates the relation between writing schema, the writing pro-
cesses, and text structure. Hayes (2011) analyzed the structure of a sample of first to
ninth grade children’s expository texts (from Fuller, 1995) and concluded that most
could be produced by one of three strategies. The simplest strategy, that Hayes called
flexible-focus, might be thought of as stream-of-consciousness writing. This strategy
does not require the proposer to maintain focus on a general topic. Figure 1.2 shows
an essay that this strategy would typically produce. With this strategy, there is no
evaluation of the quality of the output of the proposer, translator, or transcriber. The
only evaluation involves examining the TWSF to see if enough has been written.
A second strategy, the fixed-topic strategy, is the most common strategy in grades
one to five. With this strategy, every statement proposed must reference a single
topic. Figure 1.3 shows an essay that this strategy would typically produce. Further,
unlike the flexible-focus strategy, the evaluation process does evaluate the quality of
the output of the other three processes.
A third strategy, the topic-elaboration strategy, is the most common strategy
in grades six through nine. With this strategy, the proposer maintains focus on a

I Like coloring because it’s not boring Coloring
I like coloring cats Coloring
I have a black cat at home My Cat
His name is Inky My Cat’s Name
Figure 1.2.
An example of a flexible-focus essay (from Fuller, 1985).
Ashley
I like Ashley cus she is nice (1)
I like Ashley cus she plays with me (2)
Ashley is my friend (3)
1 2 3 4 5
I like people and Ashley is one (4)
She is nice (5)
Figure 1.3.
An example of a fixed–topic essay (from Fuller, 1985).
Dinosaurs Dinosaurs
I like dinosaurs because they are big. (1) And
they are scary. (2) I like Rex. (3) He was very
big. (4) He ate meat. (5) Triceratops is a very
nice dinosaur. (6) He ate plants. (7) He had 1 2 3 6 10
three horns on his face. (8) He had a shield on
his neck. (9) Stegosaurus was a plant eater
too. (10) He had (unfinished) (11)
4 5 7 8 9 11
Figure 1.4.
An example of a topic-elaboration essay (from Fuller, 1985).
general topic but may introduce subtopics related to the main topic. Figure 1.4
shows an essay that this strategy would typically produce. These three strategies
produce texts with distinctive structures. The writing schema, then, selects and
organizes writing processes used to produce text and thus impacts the properties
of the text that is written.
Wallace and Hayes (1989) used the writing schema concept to analyze revision
in freshman college students. They noted that when freshmen revise, they tend to
revise locally. They read sentence 1, perhaps several times, and then revised it. Then
they read sentence 2 and revised it, and so on, sentence by sentence, through the
text. In contrast, more experienced writers typically revised globally. To prepare
themselves to revise a text, they evaluated the whole text and commented on global
features of the text such as its organization or the adequacy of the introduction or
the conclusion. Wallace and Hayes (1989) speculated that the reason for the differ-
ence between freshmen and more experienced writers might be a difference in their
schema for revision and that perhaps the freshman schema could be modified by
instruction. To test this hypothesis, they designed eight minutes of instruction that
[ 1 0 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

contrasted a local revision schema with a global revision schema. They found that
the instruction resulted in a significant increase in global revision.
The fact that Wallace and Hayes (1989) found that revising a schema could
be modified by instruction doesn’t imply that all writing schema can be modified
in the same way. The flexible-focus schema may be the only schema that a young
writer can manage given her limited attentional resources. Hayes (in press) sug-
gests that changes in writing schema in the primary grades may await developmen-
tal enhancement of executive function.
INTEGRATING LEVELS OF THE FRAMEWORK
Now that we have discussed the parts of the framework separately, we will try to
tie them together with an example of a fourth grade student writing an essay in
class. Suppose that a teacher, acting as task initiator, asks a student, Susan, to write
about something she likes. This request leads Susan to set a goal. She decides to
write on a topic: her classmate Alice. Now she must adopt a writing schema. Since
she is in 4th grade, let’s assume that she chooses the fixed-topic strategy described
earlier. With this strategy, Alice will be the topic of all of her sentences. To start
composing, Susan retrieves knowledge about Alice from long-term memory. She
proposes the idea “Alice is my friend,” translates it into language, and evaluates it
as appropriate for the essay. Finally, she transcribes the idea, but because Susan in
the fourth grade, spelling and handwriting are still difficult for her. These activi-
ties place heavy demands on her working memory resources so that, at this point,
she has few working-memory resources left to devote to other writing processes.
Having written one sentence, she starts the cycle again, proposing and writing
“She plays with me,” “She is fun to play with,” and so on. While she is writing, the
task environment may help or hurt. Looking around the classroom may remind
her of things to write about Alice. On the other hand, the voices of her classmates
may reduce her available working memory (Salame & Baddeley, 1982). After sev-
eral cycles, Susan examines the text she has written so far and decides that she has
written enough for an essay and decides to stop. In this imagined writing incident,
Susan didn’t draw on reading as a resource as may be typical of fourth grade writ-
ers in this kind of writing task. However, as we have noted, adult writers would
typically read and re-read the TWSF as they translate ideas into text and as they
evaluate what they have written.
APPLYING THE COGNITIVE FRAMEWORK TO CLINICAL

POPULATIONS
In exploring the applications of this framework to writing practice and research,

it will be important to study samples for whom the sensory, motor, and language

bases of their diagnosed disorders are well defined, with careful documenta-
tion of whether an individual has speech only, language only, or speech and lan-
guage impairments and whether some degree of hearing acuity problems may be
present.
Deaf
Factors to consider in evaluating the resources (lower level Figure 1.1) a writer

who is deaf has to bring to the writing process is age of identification, which is
related to when intervention may have begun (e.g., as an infant versus toddler)
and the nature of the intervention (e.g., sign language, oral method, cochlear
implantation or total communication). These factors are related to whether lan-
guage develops in age-appropriate ways despite an auditory sensory impairment
and thus provides resources in the form of vocabulary and syntax knowledge. For
example, cued speech (see Bouton & Colé, this volume) may prepare writers who
are deaf for the phonology involved in written spelling. Onset of deafness and age
of identification can also affect the development of the child’s working-memory
system, which plays an important role in shaping the writing process of children
with hearing impairment, at the word and sentence level (see Arfé, Nicolini, &
Pozzebon, this volume).
Speech Problems
Factors to consider, which may affect both resources and cognitive processes (lower
and middle level of Figure 1.1), are whether the individual has speech-sound dis-
order and thus difficulty in processing the sounds of heard speech or speech articu-
lation disorder (produced speech is not intelligible to others). Either could affect
development of spelling skills (transcription) that supports translation of ideas into
language and also learning word meanings through interacting with others in the
language-learning environment (see Puranik, Al Otaiba, & Ye, this volume).
Selective Language Impairment (Language-Learning Disability)
The nature of the language impairment will probably affect the nature of writing
problems encountered. Word finding problems may result in impaired composing
fluency (shorter language bursts and written texts). Syntax problems may result
in shorter sentences and sentences with grammar errors and thus the quality of
writing may suffer. At the resource level, the language learned and used in writing
will affect the complexity of syntax and the nature and rate of grammar errors (see
Reilly et al., this volume).

Inferential thinking problems (understanding what is implied but not stated in
language) may interfere with the proposing of ideas that may result in shorter and
less-well-developed texts.
Future Developments
It is a step forward, however, to acknowledge, as this volume does, that individuals

with aural sensory and oral motor and aural and oral language problems will also
have special assessment and instructional needs in learning to write. This chapter
makes the point that cognitive processes (and related resources and controls) are
as relevant to treatment planning as the sensory, motor, and language bases for the
disabilities these individuals have.
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CHAPTER 2
Linguistic Perspectives on
Writing Development
RU TH A . BER M AN
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Written language is examined here as a style of discourse necessary for achieve-

ment of “linguistic literacy” (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002). By focusing on linguistic
expression, discussion disregards other important aspects of writing development,
including the following:
• Notational features such as spelling or punctuation, which have critical linguis-

tic correlates (Ravid, 2011).
• Thematic content, although form and meaning can never be fully separated, as
shown by the close interrelation between linguistic expression and ideational
content in comparing narrative with non-narrative discourse (Berman &
Katzenberger, 2004; Longacre, 1996; Ravid & Cahana-Amitay, 2005).
• Global discourse structure and organization, which develops in writing
narratives well before expository essays (Berman & Nir, 2007, 2009a), and
which also involves paragraphing (Longacre, 1979; Myhill, 2009; Nir, 2008).
Analysis focuses on linguistic units involved in text analysis, with a cross-linguistic

and developmental perspective, spanning the period from elementary to high school
as reflecting “later language development” (Berman, 2004, 2007; Tolchinsky, 2004).
The chapter outlines carefully specified, quantifiable methods for evaluating written
language expression, deriving from research on texts constructed by typically develop-
ing students from middle childhood to adulthood (Berman & Ravid, 2009). Analyses
referred to later are based on a large-scale cross-linguistic project investigating the text
construction abilities of typically developing participants at four age-schooling levels
(grade schoolers aged 9–10 years, middle-school students aged 12–13, high-schoolers
aged 16–17, and graduate school adults in their 20s and 30s). All participants were
native speakers of seven different languages including Californian English and Israeli
Hebrew (Berman, 2005; 2008).1 Participants were shown a short wordless video clip
depicting unresolved situations of conflict and then asked to write and tell a story
about an incident where they had been involved in a situation of “problems between
people” (a personal-experience narrative) and to write a composition and give a talk on
the topic “problems between people” (an expository discussion)—with the four text
types balanced for order.
Each of the 80 participants (20 per age group) at seven different sites thus pro-
duced four different texts on the shared theme of interpersonal conflict—a written
and spoken narrative and a written and spoken expository text. Carefully corre-
sponding elicitation procedures (detailed in Berman & Verhoeven, 2002) allowed
for direct comparability across the variables of age-schooling level, genre (narra-
tive/expository), and modality (speech/writing). The measures outlined below
rely largely on computerized tools for language analysis in the CHILDES pro-
grams—with conventions of transcription, text-line specifications, and counting
of units provided by detailed, constantly updated manuals (MacWhinney, 2000;
http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/manuals/clan.pdf—October 2010). Devised origi-
nally for early child language and interactive discourse, the system can accom-
modate speaker-writers from infancy to adulthood in varied communicative
contexts. CHILDES encompasses oral and written data from numerous languages,
including non-Roman orthographies, and deals with variables from pronuncia-
tion via lexicon and grammar to paralinguistic and pragmatic facets of language
communication.
The chapter delineates four hierarchically ordered units of analysis—word,
phrase, clause, clause package (Section 1)—analyzes their diagnostic value in lexi-
con and syntax across the variables of age, text-type, and/or modality (Section 2);
and notes the role of genre, topic, and language typology for assessment of writing
(Section 3).
UNITS OF ANALYSIS (SECTION 1)
Linguistic elements relevant to analyzing written language need to be defined

explicitly for specific research purposes and for each language. Four such units
are delineated next, each comprising a constituent level of the next: word, phrase,
clause, and clause package.
L i n g u i s t i c P e r s p e ct i v e s o n W r i t i n g D e v e l o p m e n t [ 1 7 ]
Words
Words are recognized as the fundamental building blocks of human language, hence,
too, in analysis of written texts. A “word” in written language is generally defined
operationally as any string of characters separated from the next by a space. Yet defin-
ing a written word is not so simple. First, even fourth graders may have difficulty in
segmenting lexical items into words as stipulated by dictionary conventions in their
language. Second, languages differ in what counts as “a word” in writing: Compare
contractions in English (I’m ~I am, there’s ~ there is, there has), elisions in French
(j’ai ~ je suis, l’épaule ~ la těte), or the fact that in Hebrew, seven high-frequency
morphemes are attached as prefixes to the next word in writing—the conjunctions
and, that, the definite article the, and the prepositions meaning in, to, from, like.
Conventions also differ for writing compounds: In English—single, hyphenated, or
two separate words (appleblossom, apple-pie, apple tree); in Hebrew—generally two
separate words; and in Dutch, German, or Swedish—typically single orthographic
strings, no matter how long or freely analyzable (Berman, 2009a). Third, semanti-
cally corresponding lexical items may have different forms: For example, English
“phrasal verbs” (e.g., go up, go in, go away) have monolexemic Latinate counter-
parts (ascend, enter, depart, etc.), and using the phrasal verbs increases the number
of words in English texts compared with, say, French or Italian. Frozen multiword
expressions (Wulff, 2008) are another problem in counting “words,” for example, in
English off and on, on the one hand, in French il y a, parce que, and in Hebrew be-sofo
šel davar (in-end-its of thing = eventually), lo kol še-ken (not all that-yes = let alone).
To counter these problems, the cross-linguistic project noted in the introduc-
tion adopted a baseline of shared principles plus language-particular procedures
for specifying words. Inflectional and derivational morphemes counted as part of
a single word across languages. CHILDES conventions marked certain strings as
either one or more than one lexical element (e.g., compound nouns in English and
Hebrew, idiomatic two-word verbs in English, and the seven prefixed Hebrew mor-
phemes); treated them distinctly for language-internal analyses and cross-linguistic
comparisons; and listed multilexemic expressions separately for each language
(Berman, 2002).
Phrases
Sentences are not simply linear successions of words, but are made up of internal
constituents. Words cluster syntactically in phrases and clauses, in turn combining
into larger packages. In phrases, words group together as syntactic, clause-internal
units,2 with a lexical element as head—pronoun or noun in noun phrases (NP), verb
in verb phrases (VP), adjective in adjective phrases (AP), and preposition in prepo-
sitional phrases (PP). The head may be modified in NPs, by determiners, adjectives,
prepositional phrases, or relative clauses (compare creatures with the many strange

green-eyed creatures with striped suits that appear in the movie); in VPs, by auxiliaries,
particles, and adverbials (e.g., take with may be taken away suddenly); the adjective
in APs by adverbs (e.g., beautiful with the really most amazingly beautiful). Languages
differ markedly in the ordering of phrasal heads and modifiers. For example, in
English, modifiers precede the head noun if analyzed as a single word: compare
green-eyed creatures with creatures with green eyes; in Hebrew, all modifiers except for
numerals and other quantifiers follow the head noun; in French, adjectives some-
times precede and sometimes follow the head noun.
Clauses
The clause is a semantic and syntactic unit of linguistic structure, defined by Berman
and Slobin (1994, p. 660) as a “single predication expressing a unified situation (an
activity, event, or state),” with detailed conventions for dividing texts in different
languages into clauses provided in an appendix (1994, pp. 660–662). A clause is
most typically, but not always, identifiable as containing a single verb (e.g., They
walked home); but where verbs are modified by auxiliaries or by modal or aspectual
verbs (e.g., The little boy might have been taken home; Her neighbor went on talk-
ing nonstop) these are taken to represent unified situations, and hence are defined
as single clauses. Moreover, not all clauses may contain an overt verb: In Hebrew,
Russian, and Turkish for example, copular clauses in present tense need not contain
an overt verb form (compare: they are students with its Hebrew equivalent hem stu-
déntim literally “they students”). Importantly, a clause may but need not be a “com-
plete sentence,” since complex sentences typically consist of more than a single
clause. See, for example, the following sentence, with clause-endings indicated by a
square bracket: When I was in the seventh grade,] I had a conflict with a boy] who was
in a few of my classes].
The clause has proved a reliable unit of written and spoken discourse in differ-
ent languages and types of extended discourse—picture-book and personal-expe-
rience narratives, and argumentative and informative texts (Berman & Verhoeven,
2002). In practice, college students easily learn to demarcate texts into clauses, with
high inter-coder agreement. In principle, the clause is preferable as a basic unit of
written text-based linguistic analysis to the following alternatives: (a) utterances—
stretches of speech output defined by intonation, best suited to spoken, interactive
discourse; (b) propositions–vague semantic and/or discursive entities without clear
structural boundaries; and (c) sentences—abstract, theory-dependent linguistic
constructs that are notoriously difficult to define (Chafe, 1994; Halliday, 1989).
Even educated adults do not share the same idea of what constitutes a “sentence”,
and stylistic conventions differ on whether connectives like English so, yet, however
may or must start a new sentence. Importantly, for present purposes, the clause is
a necessary unit of analysis for evaluating syntactic complexity beyond the level of
the phrase.
Clause Packages
An elusive, yet challenging facet of written text analysis lies in the domain of
“clause-combining” (Haiman & Thompson, 1988), or “syntactic packaging”
(Berman & Slobin, 1994, pp. 538–554)—groups of clauses clustered together into
larger units for segmenting texts and analyzing discursive “connectivity” (Berman,
1998; Scott, 2004). Clause packages (CPs) are text-embedded units of two or more
clauses linked by syntactic, lexical, and/or thematic relations, which provide a lin-
guistically motivated level of textual analysis lying between individual clauses and
global discourse organization (Berman & Nir, 2009b; Nir, 2008; Nir & Berman,
2010). Interclausal relations within CPs are usually overtly marked by conjunc-
tions, or else inferred from the thematic progression of a text, as illustrated in the
Appendix.
The CP was preferred for assessing clause-combining to accepted notions such
as a “T(erminable) Unit” (Hunt, 1965), on discursive and developmental grounds
(Berman & Katzenberger, 2004, pp. 64–68).3 CPs consider how clause linkage
functions in the text as a whole; they take account of topic shifts or maintenance;
and differentiate items like and, so, but used as pragmatically motivated “utterance-
introducers” (Berman, 1996) or “segment-tagging” discourse markers (Ravid &
Berman, 2006) as against grammatical interclausal connectives.
DIAGNOSTICS OF DEVELOPING WRITTEN TEXT CONSTRUCTION

(SECTION 2)
Application of these units of analysis proved diagnostic of school-age writing abili-

ties in use of words and syntax, and as reflecting communicative appropriateness.
Word-Based Measures
Overall text length assessed by number of words has been shown to differentiate
between: age-schooling levels in different languages (Berman & Slobin, 1994;
Berman & Verhoeven, 2002; Malvern, Richards, Chipere, & Durán, 2004), written
versus spoken texts (Berman & Nir, 2009b; Berman & Ravid, 2009), and normally
developing students versus students with language-impairment (Davidi & Berman,
this volume).
Qualitative word-based measures reflect the importance of vocabulary for
school-age literacy development in different populations (Dockrell & Messer,
2004; Perfetti, 2007; Ravid, 2004a). The cross-linguistic project revealed con-
sistent patterns across the variables of age-schooling level (fourth graders in
middle childhood, pre-adolescent seventh graders, adolescent eleventh grad-
ers, and university-educated adults), modality (speech/writing), and genre

(personal-experience narrative/expository discussion) for five text-based criteria
of lexical usage—word length, lexical diversity, density, abstractness, and register.
In word length, written texts contained longer words than oral texts, and exposi-
tory essays contained longer words than personal-experience narratives. Older stu-
dents used significantly more polysyllabic words than younger, with words of three
syllables or more mainly from high school up. These findings applied to structurally
distinct languages like English, Hebrew, and Swedish, both when counted in syl-
lables (Berman & Ravid, 2009; Nir-Sagiv, Bar-Ilan, & Berman, 2008) and in letters
(Strömqvist, Johansson, Kriz, Ragnarsdóttir, & Ravid, 2002).
Lexical diversity—the proportion of different words out of total words in a
text– measures lack of lexical repetitiveness in writing. The VOCD (Vocabulary
Diversity) procedure in CHILDES (Malvern et al, 2004) yielded higher scores for
written than spoken texts, in interaction with age-schooling level (Strömqvist et al,
2002).4
Lexical density—the proportion of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) in
a text—is indicative of textual richness, because open-class items convey the bulk
of semantic content and substantive information. Written texts are lexically denser
than oral texts produced by the same student (Berman & Nir, 2010; Nir et al.,
2008), with content words increasing significantly as a function of age-schooling
level. Proportion of Adjectives out of total content words is also diagnostic of more
richly descriptive language across the variables of modality and age-schooling
level (Ravid & Levie, 2010), as is use of manner adverbs like Hebrew bi-mhirut
(with speed = rapidly), be-simxa (with-joy = joyfully) (Nir & Berman, 2010).
However, this requires contextual analysis, because forms like –ly often have a
discourse-marker function of intensifying (e.g., absolutely, really, extremely) or
hedging (e.g., basically, partly, probably), suited to colloquial oral style rather than
to formal written language (Ravid & Berman, 2006). Lexical diversity and density,
as text-based criteria of variety and referential richness, increase significantly from
middle to high school, with higher scores in expository rather than narrative and in
written rather than oral texts.
Similar patterns emerged for two other context-sensitive lexical measures applied
to the English- and Hebrew-language samples of the cross-linguistic project—
Nominal abstractness and Linguistic register. Nominal abstractness is a qualitative, but
quantifiable criterion that reflects the thematic content of a text. This semantic mea-
sure is based on a 10-point scale devised for Hebrew (Ravid, 2006) and collapsed
to 4 levels for English (Nir-Sagiv et al., 2008). At the “low” end are count nouns
encoding concretely imageable referents (including specific entities like John, a ball,
flowers and categorial roles and generic terms like every teacher, my house, people)
compared to abstract, high-register, or low frequency terms (e.g., rival, cult), often
also morphologically complex (like relationship, existence), or metaphorical exten-
sions of concrete terms (path to success, river of time). In both languages, high-school
students used far more abstract, morphologically complex nouns than younger,
more in their written essays than their narratives. Similar scales could be devised
for different languages, based on contextual evaluation of how words are used in a
given text. (Compare English way in: the way home, the Milky Way, the way up, right
of way, came his way.)
Linguistic register characterizes level of lexical usage, from low-level slang and sub-
standard usages inappropriate in formal, school-based written contexts via every-
day colloquial usage of speakers of a standard variety to high-level, elevated styles
(Conrad & Biber, 2001; Eggins & Martin, 1997). This largely sociologically deter-
mined aspect of language use requires distinct criteria of “low” versus “high” regis-
ter for each language. For example, the Germanic-Latinate contrast between largely
monosyllabic and bisyllabic, everyday words of native origin like tell, childish com-
pared with rarer, more elevated terms like relate, infantile, respectively, distinguishes
the language used by English-speaking adolescents from different backgrounds
(Corson, 1984, 1995). When applied to all open-class vocabulary items in our
English-language sample by procedures detailed in Bar-Ilan and Berman (2007),
this measure yielded consistently significant differences: Written expository texts
relied most on formal Latinate items, as did high school students and adults com-
pared with younger students. Proportion of words from Latinate compared with
native Germanic origin is less relevant in a language like Swedish, whereas standard
French applies other criteria for distinguishing everyday colloquial vocabulary from
the academic, written-language lexicon ( Jisa, 2004a). The English-language sample
also showed the five lexical measures to converge, and they were statistically cor-
related (Nir-Sagiv et al., 2008): Words of Latinate origin are generally polysyllabic,
they represent a more elevated register of usage, and are often semantically abstract.
Another, highly distinctive means of evaluating level of written language is
word frequency as a key factor in language knowledge and use (Bybee, 2006; Bybee
& Hopper, 2001), but this is only relevant in languages that have access to large,
well-established lists of lexical frequencies across both written and spoken corpora
(e.g., Leech, Rayson & Wilson, 2001), of a kind unavailable for Hebrew. Besides,
each measure targets different facets of lexical knowledge—word-structure, seman-
tic content, and style of usage. As such, each warrants attention for educational
assessment, most particularly for diagnostic purposes in special populations, and
for defining individual and/or cross-population profiles, because less proficient or
language-impaired students may encounter difficulties in some rather than other
lexical domains.
Across languages, lexical usage was most colloquial and least dense and diverse
in oral narratives at one extreme and expository essays at the other, most mark-
edly from high-school age students (Berman & Ravid, 2009; Ravid & Berman,
2009). These differences demonstrate sensitivity to vocabulary appropriateness,
with written language representing a special discourse style that consolidates in
late adolescence among normally developing students, as a watershed in mastery
of language-based literacy skills. It involves mastery of a “school-based” lexicon
(Ravid & Berman, 2009) that cuts across knowledge domains (e.g., nouns like
extent, problem, function; verbs like require, refer, include; or prepositional phrases

like for example, in contrast, on the other hand) and the ability to deploy a “literate
lexicon” (Ravid, 2004a) relevant to the genre and subject-matter of a given piece of
writing, which, in turn, depends on writers’ knowledge-base and familiarity with a
given topic. Besides, high-flown, elevated vocabulary is not necessarily the hallmark
of “good writing” or superior text quality (Berman & Nir, 2009b), which may be
realized by clear, straightforward “plain English” no less than by elaborate formula-
tions or fancy rhetoric.
Syntactic Measures
Syntactic measures support and supplement trends in lexical usage (Berman, 2005,
2008). Texts need first to be divided into relevant units, with phrases tagged as NP,
VP, AP, or PP, subdivided into heads and modifiers, and clauses tagged for syntac-
tic function in a given clause-combining segment (here, Clause Packages [CPs]).
Clause-types include the following: Main Clause (MC) ( Juxtaposed, MCJ, if more
than one in the same CP), Coordinate Clause (CO)—specified for same or dif-
ferent subjects and/or ellipsis—Complement (CM), Relative (RC), and different
types of Adverbial Clauses (AV): for example, REAson, RESult, CIRcumstantial,
ConDitioNal, and [NF] if nonfinite. These categories of syntactic analysis are illus-
trated in the Appendix by a high-school boy’s written narrative divided into clauses
and clause-packages (CPs), with dependently “nested” clauses marked in curly
brackets, lexical NPs in italics, and PPs underlined.
Mean Clause Length (MCL) measured by words per clause indicates syntactic
density, how much information is packed into the boundaries of a single unit of
predication. MCL distinguished significantly across development, modality, and
genre: For example, the 80 narratives written in English increased from a mean of
5.2 in the fourth-grade group, to 5.8 in seventh grade, 6.4 in eleventh grade, and
6.5 in the adults. The parallel Hebrew sample also showed a significant age-related
increase, despite a lower overall MCL due to the synthetic morphology of Hebrew,
condensing within words information often expressed between words in English
(Berman & Ravid, 2009).
Phrase-based measures include the following: number of words per phrase, num-
ber of phrases per clause, and of different types of phrases per clause. Qualitative
features of phrasal semantics need to be specified by their use in context, for exam-
ple, in analyzing noun abstractness (Nir-Sagiv et al., 2008; Ravid, 2006) or prepo-
sitional usage (Berman, 2009b; Nir & Berman, 2010).
NP complexity was assessed by five criteria: (1) length in words, (2) seman-
tic complexity of head noun, (3) quality and number of modifiers, (4) syntactic
depth (measured by number of nouns inside a given NP through occurrence of
compound nouns, prepositional phrases, and/or relative clauses), and (5) syntac-
tic variability as analyzed for English and Hebrew (Ravid & Berman, 2010), French
(Mazur-Palandre, 2009), and Spanish (Salas, 2010). These criteria distinguished
significantly by age, modality (more complex NPs in written than spoken texts),
and genre (more complex NPs in expository than in narrative texts)—with essays
on an abstract topic a favored site for use of syntactically complex, semantically
abstract NP constructions. Developmentally, long and complex NPs are rare before
high school. NP complexity thus demonstrates the combined impact of cognitive
processing constraints and later school-age literacy development coupled with tar-
get language typology.
Verb Phrase structure also differs by language. For example, “verb-satellite”
languages like English and German rely heavily on phrasal verbs, compared with
“verb-framed” languages like Romance and Hebrew (Slobin, 1996, 2004a); lan-
guages like Spanish or English have rich auxiliary verb systems compared with
Hebrew. Long and structurally elaborate verb phrases emerged as a hallmark of
syntactic complexity (e.g., from English high-school essays: causative make happy,
progressive be sitting, future is about to arrive, passive was being taken, may be worked
out). As with NPs, lexicon and syntax interact, with main verbs increasingly more
abstract and high-register as a function of age (from adolescence up), modality
(written versus spoken texts), and genre (expository versus narrative texts). These
findings were consistent across languages, despite use of impersonal construc-
tions in Spanish (Tolchinsky & Rosado, 2005) versus an age-related increase in
passive voice in French ( Jisa, 2004a, b). In English, more advanced VP construc-
tions include the following: nonfinite verbs in subordinate clauses as a tightly cohe-
sive means of clause-combining (to upset him; saying, not exaggerating); reliance
on passive voice (Reilly, Zamora, & McGivern, 2005); and modals with passive
verbs—must be addressed, needs to be handled (Reilly, Jisa, & Berman, 2002). Across
languages, VP length and complexity was diagnostic of more advanced written
expression (Kupersmitt, 2006; Ragnarsdóttir, Aparici, Cahana-Amitay, van Hell, &
Viguié, 2002).
Prepositional Phrases, as descriptive means for elaborating on VPs (Chafe &
Danielewicz, 1987) were identified by Loban (1976) as indicative of students’
writing abilities. PPs also constitute an important site for NP insertion—as in the
underlined elements in “The train arrived at the station in record time without fur-
ther mishap.” Prepositions embody an important interface between lexicon and
syntax. For example, children’s oral narratives showed marked age-related changes
in variety and semantic content of prepositions and the complexity of their associ-
ated NPs (Berman, 2009a; Berman & Slobin, 1994, pp. 159–162). Distributional
measures of PPs should thus be extended by qualitative, contextually based evalua-
tions of their semantic content and discursive functions.
Clauses per clause package provide a syntactic-discursive diagnostic in the
domain of textual connectivity, with 3.8 clauses per CP in the text in Appendix.
Developmentally, the narratives written in English combined on average 2.7
clauses per CP, rising to 3.5 in 11th grade, compared with only 2.3 to 2.9 in
Hebrew grade-school versus high-school texts and a mean of 3.1 to 4.9 in the more
densely packaged Spanish narratives (Berman & Nir, 2009b). Interclausal syntactic

connectivity measured by number of clauses combined in units of discursive syn-
tax distinguished significantly between age schooling levels across our sample,
confirming findings for increased syntactic packaging in younger children’s oral
narratives (Berman & Slobin, 1994).
The text in the Appendix demonstrates another important feature concern-
ing quality of interclausal relations: It combines clauses not only linearly, one after
another, but by complex dependencies, for example, embedding a conditional
clause inside a nonfinite complement clause or a reason clause inside a finite com-
plement clause, or a coordinate clause inside a modal auxiliary, or in a relative clause
inside the subject NP of the verb worked. Such interwoven dependencies are rare
in texts written by students before high school, and they distinguish between nor-
mally developing and language/learning impaired students aged between 10 and
12 years (Scott, 2004; and see, too, Davidi & Berman, this volume). They dem-
onstrate the ability to integrate different facets and phases of a situation within a
single unit of discourse, which is proof of linguistic command of complex syntax
combined with advanced cognitive processing abilities in the course of “thinking
for writing” (Slobin, 1996; 2004b).
COMMUNICATIVE APPROPRIATENESS (SECTION 3)
The idea of discourse stance, as a pragmatic frame for organizing texts, reflecting
how speaker-writers use language to position themselves with respect to a piece
of discourse in given circumstances (Berman, Ragnarsdóttir, & Strömqvist,
2002), proved highly diagnostic of age-schooling level, text-type, and target lan-
guage. For example, different devices served to express a distanced, impersonal
stance in expository essays written in English (Reilly, Zamora, & McGovern,
2005) or French ( Jisa & Vigué, 2005) compared with Hebrew (Berman,
2011) and Spanish (Tolchinsky & Rosado, 2005); in contrast, in both Icelandic
and Swedish, participants used generic pronouns (Icelandic maδur and Swedish
man analogous to German man or French on), but differed in their use of passive
voice for expressing an impersonal, nonagent oriented perspective on events
(Ragnarsdóttir & Strömqvist, 2005).
Children are sensitive to genre distinctiveness early on: Clusters of linguis-
tic features distinguished personal-experience narratives from more formal,
academic-style expository essays, where even fourth graders made greater use of
elevated forms of expression like heavy NPs, abstract nominals, and modal predi-
cates (Berman & Nir-Sagiv, 2004; Ravid, 2004b; Reilly et al, 2002). Yet we also
found a paradoxical contrast between local-level linguistic expression and global
discourse structure: Normally developing students show command of narrative
discourse by middle childhood, both in writing and orally, but it takes until high
school for them to write coherently well-organized non-narrative texts (Berman &
Nir, 2007).
CONCLUSIONS
The group measures discussed in this chapter for evaluation of writing abilities—by
careful delimitation of units of analysis (Section 1) and application of various dif-
ferent diagnostics at each level of analysis (Section 2)—should, ideally, also serve
to generate both group and individual profiles in relation to environmental variables
such as SES background (Berman, Nayditz, & Ravid, 2011) and student-sensitive
variables such as language/learning impairments (Davidi & Berman, this volume).
Distributional counts (e.g., proportion of content words, number of PPs per text),
derivable from automatic computerized programs, provide valuable information
along all such variables, but typically require manual disambiguation. We found
this to be the case in as high as 40% of the items in our sample, for different reasons,
such as whether up is a preposition, a particle, or a verb in English, or polysemous
words like bank, love. Besides, quantitative breakdowns of forms need to be aug-
mented by contextually motivated qualitative accounts of their structural complexity,
semantic content, and discursive functions (Berman, 2009b; Slobin, 2001).
The impact of target language typology, and the effects of translation on “thinking
for writing” (Slobin, 2004b), suggest caution in transposing language-proficiency
measures from one language to another. Some measures (e.g., lexical diversity and
density, syntactic density) may apply similarly to different languages, whereas oth-
ers involve language-specific diagnostics. Examples of cross-group differences in
Hebrew include the following: diversity of binyan verb patterns to express verb-
argument relations (Berman, Nayditz, & Ravid, 2011); use of derived adjectives
(Berman, 2004; Ravid, 2004a); and use of compound constructions (Berman,
2009b). Different features distinguish academic, school-based writing in French,
including: past-tense forms, subject pronouns, question-formation, and use of pas-
sive rather than on for expressing an impersonal stance ( Jisa, 2004a, b). Socially
determined features like linguistic register and discourse stance also differ by lan-
guage, whereas stylistic preferences affect the expressive choices of speaker-writers in
different languages—for example, in temporality and clause-packaging in English,
Hebrew, and Spanish (Kupersmitt, 2006; Berman & Nir, 2009b), use of compounds
in English and Hebrew (Berman, 2009b), and narrative settings in reconstructing
fables in Hebrew and Spanish (Sandbank, 2004).
Analyses of linguistic means deployed for expressing discourse stance –from
personally involved interactive conversations to extended texts and formal essays—
highlight the importance of assessing writing not only across languages, but also
across genres. The particular type and topic of discourse affects writing performance
at all levels of text construction (again, in interaction with age-literacy level and
individual abilities): Personal-experience accounts are generally accessible and rely
on colloquial everyday language more than fictive narratives, which require imagi-
native skills and richer expressive devices. Informative texts require extensive world
knowledge and the ability to distinguish generalizations from particulars, hypoth-
eses from facts, whereas writing about a familiar topic like friendship or pets is less

cognitively challenging than an abstract topic like interpersonal conflict (Berman
& Nir, 2010).
A methodological implication of this study is the importance of applying
carefully comparable procedures for working with different populations as in our
cross-linguistic project with typically developing native speakers of seven languages,
at the same four age-schooling levels, from similar SES backgrounds. Eliciting from
each participant four different texts on a shared topic enabled direct comparisons
across text types, for statistical analyses as well as for functional analyses of linguis-
tic devices in domains like connectivity, reference, or discourse stance. These pro-
cedures can readily be extended to educational and clinical contexts for purposes of
individual profiling, remedial instruction, and intervention.
Finally, as pointed out by Rimmer, although “it is an achievement in literacy to
be able to construct more complex grammar in order to express deeper and finer
meanings”. . . “the effectiveness of a text cannot be judged solely by the words and
structures used” (2008, p. 34). On the one hand, detailed stipulation of linguis-
tic forms (morphemes, words, multilexemic expressions, syntactic structures,
word-order alternations) circumvents problems in evaluating written language pro-
ficiency in terms of overall “text quality.” Yet the lexical and syntactic complexity of
a piece of writing does not necessarily guarantee interesting or coherent text con-
struction. Consequently, linguistic criteria like those delineated in this chapter need
to be augmented by global measures of thematic content and discourse structure.
Holistic judgments may converge on the elusive notion of text quality, but even
experts characterize it by varied, often inexplicit criteria from spelling and punctua-
tion to informativeness or originality (Berman & Nir, 2009a). Relevant directions
are suggested in our cross-linguistic project for global-level characterizations of
both narrative and expository texts (Berman & Nir, 2007) and for analyzing seg-
ments of texts (Berman & Katzenberger, 2004; Tolchinsky, Johansson, & Zamora,
2002), so complementing analyses of local linguistic expression. In sum, in evaluat-
ing students’ writing as well as for purposes of intervention, a careful balance needs
to be achieved between both global and local levels of text construction, on the
one hand, and between analysis of linguistic forms and structures and the functions
they serve in conveying referential information and thematic content, on the other.
NOTES
1. The study was supported by a major research grant from the Spencer Foundation for the
study of Developing Literacy, to Ruth Berman, PI. English-language data-collection was
supervised by Judy S. Reilly, San Diego State University.
2. Cross-lingual use of these terms is inconsistent (French phrase corresponds to “sentence”
in English).
3. Although ostensibly conducted in the same framework as the present study, hence adopt-
ing the term “clause packaging”, the analysis of Verhoeven et al (2002) in fact considers
only T-units.
4. VOCD measures types by word-forms, not lexemes; for example, English speak, speaks,
speaking, spoke, spoken (French parle, parlant, parlé, parlera, parlions) count as five differ-
ent types. By grade-school age, language-specific procedures defining different lexemes
may be more diagnostic, with the five English and French items cited here being different
forms of a single lexeme (the verbs speak, parler), and words like spokesman, speech, or
speechify counted as three separate lexemes.
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APPENDIX*
High School Boy’s Personal-Experience Written Narrative
1 When I was in the seventh grade, [AV-TMP preposed]

2 I had a conflict with a boy [MC]
3 who was in a few of my classes. [RC] CP1
4 As it turned out, [AV-CIR preposed]
5 his father was an executive vice-president at the company [MC]
6 where my father worked. [RC] CP2
7 The boy was constantly giving me grief, [MC]
8 saying [AV-CIR = NF]
9 that {if I ever did anything} {to upset him,} he would have my father
fired. [CM]
10 <if I ever did anything> <AV-CDN]
11 <to upset him> <CM = NF> CP3
12 I knew MC
13 this was ridiculous, CM
14 but nevertheless it was plenty annoying. CO CP4
15 The boy was not just annoying to me, MC
16 he had conflicts with at least ten other people CO
17 I knew, RC
18 not exaggerating. AV-CCS = NF CP5
19 So one day we went to the counseling office at the school. MC
20 The counselor told us MCJ
21 that {since the teachers had not reported anything} we had no proof of
the boy’s actions. CM
22 < since the teachers had not reported anything> <AV-REA>
23 so the administration at the school did nothing. <AV-RES> CP6
24 I visited the principal MC
25 but he did not take any action either, CO
26 so the boy kept up his incessant pestering. <AV-RES. CP7
27 And one day I finally snapped. MC
28 When the teacher was out of the room, AV-TEM preposed
29 the boy said something to me, MCJ
30 and I turned around CO
31 and confronted him. C0-EL CP8
32 The boy told me MC
33 that I would not {or could not} do anything to him, CM
34 <or could not> <CO-GAP>
35 so I proved him wrong. AV-RES
36 I hit him, MCJ
37 and from that day on he stayed away from me. CO CP9
38 I probably should not have resorted to that action, MC
39 but nothing else {I had done} worked. CO
40 <I had done> <RC> CP10
∗Legend: AV = Adverbial Clause, AV-CND = Conditional, AV-CCS = Circumstantial, AV- TMP = Temporal Clause,

CM = Complement Clause, CO = Coordinate Clause, CP = Clause Package, MC = Main Clause, NF = Non-Finite
Clause, RC = Relative Clause.
CHAPTER 3
Two Metaphors for Writing

Research and Their Implications for
Writing Instruction
PIETRO BOSCOLO
O ver the past three decades, writing has turned out to be a particularly rich
source of questions and problems for psychological research—especially
compared with some other subjects, with an even longer research tradition (e.g.,
reading and mathematics). The reason for this fecundity may lie in the dual identity
of school writing: as an academic and cross-disciplinary ability, on the one hand, and
a powerful communication tool, on the other. Both identities have greatly stimulated
research, with different theoretical and methodological approaches. In its academic
function, writing is basically a tool for elaborating and acquiring knowledge, not only
in the literary domain to which it traditionally belongs, but across all disciplines. The
“transactional” function of writing, in which Britton and colleagues synthesized
British students’ expository and persuasive writing in the 1970s (Britton, Burgess,
Martin, McLeod, & Rosen, 1975), definitely prevails after primary school, and stu-
dents are progressively trained to expose and order their knowledge through writing.
The development of writing as an elaboration tool is cognitively demanding, since
writers have to learn to use decontextualized language in written form, which implies
the coordination of multiple cognitive processes (Snow & Uccelli, 2009); writing is
really a tool for learning, but not an easy-to-use one! Starting from the early 1980s,
cognitive psychology has been investigating the process of writing and the difficul-
ties that novice writers deal with when carrying out an academic writing task.
Writing is not only elaboration, however, it is also a social action that takes
place in a context. The communicative function of writing is emphasized by the
socio-cultural approach, in which perspectives on language and cognition are
integrated. According to this approach, literacy is viewed as a complex set of interac-
tive practices, which are situated in social and cultural contexts, including the school,
workplace, Internet space, and the new media of the digital universe. From a psy-
chological point of view, reference is made to Vygotsky (1978), who underlined the
influence of the social and cultural contexts on cognitive development; and from a
linguistic point of view, to Bakhtin (1981, 1986), who conceptualized language—
oral and written—as dialogue, and social interactions as the origins of speech genres.
Each of the two identities of writing take on a different importance in writing
instruction. The communicative identity is often neglected in school, the only
audience for student writers is usually their teachers, who are mainly concerned
with how students write, rather than to whom. However, the cognitive and the
socio-cultural approaches compete for an exhaustive perspective of the develop-
ment of writing, and both offer important applications as well as implications for
writing instruction, particularly for struggling writers.
The aim of this chapter is to compare the contributions of the two approaches
to relevant aspects of writing development, and to suggest a possible integration
for the instruction of struggling writers. The contributions will be illustrated
with reference to two metaphors: “mechanism” for the cognitive approach, and
“participation” for the socio-cultural approach. A metaphor can be useful to the
degree to which it helps a writer—and a reader—to condense into few words
some essential features of a phenomenon or, in the case of writing, an ability
or practice. However, it can be limiting, in that focusing on some features may
lead to neglecting or underestimating other important aspects. My aim is not,
however, to provide an exhaustive account of the two perspectives, but to high-
light a few aspects in which integration seems necessary. Therefore, I think that
condensing the most important features of the two approaches in unifying labels
may be a helpful procedure for stimulating reflection on some open questions of
writing instruction.
TWO METAPHORS FOR TWO OPPOSING APPROACHES

TO WRITING
From the cognitive perspective, writing development can be compared to the

functioning of a mechanism—where the mechanism can carry out the operations
required to produce a limited variety of objects (texts, or written productions).
Differently from many physical mechanisms, the writing mechanism “learns”
and becomes more complex, progressively including new functions and genres,
as well as self-awareness. A good writer is one who can produce well-planned,
generated, and revised texts, and is able to monitor all the phases of his/her own
production. The word mechanism does not take on a derogatory meaning: a mech-
anism underlies the early short sentences of a first grader as well as a scientist’s or
novelist’s mature written productions. When the mechanism does not function

adequately, it must be helped or repaired. Writing researchers have devised vari-
ous tools that can be used to improve the workings of the mechanism: proce-
dural facilitation (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987), practice in low-level skills such
as spelling and transcription (Berninger, 2000; Berninger & Amtmann, 2003;
Berninger et al., 2002; Berninger et al.,1997; Berninger et al., 1998), and teaching
of self-regulation strategies (Graham, 2006; Harris & Graham, 1996).
The socio-cultural approach focuses on writing as a participation tool. Writing
does not only imply the functioning of an individual mechanism; through writ-
ing, an individual communicates ideas and feelings, and also participates in a
community of discourse by sharing words, sentences, and genres already used by
past writers, and will also be used by others in the future (Kostouli, 2009; Prior,
2006). From this perspective, the meanings conveyed through writing are not the
static features of written words. In fact, meanings can be modified and enriched—
that is, negotiated between the participants of social interactions. Whereas in
the cognitive approach the processes of writing are cognitive operations, in the
socio-cultural approach processes are social interactions (Kamberelis, 1999).
Before schooling, children discover literacy through the practices and activities
of their everyday lives, from which the functions of written language begin to emerge
(Tolchinsky, 2006). In school, children find a new context, in which they learn to
re-think and express their everyday experiences within scientific discourse and its
symbolic forms, in particular written language and genres (Boscolo, 2008). Learning
to write means learning genres. The view of genre is different in the cognitive and
socio-cultural approaches: whereas the former basically considers the genres that
characterize school writing—narrative, descriptive, expository, argumentative—as
structures for knowledge organization, the socio-cultural approach views a genre as
a typified (oral or written) response to situations that are culturally or socially con-
strued as recurrent. Therefore, from a socio-cultural perspective there are as many
genres as there are situations in which people usually interact, although only a cer-
tain number of them assume a written form and conventional features.
The two metaphors have different implications and potentialities for writing
instruction. On the one hand, the mechanism metaphor seems to be particularly
appropriate for representing the complex set of processes and strategies which writ-
ing comprises. The metaphor is even more appropriate for novice and struggling
writers, for whom the mechanism can be a source of difficulties. On the other hand,
participation represents the social component—or meaning—of writing that is
often forgotten in writing instruction. The two views of writing are now compared
in relation to writing development.
TWO VIEWS OF WRITING DEVELOPMENT
In the 1980s, Bereiter and Scardamalia’s (1987) cognitive model of writing con-
ceptualized development in terms of increasing working memory capacity, thanks
Tw o M etap h o r s f o r W r i t i n g R e s e a r c h [ 3 5 ]
to which a child becomes progressively able to deal with the demands of school
writing tasks, to overcome the limitations of oral conversation as a communication
tool, and to elaborate, not only retrieve, knowledge. Over the past two decades, the
study of writing has gained from neuro-scientific research, which has greatly con-
tributed to a new conceptualization of writing development: a dynamic interaction
of genetic and neuropsychological factors, on the one hand, and social factors, on
the other. Writing systems are re-organized during early and middle childhood, and
this re-organization involves three main developmental changes: the transition to
true cognitive writing; the transition to integrated reading-writing, and the transi-
tion to flexible adaptations of written texts during revision (Berninger & Chanquoy,
2009). We will now focus on flexibility and its different meanings according to the
two metaphors.
Although rigidity is a limitation of many mechanisms, the writing mechanism
should be flexible, and adaptable to different purposes and situations. The “usabil-
ity” of writing in different genres and for different objectives is a basic assumption
of writing instruction, which the cognitive approach has never questioned. In fact,
flexibility in writing has not been investigated in great depth by cognitive psychol-
ogy, whereas several studies have been conducted on flexibility in reading (e.g.,
Cartwright, 2008). As participation, the word flexibility is rather elusive, referring
to all situations in which human information processors are expected to transform
their knowledge for different communicative goals and shift successfully across
genres. Recently, Berninger and Chanquoy (2009) have analyzed the problem of
increasing flexibility through writing activities in school. A basic tool is represented
by revision, a process that is often neglected in the teaching of writing. The pro-
duction of a good text requires continuous revision; that is, continuously modify-
ing a draft until the writer feels satisfied with the result. Learning to revise requires
incorporating self-guided processes in a reading-writing system. Through numer-
ous studies on children’s revising, Chanquoy (2009) has found that separating the
processes of translating from revising—a type of procedural facilitation—helps pri-
mary and middle school students revise better, by focusing on deep rather than sur-
face corrections. Students may be helped to revise through self-questioning guides,
which make them more aware of what they write and of how to improve the written
text.
Although improving revision skills contributes to improved text production,
genre rigidity may be an obstacle to flexibility in school writing. As mentioned ear-
lier, primary school students experience a limited number of conventional writing
genres—narrative, descriptive, argumentative, sometimes also poetic—and the
number is progressively reduced through the school grades: narrative writing, in
particular, tends to disappear in middle school. In the case of narrative, primary
school students often are taught to write personal accounts and invented stories
according to a model or scheme, influenced by story “grammars” (e.g., Stein &
Glenn, 1979). Although revising can foster writing flexibility regardless of genres,

“within-genre” flexibility is also needed. I will go back to this question at the end
of the chapter.
In sum, according to the cognitive perspective, flexibility is the outcome of a
writer’s varied practice of processes and tasks. How is flexibility conceptualized in
the socio-cultural approach? From this perspective, rigidity is not in the writer but
in the context of academic literacy in which writing is taught and learned, and it is
apparent when children are not allowed to experience writing with different, rather
than the “regular” media and genres. As a well-known scholar of children’s writing
argued (Dyson, 1992), “if a curriculum is to be truly responsive to diversity, truly
child-centered, it must be permeable enough to allow for children’s ways of par-
ticipating in school literacy events” (p. 41). A recent paper by Christianakis (2011)
illustrates this view of flexibility with regard to a specific phase of writing develop-
ment: the transition from drawing to writing. Christianakis questions the “tradi-
tional” view of writing development, according to which drawing is a preliminary
step to writing. Her study, conducted with fifth graders, aimed at answering two
questions: how writing and drawing function in children’s texts, and how teach-
ing practices shape writing development. Christianakis (2011) analyzed the writ-
ing activities of a fifth grade class over a one-year period, using an ethnographic
methodology and collecting hundreds of writing samples, as well as audiotaping
children’s conversations. Her findings demonstrated that children integrated visual
and written symbols, and that limiting children’s use of semiotic resources during
writing may discourage and limit their writing development. Flexibility character-
izes the use of different media, such as music and drawing, as well as written lan-
guage, since the emphasis is on communicating rather than on learning the rules
by which a mechanism can function adequately. Christianakis (2011) argues that,
as children progress through school grades, there is also a gradual shift in the use of
paper (from unlined to parallel horizontal lines), which represents “the ideological
and developmental pressure” to move toward academic writing (p. 23).
From a similar position, Dyson (1999a) examined the nature of children’s
recontextualization of texts, that is, their appropriation of meanings, characters,
and stories from the media, such as movies, which is usually contrasted or ignored
by teachers. In any classroom, there are “official” and nonofficial social spheres.
Particularly in early school classrooms, the official sphere is guided by teachers
who implement the literacy curriculum, and exert control over how children make
learning experiences, being concerned with appropriate language and genre use. It
is through the negotiation with nonofficial school worlds represented by popular
media that children learn and develop. Establishing a shared interpersonal frame
in the official school world requires teachers and students to collaboratively trans-
form that world in ways that allow children to preserve a sense of agency and move
into new social and textual spaces (p. 369). From this perspective, it does not make
sense to study children’s compositions by focusing only on print, without consider-
ing their multimedia experience. Therefore, flexibility has a different meaning in
the cognitive and socio-cultural approaches: it regards cognitive competency in the
former, and appropriation and invention of literacy tools, in the latter.
The Two Competitive Approaches: Is Integration Possible?
At the Writing Across the Borders Conference in Santa Barbara, Graham (2008)
proposed 13 evidence-based recommendations for teaching writing to students in
grades 4 to 12. The recommendations were based on the results of experimental and
quasi-experimental intervention studies, and single-subject design and qualitative
studies of teaching of writing practices, through which the effectiveness of interven-
tions in different classroom contexts was tested. The recommendations, supported
by different levels of evidence, represent a reliable picture of the teaching of writ-
ing in elementary and middle school. The emphasis is clearly on the use of explicit
teaching to shape writing competence, although the importance of a free and col-
laborative context for learning to write is underlined, as suggested by the “process
approach,” which has been adopted by many language skills teachers since the 1970s
(Pritchard & Honeycutt, 2006). Although the recommendations have not been pre-
sented as the official cognitive perspective on the teaching of writing, the Presenter
is, in fact, an outstanding cognitive scholar of writing. Moreover, reference to cogni-
tive processing is evident in almost all recommendations, which means that they can
be considered a manifesto of the cognitive view of writing instruction:
1. Teach youngsters strategies for the basic processes of writing.

2. Set clear and specific goals for writing.
3. Teach students how to write more sophisticated sentences (e.g., sentence
combining).
4. Make students use prewriting activities to help in collecting and organizing
ideas.
5. Create a positive writing environment with student interaction and personal-
ized instructional assistance.
6. Teach students strategies and procedures to improve summarizing skills.
7. Develop instructional arrangements where students can write (plan, draft,
revise, etc.) together.
8. Have students use word processing.
9. Propose writing activities designed to sharpen students’ skills of inquiry.
10. Provide good models for each type of text.
11. Ask struggling writers to monitor their writing performance.
12. Provide time to write.
13. Do not teach grammar using traditional methods.
The validity of these recommendations is clearly unquestionable. If they are

read in the light of the two metaphors, however, they appear to fit only one, that

is the mechanism metaphor. Thus, to keep the promise made at the beginning of
this chapter regarding a possible integration of the two approaches, and keeping in
mind the participation metaphor, I suggest adding three other recommendations to
the list—first of all, the problem of assessment. In the cognitive perspective, writing
assessment has two functions. On the one hand, it focuses on the qualities of writing
that best represent its elaborative function: coherence, text cohesion, and organiza-
tion. A well-written text reflects a writer’s coherent representation of knowledge
as well as his/her mastery of the processes of planning, translation, and revision,
which make a text easily readable. The second and more instructionally relevant
function is attention to the processes of writing: for instance, Chanquoy’s cited
studies of children’s revision suggest ways to teach them to revise as well as, and
most importantly, to assess the quality of revision processes. From a socio-cultural
perspective, the recommendation mainly regards dynamic assessment, based on
Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the zone of proximal development, according to
which the emphasis is not on a student’s level of achievement, but on the amount
and quality of help he or she needs to attain a higher level of performance. This is
particularly important for struggling writers, whose learning potentialities are the
starting point for writing instruction.
Another recommendation that is lacking, from both perspectives, regards the
motivation to write. Writing is not only a cognitive matter. Writers have beliefs,
motivation, and affect when writing: they have self-efficacy beliefs regarding their
functioning, and feel more or less motivated to write according to the purposes,
topics, and audience for which writing is used. The two approaches view motiva-
tion in quite different ways. From the cognitive perspective, motivation to write is
a relationship between the student-writer and a task, which includes two types of
student perceptions. The first type regards how positively or negatively a student
perceives his/her writing competence. This perception, in turn, affects self-efficacy
beliefs, that is, the degree to which a student feels able to carry out a writing task
successfully. The second type of perception regards how stimulating, challenging,
or interesting writing and writing tasks are for a student. According to this view of
motivation to write, teachers should be concerned with giving students attractive or
interesting writing tasks, which should encourage them to write willingly and learn
to appreciate writing. In the socio-cultural approach, motivation is a characteristic
of the context rather than of the task. A writing task is not more or less interesting,
but meaningful, to the degree to which students can find authentic opportunities
for expressing and communicating in written language.
When teachers and students give overwhelming attention to the functioning of
the mechanism, motivational aspects take on a less important role, and the interest-
ingness of topics and tasks is not sufficient to increase the low self-efficacy beliefs of
struggling students. The participation metaphor, with its emphasis on the meaning
of writing, suggests the use of authentic situations in which students can experi-
ence writing as a meaningful activity. Therefore, the recommendation would be
to make students write in an environment in which writing tasks are meaningfully
related to classroom practices, and to the objectives of the class as a community.
Unfortunately, a struggling writer is often less likely than his/her more competent
classmates to view writing as a meaningful and worthwhile activity, and more likely
to feel a collaborative climate as threatening rather than stimulating. However,
attention to writers’ difficulties by no means contrasts with a truly participative cli-
mate in the classroom.
The last recommendation to be added to the list concerns students’ beliefs about
writing. Writing development does not only regard improving the mechanism or
broadening participation, but also how a student construes writing through school
grades. Teachers should help students, and particularly the younger ones, under-
stand that writing is a mechanism, whose functioning is to be monitored by his/her
owner and improved, to produce texts appropriate to different functions and situa-
tions. Students are aware that writing an instant message or inserting a text in a blog
are activities with a true communicative value, quite different from a classroom
composition. The problem—and challenge—is to help them, and the struggling
ones in particular, realize that the mechanism provides different opportunities for
academic and not-academic use. As far as academic writing is concerned, motivat-
ing students to write means convincing them that academic writing makes sense
(Boscolo, 2009). Its meaning is related to how writing is framed in a class activity,
and also the relationship between academic and “free” writing. Students’ acquisi-
tion, and progressive enrichment, of the meaning of writing in the age of Internet
is an aspect of writing development that cognitive researchers sometimes tend to
forget. Teaching writing, particularly in primary and middle school, does not only
mean providing students with cognitive and linguistic tools, but they also need to
be made aware that through writing—texts, genres, and social interactions—they
can “gain distance from, differentiate, and recontextualize their everyday experi-
ences with and within the “scientific” discourses of school” (Dyson, 1999b, p. 146).
I conclude with a quotation from an outstanding exponent of the
socio-cultural approach (Witte, 1992): “An adequate theory of writing must be
able to account for the fact that writing can be both a process of translating ideas
or thoughts into visible language and a process of discovering meaning through
language” (p. 263). This dual function should inform writing instruction from its
early phases. On the one hand, teachers should teach young writers, and in par-
ticular the struggling ones, to translate their ideas into correct and understand-
able written language, and also make them aware that this translation cannot be
simply mechanical. Writing can also be a tool for discovering new meanings, not
only through new media, as suggested earlier, but also through academic lan-
guage. In an intervention study (Boscolo, Gelati, & Galvan, 2012), fourth grad-
ers were taught to “play” with the narrative genre by modifying narrative texts
at word level (for instance, they were asked to rewrite a text by beginning each
sentence with the same letter) and content level (e.g., changing the setting or
protagonist). Regardless of the type of change, the new text had to be coherent.
The intervention was conducted in a collaborative classroom climate, in which

the teacher first modeled the change, and then gave help by means of sugges-
tions and stimulations to find new narrative solutions. Results showed that the
intervention increased children’s ability to play with language. In particular, by
creating new stories, children discovered that written language can be used to
produce new meanings, and that its constraints—in this case, story coherence—
are not an obstacle but an aid to write enjoyable and often creative texts.
Demonstrating that writing is a meaningful translation process is a challenge for
the teachers of struggling writers.
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PART TWO
The Impact of Oral Language Problems

on Written Text Production
CHAPTER 4
Spelling in Deaf Children with

Cochlear Implants
Implications for Instruction
HE ATHER H AYES, REBECCA TREIM AN, AND ANN E. GEER S
T he ability to spell words accurately is still important in today’s world of spell-

checkers and technology-inspired shorthand. An adult’s spelling skills are
considered important markers of literacy attainment (Figueredo & Varnhagen,
2005; Kreiner, Schnakenberg, Green, Costello, & McClin, 2002; Varnhagen,
2000). For children, spelling is crucial not only for academic progress but also for
what it teaches children about their language. School-aged children and adolescents
can benefit from explicit spelling instruction so that they can reap the benefits that
being a good speller offers: increased reading and writing skills and more positive
perceptions by others.
Good spelling skills are important not only for individuals who can hear but also
for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. A recent survey of deaf college gradu-
ates from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in the U.S. revealed that
89% were required to write on the job every day (Biser, Rubel, & Toscano, 2007).
The employers of these deaf graduates were also surveyed: 93% of the employers
reported that good writing skills were necessary for promotion and that poor spell-
ing was one of the most serious problems they saw in their deaf employees.
This chapter aims to describe what we know about spelling in school-aged deaf
children, with a focus on those who use cochlear implants and those who use spo-
ken English as their primary method of communication. We concentrate on this
group, in part, because cochlear implantation in very young deaf children is increas-
ing in the United States and other countries (Kelly, 2011) due to early identification
of deafness and looser criteria for implantation. We begin by describing the English
spelling system and spelling in hearing children and adolescents. We do this, in part,
to remind the reader what is expected of hearing children who are often classmates
of deaf children with cochlear implants. Next, we review the literature on spelling
in deaf children and adolescents with cochlear implants who use spoken English.
Finally, we suggest teaching strategies that can be used to improve deaf children’s
spelling.
THE ENGLISH SPELLING SYSTEM
The spelling system of English, the language that is the focus of this chapter, is often
considered irregular, even chaotic. However, the spellings of many words are more
principled than they might first appear. Many sounds have more than one possi-
ble spelling, but contextual, morphological, historical, and visually related factors
often constrain the choice among them (Hayes, Kessler, & Treiman, 2005; Joshi,
Treiman, Carreker, & Moats, 2008; Kessler & Treiman, 2003). Children who know
about these factors do not have to guess randomly among the possible spellings
of a sound. For example, although ll is a possible spelling of /l/, and although it
often occurs at the ends of words, very few English words have double consonants
at the beginnings. This is just one example of how knowledge about how letters
are allowed to be arranged in words, or graphotactic constraints, is highly useful.
(The exception to the rule about initial double consonants is llama. However, it is a
Spanish word that has been adopted by English users, highlighting how knowledge
about word origins informs spelling.) As an example of how morphological knowl-
edge can aid spelling, children can learn that final /t/ is normally spelled as ed when
/t/ is a past tense ending, as in cracked. The ed spelling does not occur when final
/t/ is a part of the same unit of meaning (or morpheme) as the preceding sounds, as
in fact. Thus, graphotactic, morphological, historical, and other information helps
users of English to narrow the possibilities for spelling new words and remember
the spellings of known words.
SPELLING IN TYPICALLY DEVELOPING HEARING CHILDREN

AND ADOLESCENTS
Although the English writing system reflects morphology and other factors to some
extent, the system is primarily alphabetic. Thus, it is most critical for beginners to
learn about its phonological basis. Children need to learn that writing represents
spoken language, and they need to learn to analyze speech at the level of the individ-
ual sounds or phonemes: phonemic awareness. Children who can do this, and who
know the letters that are used to represent specific sounds, will be able to produce
phonologically plausible spellings even for words they have not seen before. These
[ 4 6 ] Part II: Impact of Oral Language Problems on Written Text

spellings may be wrong, in that they may not take into account such things as the
context of a phoneme or the morphological structure of a word, but they will usu-
ally be readable. For example, the phonologically plausible error scunck for skunk
indicates that the child analyzed the word as a sequence of phonemes and knew a
plausible spelling for each phoneme. One thing the child did not know, apparently,
is that ck cannot follow n, one of the more subtle graphotactic patterns of English.
Difficulties in phonemic awareness can lead to spellings that do not fully represent a
word’s phonemes, such as suk for skunk. Such an error communicates less well than
scunck because the reader might assume that the writer of suk intended to spell suck.
Hearing children often have some initial difficulties with phonemic aware-
ness, causing them to produce errors like suk for skunk (Treiman, 1993). However,
hearing children normally overcome these difficulties within the first few years of
school. During this time, they also learn about the roles of morphology (Treiman
& Cassar, 1996) and graphotactics (Cassar & Treiman, 1997; Hayes, Treiman, &
Kessler, 2006) in choosing among alternative spellings of phonemes. Even by the
age of six years, hearing children pay attention (even if not explicitly) to some of
the spelling patterns in English. Becoming a good speller thus requires sensitivity
to phonology, morphology, and other properties of English. Rote memorization of
letter patterns is not enough for successful spelling.
As the role of language experience and phonology in spelling became bet-
ter understood, some researchers and educators postulated that children can and
should learn to spell through incidental learning and self-discovery (e.g., Goodman,
1967). According to this view, young children learn about spelling through observ-
ing words in books as they are being read to and by trying to spell words on their
own, often referred to as invented spelling. As children read more and more, they
learn many spellings incidentally, as they are exposed to them in reading. However,
research suggests that incidental learning and self-discovery are not sufficient. For
example, the National Reading Panel, which was created by the U.S. Congress to
examine research on the most effective approaches to teaching children how to read,
recommended that explicit instruction about the relationships between writing and
speech should be included in every reading program (National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, 2000). The research reviewed by the National
Reading Panel shows that explicit instruction—that is, direct and systematic expla-
nation of a concept through examples and step-by-step demonstrations—is more
effective than the sort of implicit or incidental instruction proposed by advocates of
a self discovery approach. Children learn some spellings incidentally, as they come
across them while reading (Cunningham, Perry, Stanovich, & Share, 2002; Share,
1999), but such learning can be slow and incomplete. This happens, in part, because
children’s attention is not typically on spelling when they are reading for meaning.
Learning to spell, particularly in a complex writing system such as that of
English, is not a simple or quick task for children who can hear, a fact that teachers
of children who are deaf sometimes overlook. In the next section, we turn to the
case of deaf children and adolescents who wear cochlear implants.
Sp e ll i n g i n D e af C h i l d r e n w i t h C o c h l e a r I m pla n ts [ 4 7 ]
CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF SPELLING IN CHILDREN AND
ADOLESCENTS WHO WEAR COCHLEAR IMPLANTS
Children who are deaf and who wear cochlear implants have more auditory access
and more opportunity to acquire spoken language and phonemic awareness than
profoundly deaf children without cochlear implants. Thus, it is not surprising that
children with cochlear implants are better readers than profoundly deaf children
who do not wear implants (Vermeulen, van Bon, Schreuder, Knoors, & Snik, 2007).
Many children and adolescents with cochlear implants achieve reading levels that
are close to those of same-aged hearing peers (Geers, 2003; Geers & Hayes, 2011).
Before the advent of cochlear implants, few deaf teenagers reached age-appropriate
reading skills (Geers & Moog, 1989). The effect of cochlear implantation on the
development of spoken language skills and the resultant literacy skills of deaf chil-
dren is nothing short of astonishing.
Few studies have examined in detail the spelling of deaf children and adoles-
cents with cochlear implants. The largest and most detailed study to date is that
of Hayes, Kessler, and Treiman (2011). These investigators used a picture spelling
task to study a group of 39 deaf children with cochlear implants who used spoken
English. Children (mean age = 8.97 years) wrote the names of 80 pictured objects.
The implant group spelled more poorly than hearing children of the same age
(mean accuracy = 55% for deaf, 66% for hearing). However, 74% of the deaf chil-
dren had accuracy rates within one standard deviation of the mean for the hearing
group, indicating that many deaf children with cochlear implants spell about as well
as hearing age-mates. When reading ability was held constant, differences between
the groups were no longer significant.
Hayes and colleagues (2011) analyzed the children’s spelling errors for what
they show about the strategies that the children used. If a child makes mostly
phonologically plausible errors, or those that are based on how a word sounds
(e.g., fosit for faucet), then the child can be assumed to have the capacity to use
a phonological spelling strategy. This is advantageous because the reader will
probably be able to understand the child’s intent. If the child’s errors are unre-
lated to the sounds in the word (e.g., rssb for dress), then the child may be guess-
ing or relying on rote memorization of letter patterns. In the study of Hayes and
colleagues, hearing children were much more likely than children with implants
to make plausible errors. Of the errors made by hearing children, 75% were pho-
nologically plausible, as compared to 44% for the implanted children. Although
this latter figure is relatively low, it is higher than the figure of less than 20%
that was observed in a previous study of deaf children without cochlear implants
(Harris & Moreno, 2004). Thus, although deaf children with cochlear implants
do not make as many phonologically plausible errors as hearing age-mates, they
make a higher proportion of these “good” errors than expected from previ-
ous studies of deaf children without implants. The deaf children with cochlear
implants in Hayes et al. (2011) made the same proportion of transposition

errors (e.g., wrom for worm) as the hearing group (5%). This finding is important
because, in previous studies of deaf children without cochlear implants, the pro-
portion of transposition errors was higher in deaf children than hearing children
(Aaron, Keetay, Boyd, Palmatier, & Wacks, 1998; Leybaert, 2000; Leybaert &
Alegria, 1995). Transposition errors suggest the child is relying on rote memori-
zation of letter strings (Aaron et al., 1998), and it appears that this strategy is less
common in deaf children with cochlear implants than in deaf children without
implants. In summary, although the deaf children with cochlear implants did not
use a phonological strategy to the same extent as the hearing group, they often
did use phonology to guide their spellings and did not appear to rely solely on
visual rote memorization.
Phonological and spelling skills continue to develop over the school years
for students with cochlear implants. Geers and Hayes (2011) studied spelling,
reading, and expository writing in a group of 112 adolescents from the U.S. and
Canada who had used a cochlear implant since preschool (and so had more than
10 years of experience with the implants) and 46 hearing adolescents of the same
ages. Spelling accuracy, as measured by a picture spelling task, was strongly cor-
related with both reading comprehension and expository writing abilities, as mea-
sured by ratings from National Technical Institute for the Deaf faculty members
(Schley & Albertini, 2005). Deaf teenagers with implants were significantly poorer
spellers (mean = 67% correct) than teenagers with normal hearing (mean = 80%
correct). They also showed more variability in spelling performance (standard
deviation = 22) than their hearing age-mates (standard deviation = 10). More than
half (55%) of the cochlear-implant users exhibited spelling accuracy scores that
were within one standard deviation of age-matched students with normal hearing,
indicating that hearing loss did not preclude the development of typical spelling
skills. However, when the students’ spelling errors were evaluated for phonologi-
cal plausibility, only 30% of the deaf teenagers scored within one standard devia-
tion of hearing age-mates. These results are similar to those found in younger deaf
children with implants (Hayes et al., 2011)—some deaf children with implants
are able to use phonological strategies to some extent during spelling, but not as
well as hearing age-mates. Importantly, but perhaps not surprisingly, greater use of
a phonological strategy was associated with higher reading, spelling, and exposi-
tory writing scores among the deaf adolescents with implants. Furthermore, use of
a phonological spelling strategy was strongly related to other measures of phono-
logical skill, including elision (deleting phonemes in orally presented stimuli to cre-
ate one word from another), nonword repetition (repeating nonsense words from
an auditory model) and oral reading of nonwords, sometimes called word attack.
Phonologically plausible spelling errors were significantly more likely to occur in
deaf students who used spoken English than those who used signed English and
speech together (sometimes referred to as total communication in the United
States). Thus, use of a phonological strategy for spelling seems to be encouraged by
a focus on the comprehension and production of oral language.
Harris and Terleksti (2011) reported spelling and reading results for a diverse
population of 86 teenagers with severe to profound hearing loss in the United
Kingdom who used either hearing aids or cochlear implants. The hearing-aid users
had more residual hearing than the cochlear-implant users; however, the cochlear-
implant users were more likely to be enrolled in regular classrooms with hearing
teenagers. Forty-seven percent of the cochlear-implant users and 33% of the hear-
ing-aid users preferred speech only for communication. In this study, the cochlear-
implant users did not show an advantage over hearing-aid users in spelling accuracy
or phonetic spelling errors. The hearing-aid users not only had greater residual
hearing but started using hearing aids at a very young age (mean age at diagnosis =
12.78 months). The cochlear-implant users had less residual hearing and presum-
ably did not receive useable auditory input until they received a cochlear implant
at an average age of 3 years (early implant group) or 7 years, 5 months (late implant
group). The earlier access to sound in the group with hearing aids may have pro-
moted development of phonological skills and literacy. The importance of small
amounts of aided residual hearing prior to cochlear implantation, along with
implantation at young ages, has already been established for acquisition of spoken
language (Nicholas & Geers, 2006). Hayes et al. (2011) examined whether age
at implant predicted spelling skill or phonological plausibility of errors. Although
they did not find age at implant effects in their study of spelling, the authors explain
that they did not test many children who received implants at 1 or 2 years of age. It
is possible that, as deaf children who receive implants at 1 or 2 years of age grow up,
benefits may be seen for very early cochlear implantation.
IMPLICATIONS FOR INSTRUCTION
Research on spelling in deaf children with cochlear implants who communicate

orally indicates that these children can use phonological strategies to some degree,
as hearing children do. This leads to the question of whether spelling instruction
for these children should be any different than spelling instruction for hearing chil-
dren. We believe that there is a need for modification of instruction to deaf children
with implants for two reasons: poorer vocabulary and poorer phonemic awareness
skills than in hearing children (Hayes, Geers, Treiman, & Moog, 2009; Johnson &
Goswami, 2010). Limited vocabulary and poor phonemic awareness are related to
reading difficulties, which lead to limited experiences with text. These have implica-
tions for spelling development, and thus some degree of specialized instruction is
necessary for deaf children with cochlear implants.
The field of deaf education offers little to guide teachers of students with
cochlear implants on spelling practices. One resource is the Laurent Clerc
National Deaf Education Center at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC,
which recommends a number of practices for teaching reading and writing to
deaf students. For example, the Clerc Center website recommends that teachers

encourage invented spellings, or spellings that children attempt without any
instructional help, during writing time (Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education
Center, n.d.). Both laboratory and classroom studies suggest that inventing
spellings improves children’s literacy skills (Clarke, 1988; Ouellette & Sénéchal,
2008). However, the use of invented spelling is positive only if it occurs together
with systematic phonemic awareness training, such as teaching children to
detect, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in words, and only if the child
receives feedback on the invented spellings (Rieben, Ntamakiliro, Gonthier, &
Fayol, 2005). Inventing spellings not only allows children the opportunity to
explore sounds and letter patterns but also provides information for teachers. In
particular, teachers can analyze spellings for error types in order to guide future
instruction.
Other recommendations put forward by the Clerc Center run counter to what
current research suggests about best practices in teaching reading and writing to
young children. For example, the Clerc Center recommends that teachers should
decrease activities such as explicit, isolated instruction of grammar, vocabulary,
spelling, and other literacy-related skills. These recommendations seem incon-
sistent with a large body of evidence, mentioned earlier in this chapter, that such
activities are important and should, if anything, be increased. Explicit instruction
is especially important for deaf children with cochlear implants who are at risk for
developing poor phonological awareness and literacy skills.
When a child misspells a word, what sort of feedback should a teacher pro-
vide? It is not enough to simply tell the child how to spell the word or to tell the
child to look it up in the dictionary. Instead, a teacher may first point out that a
word is misspelled but praise the child for the attempt, such as sounding out the
word or using an analogy approach. Then the teacher may show the child how
his or her spelling compares to the conventional spelling, pointing out similari-
ties or differences between the two. Depending on the type of error, the teacher
may use this opportunity to explain graphotactic rules (e.g., double the s at the
end of a word if the vowel is spelled with one letter, as in pass) or morphologi-
cal rules (e.g., why dirty is not spelled dirdy, even though that is how the child
may pronounce it). A brief but meaningful lesson can encourage metalinguistic
discovery and model the thinking process of a successful speller, in this case the
teacher.
Of course, the ability to have a meaningful lesson or teachable moment depends
on a teacher’s understanding of why words are spelled the way they are. English
spelling conventions seem unwieldy, sometimes forcing teachers to declare, “That
word doesn’t follow the rules—just memorize the spelling!” However, teachers
would be well served to learn about the factors that constrain spelling and to con-
sider why a child might have made an error. Then the teacher can determine how to
guide the child to the correct spelling. Guided error analysis can be highly effective,
but only if the teacher has a strong understanding of why written English works the
way it does.
CONCLUSION
If teachers of deaf children with cochlear implants analyze spelling errors and use
these errors to provide on-the-spot lessons or to guide future instruction, then stu-
dents will have the opportunity to gain information explicitly that they otherwise
have to learn incidentally and, in many cases, slowly. As mentioned earlier, hearing
children do not learn the spellings of many words that they come across in read-
ing, even words that they have come across numerous times. Deaf children do not
either. Children will learn spelling patterns faster if they have explicit instruction
and practice. According to this review, this instruction should begin upon school
entry and continue throughout adolescence.
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CHAPTER 5
Spelling Acquisition in French Children

with Cochlear Implants
A Case-Study Investigation
SOPHIE BOU TON AND PA SCALE COLÉ
BACKGROUND AND GOAL
Cochlear implantation offers profoundly deaf children access to auditory informa-

tion about speech that was previously unavailable to them. Each year in France,
nearly 1,500 new cases of severe or profound deafness occur in children, and
approximately 300 children are fitted with cochlear implants (CI) (Avan, Cazals,
Dauman, Denoyelle, & Hardelin, 2006). Access to speech through CI presumably
has important educational implications for deaf children. Previous studies have
shown that some CI children achieve reading levels comparable to hearing chil-
dren of the same age (e.g., Geers, 2003; Geers, Tobey, Moog, & Brenner, 2008).
However spelling acquisition in these children has been little investigated.
SPELLING ACQUISITION IN FRENCH
Well-specified phonological representations are crucial for successful spelling

since they help children to master the alphabetic principle (Ehri, 1991, 1997).
Spoken words can be spelled either by applying phoneme-to-grapheme corre-
spondence (PGC) rules or by drawing on orthographic knowledge. The applica-
tion of PGC rules entails the translation of spoken language units (phonemes)
into sublexical written units (graphemes), which are then assembled into words
(phonological procedure). The use of orthographic knowledge gives direct
access to the orthographic word form in the internal lexicon (orthographic pro-
cedure). It is generally supposed that PGC rules are used to spell regular words
and pseudowords, whereas knowledge of orthography is used to spell regular
words and words with inconsistent spelling patterns, such as repas (meals) and
danger (danger), which cannot be spelled accurately on the basis of phonologi-
cal analysis alone (Treiman, 1993). Phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence
(PGC) rules are seen as the bootstrapping mechanism on the basis of which
orthographic knowledge can develop (Ehri, 1991; Morton, 1989; Perfetti, 1991;
Leybaert & Content, 1995). Developmental models of spelling skills based on
the dual-route account of written word processing (Frith, 1986; Morton, 1989)
assume that the two procedures (phonological and orthographic) are acquired
successively, with beginning readers first relying on the phonological procedure
and then shifting to the use of an orthographic procedure. The replacement of
systematic use of the phonological procedure by the use of orthographic pro-
cedure may be a gradual process. In a long-term longitudinal study of French-
speaking children (Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, Béchennec, & Serniclaes, 2003),
early phonological skills, as evaluated in the middle of first grade by pseudoword
processing, were correlated with performance on irregular words at the end of
the fourth grade. Share (1999) tested the hypothesis that phonological skills
are critical to the acquisition of word- specific orthographic representations. In
a priming task, children read target pseudowords embedded in short text. Three
days later, each child had to recognize the target from among a set of stimuli
including the original target spelling, a homophonic foil, one visually similar foil
with a letter substitution and another with a transposition of two letters. Target
spellings were correctly identified more often, named more quickly, and spelled
more accurately than all foils.
Alphabetic spelling systems can be classified along an opacity-transparency
continuum according to the degree of consistency of their orthographic code
(Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987; Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003; Caravolas,
2004). Transparent or shallow orthographic systems are characterized by their
high degree of consistency and are mainly governed by regular and predictable
PGC in reading and writing. In contrast, opaque or deep systems have many
graphemes with various corresponding phonemes and vice versa, with a large
number of irregular words. A critical aspect of the French written system is
that the phoneme-to-grapheme rules used in spelling are far less consistent
than the grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence (GPC) rules used to read
words (Ziegler, Jacobs, & Stone, 1996). Using GPC rules makes it possible to
read approximately 90% of French words correctly, whereas using PGC rules
only makes it possible to spell half of all French words (Véronis, 1988). French
is also recognized for having a morphophonemic orthography with ortho-
graphic and morphological regularities that must be taken into account along-
side phoneme-grapheme correspondences in conventional spellings (Deacon,

Conrad, & Pacton, 2008; Pacton, Fayol, & Perruchet, 2005). Although there
have been studies investigating the development of spelling skills in CI children
in other deep orthographies (e.g. English), the spelling skills of French CI chil-
dren may differ in some important ways.
The development of the phonological and orthographic procedures in nor-
mally hearing (NH) French-speaking children has already been examined (Alegria
& Mousty, 1994, 1996; Casalis, 2003). This chapter extends the study of the
use of these procedures to children with cochlear implants. We concentrate on
cochlear-implanted (CI) children’s spelling of words that are either consistent or
inconsistent with phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence. The main aim of the
study presented here was to determine whether the spelling skills of CI children
are similar to those of NH children despite the difficulties with speech perception
associated with CI. Indeed, whereas NH children learn to write after they have
developed fine-grained phonological representations of spoken words, the phono-
logical representations of children using cochlear implants are less well-developed
phonological representations when they learn to write (Bouton, Serniclaes, & Colé,
2012; Geers, Brenner, & Davidson, 2003; Medina & Serniclaes, 2009; Tye-Murray,
Spencer, & Gilbert-Bedia, 1995). Our hypothesis was that speech perception
through cochlear implant devices is unlikely to be sufficient to support accurate
phonological processes, and that CI children would thus encounter difficulties
using phonological representations on a spelling task. Because the acquisition of
orthographic and morphological representations also depends on the development
of phonological representations, we thought that we might also find that CI chil-
dren experience difficulties using the orthographic procedure to spell words.
SPELLING SKILLS IN CHILDREN WITH COCHLEAR IMPLANTS
A recent study seems to contradict our hypothesis, showing that CI children are not
poorer spellers than NH children (Hayes, Kessler, & Treiman, 2011). In the study
of Hayes et al. 39 English children with CI performed a picture-spelling task with
words of varying length and orthographic complexity. Children were first asked to
name the pictured item and then to spell the name on a line that appeared under
the picture. The authors found that the same word-level factors, such as frequency,
length, and whether the word was a compound word, helped both CI and NH
children. Nevertheless, after controlling for age, reading comprehension, parents’
education level, age at implantation, and hearing status, CI children made fewer
phonologically plausible errors1 in the spelling task than NH children. Their findings
suggest that cochlear implants may provide deaf children with enough phonological
information to allow them to rely on phonological processing in spelling tasks, but
also that CI children do not use phonology as successfully as hearing children.
Another study suggests that CI children’s spelling skills are related to the
mode of communication to which they are exposed pre- and postimplantation.
Sp e ll i ng Acqu i s i t i o n i n F r e nch Ch i l d r e n w i t h Co ch l e a r I m pla n ts [57]

The spelling performance of 33 French children using CI (tested between 7;5
and 11;11 years) was compared to that of 20 NH children matched on grade
level (Leybaert, Bravard, Sudre, & Cochard, 2009). Twenty of the CI children
had been exposed to cued speech at home and with a speech therapist (CS+)
and 13 had never been exposed to cued speech (CS-). Cued speech is a mode
of communication that visually conveys spoken language at the phonemic level
using eight handshapes corresponding to groups of consonants and four hand
placements to convey vowels. Because cued speech disambiguates lipreading,
it improves the quality of phonemic representations and allows CI children to
manipulate or use them in written tasks. The children were asked to write down
dictated words of variable orthographic consistency. Sound-to-spelling corre-
spondences can be consistent and context-independent (such as /v/, /b/, /m/,
each of which has one possible phoneme-grapheme match) or inconsistent and
context-dependent (examples: /s/ can be spelled with s as in silence, c as in
cigarette and sc as in science, with no consistency according to orthographic
rules). Leybaert et al. (2009) reported that CS+ and NH children obtained
similar scores in both conditions, which were greater than those of CS- chil-
dren. However, they did not control for the reading age of each child in their
analyses.
Taken together, the findings just cited suggest that CI children may be able to
use phonological and orthographic procedures in spelling, and that some variations
in the outcome of cochlear implantation may be explained by the mode of com-
munication. In our study, we further investigated phonological and orthographic
processing in the spelling of CI children.
Language development varies greatly among profoundly deaf children, and
it is essential to consider the characteristics of each child when evaluating lan-
guage skills. Indeed, characteristics such as age at onset of deafness, duration of
auditory deprivation, etiology of hearing loss, age at diagnosis, age at implanta-
tion, preimplant residual hearing, duration of implant use, and the presence of
other disabilities may affect language performance with an implant (Spencer,
2004; Svirsky, Chin, & Jester, 2007). CI children also vary in the amount of audi-
tory information that they obtain from a cochlear implant and in the extent to
which they use the auditory information provided by the implant for speech and
language. Thus, we chose to use a case-study investigation to assess the spelling
skills of CI children.
METHOD
We assessed the spelling skills of 10 French CI children. They were compared to

NH children with the same reading level, using a case-study design where the per-
formance of each CI child was compared to that of 10 control subjects.

Participants
Group with cochlear implants. Ten CI children (6 boys and 4 girls) were
recruited from 3 French services for the deaf. The children ranged in age from 9;5
to 12;3 years and from grades 2 to 5. Their ages at the time when they received
their multichannel cochlear implant ranged from 2;3 to 8;2 years. All had hear-
ing parents. Six were congenitally deaf and four had progressive hearing loss since
birth. The children with progressive hearing loss had been fitted with an implant
as soon as they became profoundly deaf. Table 5.1 describes the characteristics
of each CI participant. The communication method reported in Table 5.1 reflects
the method used at home. Before implantation, all but one of the children used
conventional hearing aids and LSF (French Sign Language). After implantation,
all the children used spoken language, and children using LSF before implantation
continued to use it. The communication method at home was bilingual for most
children. However, all children used only spoken language at school, since all were
enrolled in mainstream classes with NH children or in a spoken language classroom
in a school for the deaf (special education with spoken-language instruction). The
vocabulary scores presented in Table 5.2 give information about the CI children’s
oral language skills.
Hearing control group. Each CI child was matched with 10 NH children on
reading age within a three-month range. Any performance advantage for the reading
age-matched control group compared to the CI children on the spelling tasks can
only be ascribed to spelling skills, since the groups were matched on word reading
level. Reading age was assessed with the Alouette test (Lefavrais, 1967), which deter-
mines reading age expressed in months, defined by text reading speed and accuracy
(see Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, Béchennec, & Kipffer-Piquard, 2005, for details). As
indicated in Table 5.2, the reading scores of the CI children and their NH controls
did not significantly differ (t < |1|). All the NH children also met the following crite-
ria: (a) their reading age was within the normal range, with standard scores not more
than 1 SD above or below the mean on the Alouette test, (b) they were native French
speakers, and (c) they had no known history of language or reading impairments.
As indicated in Table 5.2, the mean chronological age of the CI group was sig-
nificantly higher than the RL group, t(19) = 5.01, p < .001. The nonverbal reasoning
scores of both groups, tested using the progressive matrices (PM47; Raven, 1947),
were within the normal range and the PM47 scores of the CI children did not dif-
fer from those of the RL group, W2 < |1|, p >.20. Additionally, we used items from
the EVIP (Échelle de Vocabulaire en images Peabody, Dunn, & Thériault, 1993) in
order to assess the vocabulary skills of CI children. The EVIP is a French version
of the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS; Dunn, Dunn, Whetton, & Burley,
1997) where the child is asked to choose and point to the one picture in a set of four
that corresponds to the word pronounced by the examiner. CI children had lower
vocabulary scores than NH children, t(19) = 5.02, p < .001; their oral language
skills were inferior to those of NH children who were two years younger.
Spell i ng Acquisiti on i n Fr en ch Ch i l dr en with Co ch l e a r I mpla nts [59]

Table 5.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN WITH COCHLEAR IMPLANTS (CI)
Children Gender Chronological Age Age at Diagnosis Type of deafness Age at CI fitting Length of CI use Communication Educational
with CI (years; months) (years; months) at diagnosis (years; months) (years; months) mode Placement
CI.1 F 9;5 0;6 Profound 2;3 7;2 Bilingual Mainstream

CI.2 F 9;6 1;8 Profound 2;7 6;9 Bilingual Special Education
CI.3 M 10 1;5 Profound 2;5 7;5 Bilingual Mainstream
CI.4 M 10;1 1;8 Severe 5;5 4;6 Spoken Language Mainstream
CI.6 M 10;8 2 Severe 8;2 2;7 Bilingual Mainstream
CI.7 M 12 2;6 Severe 5;4 6;6 Bilingual Mainstream
CI.9 M 12;1 2 Profound 4;2 7;9 Bilingual Mainstream
CI.10 M 12;3 1;5 Severe 6;3 6 Bilingual Mainstream
Table 5.2 CHRONOLOGICAL AGE, READING AGE, AND NON-VERBAL IQ
LEVEL OF COCHLEAR-IMPLANTED (CI) AND NORMAL HEARING (NH)
CHILDREN. FOR NH CHILDREN, MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
ARE PRESENTED
Chronological Reading Age PM47 Vocabulary

Age (EVIP)
Years; p Years; p Number Percentile Percentage p

months months of correct of correct
responses/36 responses
CI 9;5 10;1 34 90 37.8 ***

1 *** >.20
NH 10;4 (0;5) 10;3 (0;2) 33.2 (2.5) 75 70.5 (2.9)
CI 9;6 7;4 33 75 8.1 ***
2 *** >.20
NH 7;5 (0;3) 7;2 (0;1) 25 (4.9) 50 48.7 (3.6)
CI 10 8;6 32 50 40.5 ***
3 *** >.20
NH 9 (0;4) 8;6 (0;2) 32.9 (2.3) 75 61.9 (4.5)
CI 10;1 9;7 35 90 64.9 >.20
4 >.20 >.20
NH 9;7 (0;6) 9;7 (0;5) 31.3 (2.3) 50 68.9 (4)
CI 10;7 7;2 30 25 16.2 ***
5 *** >.20
NH 7;5 (0;3) 7;2 (0;1) 25 (4.9) 50 48.7 (3.6)
CI 10;8 10;1 33 50 21.6 ***
6 * >.20
NH 10;4 (0;5) 10;3 (0;2) 33.2 (2.5) 75 70.5 (2.9)
CI 12 6;6 30 25 16.2 ***
7 *** >.20
NH 6;7 (0;6) 6;6 (0;1) 24.1 (6.4) 75 52.7 (4.2)
CI 12;1 8;5 33 50 24.3 ***
8 *** >.20
NH 9 (0;4) 8;6 (0;2) 32.9 (2.3) 75 61.9 (4.5)
CI 12;1 9;4 30 25 54.1 ***
9 *** >.20
NH 9 (0;6) 9;2 (0;2) 30 (4.8) 50 65.9 (4.1)
CI 12;3 8;6 31 25 64.9 >.20
10 *** >.20
NH 9 (0;4) 8;6 (0;2) 32.9 (2.3) 75 61.9 (4.5)
Note: ***p < .001 and * p < .05
Measures
Word dictation test (from the BELEC: Mousty & Leybaert, 1999). The test is
made up of 40 items that are bisyllabic and trisyllabic words. Each word contains
a target grapheme. They were grouped into four conditions according to the com-
plexities of the French spelling system. Note that two conditions assess the ability
to use the phonological procedure by measuring the children’s spelling skills with
words that follow simple PGC rules.
Sp e ll i ng Acquis it i on i n Fr ench Ch i l d r en with Co ch l e a r I mpla n ts [61]

(1) Simple graphemes: One-to-one PGC (1 sound: 1 letter). The simple PGC
rule targets are simple consonants such as t and p (examples: t in matin (morning), p
in repas (meal)). These PGC rules are systematic and context-independent.
(2) Digraphs: phonemes represented by two-letter graphemes, that is,
one-to-two PGC (1 sound: 2 letters). These PGC rules are also systematic and
context-independent. The digraphs used were ch, on, and ou (ch in chambre (bed-
room), on in cochon (pig), ou in velours (velvet)).
Two conditions assess the children’s ability to use the orthographic procedure to
spell words that do not follow PGC rules.
(3) Contextual effects: PGC rules are not systematic and depend instead on
context. For example, the phoneme /s/ can be spelled with an s (dominant rule)
(example: silence) or with a c or an sc (secondary rule) (example: ciel (sky) and scie
(saw)). Different graphemes may also represent the same phoneme. In the contex-
tual effects condition, we exclusively assessed spelling skills for minority graphemes
(using c or sc for /s/), which are less frequently used for spelling /s/ in comparison
to s.
(4) Underivable refers to words containing a silent letter with no corresponding
phoneme. In these cases no rule or derivation from a morphological relationship
determines the appropriate grapheme [for example, silent letters such as s in jus
(juice) or the final t in appétit (appetite)].
In both of the latter two conditions (contextual effects and underivable), ortho-
graphic knowledge is required to correctly spell the word.
The children had to spell 10 items in each of the 4 conditions (simple graphemes
and digraphs, contextual effects and underivable).
Procedure
The children performed the dictation tasks individually. Testing took place in a
quiet room at the participants’ schools, ensuring good testing conditions. Each item
was dictated in a sentence that was pronounced twice. The children wrote their
responses in spaces indicated for this purpose on a sheet of paper. Items and condi-
tions were randomized.
Data Analysis
Each CI child was compared to a control group composed of 10 NH children. The

NH group data act as a benchmark for the CI children’s performance, and we were
also able to explore individual differences between CI users.
Each CI child’s score was compared to data from the corresponding NH group
using interquartile range (IQR) scores. IQR score is a measure of dispersion, which

gives information about the spread of the scores in a distribution. The interquartile
range is a more reliable indicator than parametric statistics because it eliminates
the outliers (the bottom 25% and top 25% of the distribution): it is equal to the
difference between the third and first quartile. If CI children scored below the fifth
percentile (which corresponds to 0.75*IQR below the first quartile), they were
categorized as outliers (Tukey, 1977). In this case, we considered their score to
be below the average performance of the NH controls and thus was outside the
population.
RESULTS
The scores of CI children on the spelling task relative to their reading age-matched
peers are reported in Table 5.3 and Figure 5.1; z-scores derived from BELEC nor-
mative data (for chronological age) are reported in Table 5.3.
Simple PGC Rules and Phonological Procedure
Simple graphemes. Six CI children out of 10 spelled simple consonants as accurately

as their reading-level matched control group. Four out of 10 had a lower percentage
of correct responses for simple PGC rules than NH children.
Table 5.3 SCORES (PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT RESPONSES) AND Z-SCORES

OF EACH CI CHILD (EXCEPT CI.7) FOR EACH CONDITION (SIMPLE
GRAPHEME, DIGRAPH, CONTEXTUAL EFFECT, UNDERIVABLE)
Subjects Grade Simple Grapheme Digraph Contextual Effect Underivable
Score z-score Score z-score Score z-score Score z-score
2 2 81.82 –1.20 70 –0.71 33.33 –0.96 16.67 –0.79

3 2 100 0.49 100 0.78 88.89 1.33 66.67 1.55
5 2 45.45 –4.59 50 –1.69 44.45 –0.50 16.67 –0.79
8 2 63.64 –2.90 60 –1.20 55.56 –0.04 66.67 1.55
10 2 100 0.49 100 0.78 66.67 0.41 50 0.77
1 4 90.91 –0.67 100 0.60 55.56 –2.07 66.67 –0.29
4 4 72.73 0.36 100 0.60 88.89 0.05 66.67 –0.29
6 4 81.82 –2.73 80 –1.11 66.67 –1.36 33.33 –1.85
9 4 100 –1.70 100 0.60 66.67 –1.36 66.67 –0.29
Note: z-scores were derived through population scores from BELEC normative data.
Spell i ng Acquisiti on i n Fr ench Ch i l dr en with Co ch l e a r I mpla nts [63]

Digraphs. Most of the CI children’s scores were similar to those of the reading-
level controls (7 out of 10 children). Three CI children scored below the distribu-
tion of their reading-level controls.
Scores for simple PGC rules, including both simple graphemes and digraphs,
were similar to controls (within the distribution) for children CI.1, CI.2, CI.3, CI.4,
CI.7 and CI.10. The scores of children CI.5, CI.6 and CI.8 were lower than those of
their NH control groups in both categories. Child CI.9’s score was lower than NH
controls for simple consonants but similar for digraphs (Figure 5.1).
Complex PGC Rules and the Orthographic Procedure
Contextual effects. As indicated in Figure 5.1, two CI children out of 10 were below

the NH distribution, seven obtained scores similar to NH children, and one child
obtained a better score than controls.
Underivable. For underivable PGC rules, the performance of eight CI children
out of 10 was similar to NH controls; one child scored better than controls, and one
child scored worse than NH controls.
In summary, the scores of children CI.2, CI.3, CI.4, CI.5, CI.7, CI.8, CI.9 and
CI.10 were similar to those of NH children for complex PGC rules; CI.6 obtained
lower scores than RL groups for both categories; and child CI.1 was scored lower
than NH controls for contextual effects items, but similarly to NH controls for under-
ivable items (Figure 5.1).
In general, the z-score analysis (Table 5.3) indicated similar difficulties than
IQR analysis. Scores for simple PGC rules, including both simple graphemes and
digraphs, were similar to controls (within the area below 5% and above 95% under a
normal density curve) for six CI children out of 10. Scores for complex PGC rules,
including both contextual effects and underivable conditions, were similar to con-
trols for 8 children out of 10.
DISCUSSION
The present study investigated the spelling skills of French CI children and sought to
compare them to those of NH control children matched for reading level. CI children
gain auditory access to language after a period of absence of reliable auditory expe-
rience, and their spelling skills are thus a question of specific interest. CI children’s
delayed oral language development was demonstrated by their poor performance on a
test of vocabulary. CI children scored below RL controls who were two years younger.
Data from the two phonological conditions (simple graphemes and digraphs)
showed that six out of 10 CI children apply PGC rules with accuracy similar to
NH children matched for reading level. Interestingly, these results show that most
of the CI children in this study were able to develop spelling skills which require

Simple Grapheme Digraph
100 100
Percentage of Correct
80 80
Responses
Responses
60 60
40 40
20 20
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Group Number Group Number
Contextual Effect Inderivable

100 100
80 80
Responses
Responses
60 60
40 40
20 20
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Group Number Group Number
Figure 5.1.
Box plot for the four spelling conditions (simple grapheme, digraph, contextual effect and underiv-
able). The delimitations of the box represent the lower quartile and the upper quartile from NH
data. The notches extend to Q1-0.75*IQR and Q3+0.75*IQR. The scores (percentage of correct
responses) of children with cochlear implants are represented by black points.
knowledge of PGC rules to a level comparable to that of reading age-matched chil-

dren with normal hearing.
The CI children who exhibited a deficit in the use of phonological processing in
spelling presented difficulties with both simple graphemes and digraphs. Deaf chil-
dren differ from each other in several important dimensions, notably chronological
age, age at diagnosis, type of deafness, age at CI fitting, length of CI use, communi-
cation mode, and placement education. These factors may undoubtedly influence
deaf children’s language development. CI.5, CI.8 and CI.9 are the children who had
selective difficulties in using phonological processing in spelling, all three presented
profound hearing loss from birth, and they were also the ones who received their
implants the latest among the children with profound deafness. These preliminary
results suggest that age at implantation and degree of hearing loss can significantly
affect the development of phonological processing. Because other factors could
modulate their effects, future studies are needed to explore this issue.
We also observed that the majority of CI children (8 out of 10) scored similarly
to or better than NH children matched for reading age in the two orthographic
Spell i ng Acquisiti on i n Fr en ch Ch i l dr en with Co ch l e a r I mpla nts [65]

conditions (contextual effects and underivable). Only child CI.6 scored lower
than NH controls in both conditions, and she is the only child who exhibited
difficulties with both phonological and orthographic processing in spelling. It is
important to consider the singular characteristics of this child in the evaluation
of her spelling skills; this child was also the latest implanted and the one who had
been using her implant for the shortest period out of all the CI children who par-
ticipated in our study.
Overall, the CI children in this study seemed to be better at acquiring spelling
skills requiring orthographic knowledge than those requiring phonological process-
ing. Although 9 CI children out of 10 succeeded in spelling words in the contextual
effects and underivable conditions, only 6 CI children out of 10 performed well in
the simple grapheme and digraph conditions. Our data suggest that CI children’s
spelling in French might have an important orthographic component and that they
can develop orthographic representations of words even if they have not devel-
oped fine-grained phonological processing. This result is congruent with findings
from previous studies performed with deaf children without CI devices (Burden &
Campbell, 1994; Leybaert, 2000; Sutcliffe, Dowker, & Campbell, 1999).
Nevertheless, these results differ somewhat from those of previous studies in
NH children, which have evidenced a bootstrapping mechanism whereby PGC
rules enable the development of orthographic knowledge. Among the 4 CI chil-
dren with difficulties in phonological processing, only one spelled words in ortho-
graphic conditions with lesser accuracy than NH children. Thus, some CI children
showed good orthographic processing but poorer phonological processing. This
result, which does not support the bootstrapping connection between the develop-
ment of phonological and orthographic processing, could be explained by the fact
that the CI children were older than NH children. The CI children could thus have
been sufficiently exposed to the orthographic patterns of words to encode them
accurately in spite of a deficit in phonological processing.
The present study, in line with that of Hayes et al. (2011), showed that most CI
children can use phonological information in spelling, but do not do so as success-
fully as hearing children. Strategies such as the use of cued speech, allowing CI chil-
dren to compensate for their phonological difficulties, could help them to acquire
better spelling skills. The strong PGC rules established through cued speech allow
CI children to develop spelling skills similar to those of NH children matched for
grade level, whereas CI children who have never been exposed to cued speech score
lower on spelling tasks that depend on PGC rules and orthographic knowledge
(Leybaert et al., 2009). In keeping with the findings of Leybaert et al. (2009), a
recent study (Bouton, Serniclaes, Bertoncini, & Colé, 2011) showed that deaf CI
children who had received intensive cued speech instruction developed phonemic
awareness and reading skills to the same level as NH children matched for chrono-
logical age. In order to provide more information to practitioners, future research
should extend these findings by investigating the influence of cued speech on CI
children’s ability to acquire phonological strategies for written tasks.

A comprehensive and accurate assessment of the spelling skills of CI children
remains an ambitious goal. Individual characteristics might influence the success of
spelling acquisition: notably, the age of implantation and the degree of hearing loss.
A quantification of their role is essential for allowing a better support by speech
therapist. Finally, this study shows that CI children may learn to spell differently
than NH children. Examining the relative importance of phonological and ortho-
graphical processing in CI children’s spelling in greater depth is another interesting
goal for future research.
NOTES
1. Of interest in this analysis was the question of whether the errors of deaf children with
cochlear implants were phonologically plausible—indicating the use of phonological
knowledge during spelling. Spelling was considered plausible if each of the phonemes in
the word was spelled, in correct left-to-right sequence, using a letter or pair of letters that
aligns with the corresponding phoneme in any position in any of the words. For example,
gosst would be considered a plausible misspelling of ghost, but not xths or ghots.
2. Wilcoxon test.
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Spelli ng Acquisition i n Fr ench Ch i ldr en with Co ch le a r I mpla nts [69]

CHAPTER 6
Spelling Abilities in Hebrew-Speaking

RONIT LEVIE, DORIT R AVID, TAL FREUD, AND TOVA MOST
SPELLING HEBREW MORPHOLOGY
One view of spelling in alphabetical orthographies is that it represents phonology by

orthographic units (Goswami, 2002). Words such as English step illustrate a regular
and transparent phoneme-grapheme relationship that can be easily inferred from the
application of a broad generalization. However, many English words such as daugh-
ter illustrate an irregular, less consistent and transparent, sometimes idiosyncratic
relationship between phonology and orthography, requiring some rote learning.
A major source of irregular spelling comes from homophony—where phonological
segments (from phoneme to [sub]syllables to words) can be written by two (or more)
different graphemes. An example of word homophony would be English their/there
or the Dutch diphthong /ey/ which is spelled either as -ei- or -ij-. Opacity in the
phonology-orthography link is a hindrance to correct spelling. In cross-linguistic per-
spective, the rate of spelling acquisition in grade school is faster in transparent orthog-
raphies, such as Czech (Caravolas, 2004), German (Wimmer & Landerl, 1997),
Greek (Nikolopoulos, Goulandis, Hulme, & Snowling, 2006), Indonesian (Winskel
& Widjaja, 2007), or Spanish (Defior & Serrano, 2005). The rate of spelling acquisi-
tion is slower in less transparent orthographies such as English (Holmes & Malone,
2004; Treiman & Kessler, 2005), Finnish ( Järvikivi, Bertram, & Niemi, 2006),
French (Bosse, Valdois, & Tainturier, 2003) or (nonvoweled) Arabic (Abu-Rabia &
Taha, 2006). The current chapter examines spelling and morphology skills in deaf
children learning to spell in Hebrew, whose orthography is highly homophonous.
Research has shown that spelling knowledge requires finer-grained map-
pings than the phonology-orthography interface (Holmes & Babauta, 2005).
For example, children learning deep orthographies such as those of English and
French make implicit use of orthographic regularities (Kemp & Bryant, 2003;
Pacton, Perruchet, Fayol, & Cleeremans, 2001). Considering spelling patterns
in word-specific sites (i.e., positions) can help even beginning English spellers
detect underlying statistical consistencies and predict spelling patterns with some
accuracy (Kessler & Treiman, 2003). A major factor in affecting opaque phonol-
ogy-orthography relations is the ability to detect morphological units in spelling
development. For example, the English adjective suffix -ic has three different pho-
netic values in electric, electricity, and electrician –/k/ in the adjective, /s/ in the
nominal derived from the adjective preceding the abstract suffix -ity, and /sh/ in
the agent noun derived from the adjective preceding the agent suffix -ian. All three
phonological variations are spelled uniformly by the letter sequence -ic- signify-
ing the adjective suffix. Such morphological knowledge plays a key role in adults’
spelling abilities (Sandra, 2007; Templeton & Morris, 2000). Morphologically
motivated orthographic representations can be assumed to exist in the linguistic
cognition of mature spellers, and they can serve to facilitate spelling in cases of
disrupted phoneme-to-grapheme mapping. By now, the recruitment of morpho-
logical knowledge is recognized to feature at various phases of the acquisition of
spelling in a range of languages such as English (Deacon & Dhooge, 2010; Walker
& Hauerwas, 2006), Danish ( Jull, 2005), Dutch (Rispens, McBride-Chang,
& Reitsma, 2008), Finnish (Aro, 2005), French (Pacton & Fayol, 2003), Greek
(Chliounaki & Bryant, 2002), Korean (Kim, 2010), Portuguese (Rosa & Nunes,
2008), Spanish (Defior, Alegrıa, Titos, & Martos, 2008)—and, of course, Hebrew
(Ravid, 2005, 2011).
A prominent feature that is known to affect spelling acquisition and processing
is language typology. This term refers to the set of frequent and salient properties
and types of structures and devices that factor most highly in encoding linguistic
information in a specific language (Croft, 1990; Cysouw, 2005). Language typol-
ogy draws the attention of learners from early on and shapes the way they think
about their spoken and written language (Berman, 1986; Olson, 1994; Slobin,
2001). Morphlogy has been shown to be the most prominent typological feature in
Hebrew (Ravid, 2012), and is critical in gaining command of spelling knowledge in
Hebrew, a language with a rich morphology (Ravid, 2003).
The Hebrew orthography is alphabetical, with the typical grapho-phonemic
relationship holding between phonology and written graphemes. For example,
‫ ג‬stands for G, and ‫ נ‬stands for N. It is written from right to left. The Hebrew
alphabet has 22 letters, of which 18 designate consonants alone, whereas the other
four—AHWY ‫—אהוי‬have a double function of standing for both consonants and
vowels. The universally used so-called nonvoweled orthographic version relies
on the 22 letters alone, with consequent under-representation of vowels, which
is why it is considered deep or opaque. A second, transparent, orthographic ver-
sion of Hebrew fully represents the phonological values of both consonants and
vowels. However, it is mainly used for beginner reading instruction, and in special
Sp e ll i n g i n H e b r e w - Sp e a k i n g C h i l d r e n w i t h H e a r i n g L o s s [ 7 1 ]
communicative contexts requiring precise enunciation of Hebrew words, such as
poetry and Bible reading.
Spelling errors in Hebrew mainly derive from neutralized phonological distinc-
tions (or mergers) of historically distinct phonemes that have rendered Modern
Hebrew phonology very different from its classical counterparts. Several sets of clas-
sical consonants have merged, resulting in loss of historical phonological distinctions,
whereas the Hebrew orthography continues to mark these distinctions by separate
letters (Bolozky, 1997; Ravid, 2005, 2012). When phonological distinctions are no
longer directly encoded in the orthography, homophony is entailed: a single pho-
neme can be spelled by more than one grapheme. For example, historically emphatic
/ţ/ and nonemphatic /t/ are now merged into a single unmarked phoneme—the
homophonous voiceless alveo-dental stop /t/. These historical phonological distinc-
tions are now expressed, respectively, in the letters Ţ‫ ט‬and T ‫ת‬. Homophony of /t/ is
thus one example of a source of spelling errors in Hebrew.
The reflection of ancient and defunct phonological distinctions in the form of
current homophony and distinct graphemes such as /t/ just described is the main
source of spelling errors in Modern Hebrew. Yet Hebrew morphology, its most
distinct typological property, is a substantial aid in overcoming homophony and
avoiding spelling errors based on their morphological roles. The written Hebrew
word consists of an obligatory lexical core—a root or a stem—with derivational,
inflectional and morpho-syntactic affixes flanking it at both sides in systematic
order, that is, an envelope of affix letters. Root and affix letters not only have differ-
ent morphological roles and orthographic sites in the written Hebrew word, they
differently affect the pace of spelling acquisition (Ravid, 2006). In the case of the
22 root letters, homophony, coupled with high type and low token frequency, poses
serious challenges to spelling acquisition. The only way to learn to spell homopho-
nous root letters is frequent exposure to written words, which takes a long time and
requires a robust spoken and written lexicon (Gillis & Ravid, 2006; Ravid, 2005).
However, in the case of the 11 homophonous affix letters with their high token fre-
quency, overcoming homophony is much easier: In most of the cases, only one of
the homophonous pair belongs to the set of affix letters. For example, only the spell-
ing of T ‫ ת‬can be selected for /t/ as an affix letter, as the other option of Ţ‫ ט‬serves
only as a root letter. Therefore, the correct spelling of homophonous affix letters is
earlier and more robust than spelling the same homophonous segment in the role
of a root letter (Ravid, 2012; Ravid & Bar-On, 2005).
Hebrew-speaking children are able from early on to detect and make use of mor-
phological cues such as the role of root versus affix letters. Given the morphological
underpinnings of Hebrew spelling, it is clear that morphology and orthography are
irrevocably linked in Hebrew literacy acquisition in mutual bootstrapping (Ravid,
2012). This is not the result of explicit teaching, as spelling is not taught system-
atically in Israel. If at all, children may be tested sporadically on what teachers per-
ceive as “hard words”, but there is no systematic morphology-based instruction
of Hebrew spelling (Ravid & Gillis, 2002). The majority (85%) of children with

hearing loss in Israel attend regular schools (either in dedicated classes or in regular
classes) and are thus exposed to the spoken language and to the regular curricula.
SPELLING IN DEAF CHILDREN AND CHILDREN WITH

HEARING LOSS
Morphological representations, as well as orthographic representations, inter-

face with phonology. As phonological representations are coarser grained and
less robust in deaf readers (Friesen & Joanisse, 2012), the question raised in the
current study is whether children with hearing loss would show the same learn-
ing patterns of their hearing peers regarding spelling and morphological skills. Past
research has shown that deaf adult students are able to detect morphological struc-
ture in complex English words, though this ability is not as well developed as in
hearing peers (Gaustad & Kelly, 2004). Likewise, new research about Dutch has
found that deaf children have a smaller and less-robust lexicon and perform less
well on morphological analysis (Coppens, Tellings, Verhoeven, & Schreuder, 2011;
Van Hoogmoed, Verhoeven, Schreuder, & Knoors, 2011). The present exploratory
study investigated whether Hebrew-speaking children with hearing loss would rely
on morphology in spelling like their hearing peers. The richness and salience of
Hebrew morphology, coupled with its frequent and clear expression in Hebrew
orthography (Ravid, 2012), would generate the hypothesis that even children with
hearing loss would be able to find stable cues in the morpho-orthography interface
and use them to their own advantage in learning to spell correctly. Such a prediction
is supported by studies such as Dromi, Leonard, & Shteiman (1993), indicating
that language-impaired children growing up in a morphology-rich language are bet-
ter equipped to grasp the word structure; and also by studies such as Most, Levin
& Sarsour (2008), demonstrating that full and precise orthographic representation
assists Arabic-speaking children with hearing loss in constructing phonological
representations. We thus designed the current study, which examined spelling and
morphology skills in Hebrew-speaking children and adolescents with hearing loss
(HL henceforth) compared with established abilities of hearing peers.
METHOD
Participants
This chapter is partially based on the MA thesis written by the third author (Tal
Freud), and it compares the performance of a group of children with HL with a
population of hearing children of a similar age range—192 participants in Gillis &
Ravid (2006) and Ravid (2002). The hearing students were of the same socioeco-
nomic status as the participants with HL of the current study, and, like them, were
monolingual Hebrew speakers.
The group of participants with HL consisted of 21 children whose schooling
levels ranged from first to ninth grade. All the children attended regular schools
with hearing children in the south of Israel. Recruiting each participant to the study
involved getting the permission of parents via the cooperation of school principals.
Parents who consented to their child’s participation provided us with information
regarding the child’s hearing loss and demographic background. All the children
had bilateral preverbal sensorineural hearing loss. The hearing loss of the children
ranged from moderate to severe (45 dB to 90 dB pure tone average of 500 Hz, 1000
Hz and 2000 Hz in the better ear). All the children had hearing aids and they used
spoken language as their mode of communication. They had no difficulties other
than the hearing loss. All the children had normal hearing parents and their families
had similar socioeconomic status (mid-high). In addition to the information that
was obtained from the parents, we relied on reports from school principals as well
as assessments from SHEMA, which is an Israeli nonprofit association serving chil-
dren aged 7-18 years, with hearing loss. The 21 participants were grouped into four
blocks, as follows: Block I with grades 1 & 2 (4 children), Block II with grades 3 &
4 (4 children), Block III with grades 5 & 6 (6 children), and Block IV with grades
7, 8, and 9 (7 children). The distribution participants by age, grade, and block is
presented in Table 6.1.
The current chapter focuses on the spelling skills of our participants. Data were
also collected on their verbal skills, specifically, their knowledge of Hebrew gram-
matical and morphological structures, but these data will not be presented here.
The Spelling Task
The Hebrew Spelling Task (HST henceforth) initially designed for the Hebrew
part of the Gillis & Ravid (2006) cross-linguistic study of spelling development in
Hebrew- and Dutch-speaking children. It was a dictation task of 32 words contain-
ing homophonous letters, which consisted of four categories:
Category (1)—morphological and morphophonological cues: 8 homopho-
nous items containing the same segment /v/ (neutralized /w/ and /b/) that may
be spelled either by W ‫ ו‬or B ‫ב‬. All items were both morphologically cued (that
is, root versus affix letters) and morphophonologically cued (stop/spirant alterna-
tion); for example, in the form va-ir ‘and-city’, /v/ designates the coordinator ‘and’
spelled W ‫ו‬. In u-vahir "and-bright”, /v/ is a root letter (cf. b-h-r ‘bright’) spelled B ‫ב‬.
Category (2)—morphophonological cues only: 8 homophonous items in the
same morphological pattern, containing a surface /x/ (neutralization /h/ or spiran-
tized /k/) as a root letter. The morphophonological clue is the low vowel associated
with /x/ deriving from /h/, spelled as ‫ ח‬and not as ‫כ‬. This is how the different spell-
ings of the final /x/ in dérex ‘road’ and kérax ‘ice’ are recoverable.
Category (3)—morphological cues only (root versus affix letters): 8 homopho-
nous items containing the segment /t/ spelled as either -t-T ‫ ת‬or -ţ- Ţ ‫ ט‬with a

Table 6.1 AGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE 21 PARTICIPANTS WITH HEARING LOSS
Participant Age during Testing Blocks and Grades
1 7;3 I - Grades 1 & 2

2 8;1 I - Grades 1 & 2
3 8;4 I - Grades 1 & 2
4 8;7 I - Grades 1 & 2
5 9;6 II - Grades 3 & 4
6 9;8 II - Grades 3 & 4
7 9;5 II - Grades 3 & 4
8 10;4 II - Grades 3 & 4
9 11;7 III - Grades 5 & 6
10 11;2 III - Grades 5 & 6
11 12;6 III - Grades 5 & 6
12 12;3 III - Grades 5 & 6
13 12;0 III - Grades 5 & 6
14 12;8 III - Grades 5 & 6
15 13;1 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
16 14;2 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
17 14;5 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
18 14;4 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
19 14;4 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
20 14;11 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
21 15;5 IV - Grades 7, 8 & 9
distinct morphological functions: /t/ standing for a function letter is always spelled
‫ת‬, whereas /t/ standing for a root letter may be spelled as either ‫ ת‬or ‫ט‬. For exam-
ple, in kashot ‘hard-boiled,pl, fem’, -ot is a feminine plural suffix, and is, therefore,
spelled as ‫ת‬, whereas mashot ‘oar’ is spelled with a final root letter ‫( ט‬root š-w-ţ ‘sail’).
Category (4)—no cues: 8 homophonous items with no cues at all (phonologi-
cal, morphological or morphophonological). Test items were pairs of words con-
taining the vowel i, which may or may not be spelled by Y ‫י‬, such as in min ‘from’
spelled MN ‫ מן‬vs. min ‘gender’ spelled MYN ‫מין‬.
Procedure
One of the investigators (third author) met with each child individually in a quiet
room. Participants received a response sheet on which the spelling test was printed,
and they were asked to spell the target words, presented in a sentential context to
ensure clear and nonambiguous understanding. Each carrier sentence contained
one target word. The target word preceded the sentence and followed it, as well as
being contained in it, as in the following example: “kashot ‘hard-boiled, pl, fem’,
axalti hayom beytsim kashot ‘I ate today hard-boiled eggs.’ Please write kashot.” The
investigator told the child “You are going to hear a sentence with a word you need to
write down. Listen to the sentence and write down the word.” The sentence was read
aloud by the investigator four times, and at the end of the reading the child was
asked to write down the target word (rather than the full sentence).
RESULTS
The HST task was taken from Gillis and Ravid (2006) and Ravid (2002), and its
results were compared with the 192 hearing children of these studies. The only dif-
ference in age range was the fact that the hearing participants stopped at grade 6.
We first present the overall results of the HST, showing that spelling success in both
groups of hearing children and children with HL increases with age and schooling
level and that spelling performance seems to develop at the same pace in the group
of children with HL as in the hearing peers (Table 6.2).
Following this general comparison, we proceeded to examine spelling abilities
across the four categories of the HST. Figures 6.1 (hearing children) and 6.2 (chil-
dren with HL) below present correct spelling on the four categories of the HST,
showing that for both groups, the no-cues category is the most difficult, whereas
the categories with morphological and morphophonological cues promote better
performance in both groups of children.
We now proceed to examine knowledge of specific morpho-orthographic pat-
terns in the HST categories.
Category 1 (morphological and morphophonological cues): ‫ ו‬and ‫ ב‬as root let-
ters. This category focused on letters ‫ ו‬and ‫ ב‬standing for the homophonous
Table 6.2 PERCENTAGE (%) OF CORRECT SPELLINGS ON HST IN HEARING

CHILDREN (RAVID, 2002) AND IN CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS
(CURRENT STUDY)
Ravid (2002) Current Study

Hearing participants Participants with moderate to severe hearing loss
G1 61.0 G1-G2 65.2

G2 68.0
G3 81.0 G3-G4 84.0
G4 82.0
G5 92.0 G5-G6 91.7
G6 93.0
G7-8-9 --------- G7-8-9 92.4

100%
90%
80%
70% G1
60% G2
G3
50%
G4
40% G5
30% G6
20%
10%
0%
Morpho+Morpho Morpho–phon Morpho No cues
–phon
Figure 6.1.
Correct Spelling on the HST by Hearing Children (Ravid, 2002, in percentages).
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
G1-2
50% G3-4
G5-6
40% G7-8-9
30%
20%
10%
Morpho+Morpho Morpho–phon Morpho No cues

–phon
Figure 6.2.
Correct spelling on the HST by participants with hearing loss (current study, in percentages).
segment /v/. The morphological cue in the category consisted of the fact that
both letters can function as either root or affix letters (Ravid, 2012), whereas the
morphophonological cue was the fact that ‫ ב‬may stand for either /b/ or /v/ based
on the morphological environment (Gillis & Ravid, 2006). In the current context
we compared correct spelling of ‫ ו‬and ‫ ב‬as root letters in the two populations, as
shown in Table 6.3. Success rates seem parallel in the two groups and patterns of
Table 6.3 PERCENTAGE (%) OF CORRECT SPELLINGS OF (1) ‫ ו‬AND ‫ ב‬AS
ROOT LETTERS; AND (2) ‫ כ‬AND ‫ ח‬AS ROOT LETTERS IN HEARING CHILDREN
(RAVID, 2002) AND IN CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS (CURRENT STUDY)

‫ו‬ ‫ב‬ ‫ו‬ ‫ב‬

G1 63.5 62.0 G1-G2 87.5 50.0
G2 71.0 66.5
G3 95.0 76.5 G3-G4 100 87.5
G4 92.0 81.5
G5 99 88.5 G5-G6 100 91.5
G6 100 94.0
G7-8-9 --------- G7-8-9 100 100
‫ח‬ ‫כ‬ ‫ח‬ ‫כ‬
G1 72.7 36.0 G1-G2 75.0 43.8
G2 85.0 38.0
G3 88.7 70.0 G3-G4 81.25 81.3
G4 90.7 71.0
G5 93.5 89.0 G5-G6 91.5 95.8
G6 96.5 89.0
G7-8-9 --------- G7-8-9 96.3 96.3
acquisition seem also similar. In both groups, ‫ ו‬is probably perceived earlier and
better as the representative of /v/ as a root letter. This is because ‫ ו‬consistently
and across the board represents /v/, whereas the main phonological role of ‫ ב‬is
representing the stop /b/, with /v/ being a marked alternative occurring in highly
restricted morphophonological environments. Even more specifically, the items
testing ‫ ו‬and ‫ ב‬as root letters in the HST focused on initial root position, which
restricts the /v/ pronunciation even more.
Category 2 (morphophonological cues): ‫ כ‬and ‫ ח‬as root letters. This category
focused on letters ‫ ח‬and ‫ כ‬standing for the homophonous segment /x/. The mor-
phophonological cue in the category consisted of the fact that ‫ ח‬attracts vowel low-
ering, whereas ‫ כ‬alternates between designating a stop /k/ or a fricative /x/ (Gillis
& Ravid, 2006; Ravid, 2012). There was no morphological cue in this category, as
both letters designated only root letters. Table 6.3 shows correct spelling of ‫ ח‬and ‫כ‬
as root letters in the two groups. Both groups show increase for the two letters with
age and schooling, and in both of them ‫ ח‬has higher scores from the beginning.
This category also shows some difference among the two groups, with the hearing
children having a shallower learning curve for ‫כ‬, whereas the participants with HL
of the current study reaching the same score for both letters by grades 3–4. Here we
may posit some advantage to the children with hearing loss, given that they are less

Table 6.4 PERCENTAGE (%) OF CORRECT SPELLINGS OF (1) ‫ ת‬AND ‫ ט‬AS
ROOT LETTERS; AND (2) ABSENT AND PRESENT ‫ י‬IN HEARING CHILDREN
(RAVID, 2002) AND IN CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS (CURRENT STUDY)

‫ת‬ ‫ט‬ ‫ת‬ ‫ט‬

G1 84.0 10.5 G1-G2 87.5 37.5
G2 89.5 29.0
G3 85.0 69.0 G3-G4 87.5 37.5
G4 83.0 59.5
G5 83.5 90.5 G5-G6 91.5 100
G6 77.0 88.5
G7-8-9 --------- G7-8-9 85.0 85.0
‫ י‬absent ‫ י‬present ‫ י‬absent ‫ י‬present
G1 21.2 72.0 G1-G2 62.5 68.7
G2 20.2 85.5
G3 40.0 92.0 G3-G4 81.25 81.2
G4 59.5 88.2
G5 78.5 97.0 G5-G6 91.5 91.5
G6 84.2 95.2
G7-8-9 --------- G7-8-9 85.0 85.7
affected by the phonological identity between the two letters and thus rely more
on the morpho-orthographic representations with less interference by phonology.
Category 3 (morphological cues): ‫ ת‬and ‫ ט‬as root letters. This category focused
on letters ‫ ת‬and ‫ ט‬standing for the homophonous segment /t/. The morpholog-
ical cue in the category consisted of the fact that only ‫ ת‬can function as either
root or affix letter, while ‫ ט‬is always a root letter (Ravid, 2012). There was no
morphophonological cue in this category, since none of the letters in Modern
Hebrew stand for conditioned alternations of stops and spirants (Gillis & Ravid,
2006). Again a similar pattern emerges in this study across the two groups. In the
case of ‫ת‬, the most frequent affix letter in Hebrew, there is practically no learn-
ing going on in either group (see Table 6.4). The other /t/ alternant, ‫ט‬, shows
very low scores in the lower grades, and more so in the participants with HI, with
dramatic improvement in the higher grades. What seems to be taking place across
the board is ‫ ת‬standing as a single alternant for /t/, given its ubiquitousness and
double role as an affix and root letter, with the gradual revision of this perception
in the higher grades as ‫ ט‬comes to occupy its proper place in the map of Hebrew
phono-morpho-orthography.
Category 4 (no cues): insertion of ‫ י‬to signify the vowel i. The last category involved
no morphological cues, and consisted of items in which the vowel letter ‫ י‬had to
Table 6.5 PERCENTAGE (%) OF CORRECT SPELLINGS FOR HOMOPHONOUS
AFFIX AND ROOT LETTERS IN HEARING CHILDREN (RAVID, 2002) AND IN
CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS (CURRENT STUDY)

Affix letters Root letters Affix letters Root letters
G1 87.5 54.7 G1-G2 87.5 65.63

G2 94.0 64.13
G3 97.7 81.2 G3-G4 96.88 81.25
G4 94.88 78.88
G5 97.38 90.38 G5-G6 93.75 89.5
G6 99.38 89.88
G7-8-9 --------- G7-8-9 96.25 92.88
be inserted or else withheld following complex morphophonological and ortho-

graphic conditions. As detailed in Ravid (2012) and tested in Gillis and Ravid
(2006) and Ravid (2002), these conditions are extremely opaque so that Hebrew
speakers have to rely on rote memory for each word with some generalizations,
which are not entirely robust. Interestingly, participants with HL do better on
words without ‫י‬, which might be the result of their early exposure to the written
language modality (see Table 6.4).
Root vs. affix letters. A final comparison is on the spelling of homophonous root
and affix letters. According to the analyses in previous research on hearing popula-
tions, homophonous affix letters are easier to spell than root letters since they have
clear morphological roles associated with only one of the orthographic variants, for
example, only ‫ ת‬has affix functions, whereas ‫ ט‬serves only as a root letter. Moreover,
affix letters constitute a small set with low type frequency and extremely high token
frequency, making them easy to learn. Indeed, as Table 6.5 shows, both groups have
very similar results, with affix letters clearly taking precedence over root letters, as
predicted.
CONCLUSION
The comparison of correct spelling on the HST by hearing children and children
with hearing loss yielded rather surprising results: These preliminary results show
that on all parts of the task children with HL did just as well as hearing children of
comparable ages, whereas in a few cases the children with HL had slightly better
scores. Moreover, in this study we found apparently the same patterns of spelling
acquisition for both groups at the general and at specific levels of analysis. Thus,
our results suggest that the rich and complex morpho-orthographic construction

of Hebrew spelling might impact children with HL as much as it does hearing chil-
dren, with the additional factor that for children with HL phonological identity
plays a slightly less significant role in spelling of homophonous letters. Like Dromi
et al. (1993), we found that exposure to the extremely rich morphology of Hebrew
is a key factor in overcoming a disability that might hinder children learning less
morphologically rich languages.
DISCUSSION
Like previous studies focusing on the morphological richness of Hebrew in compar-

ison with other languages (e.g., Dromi et al., 1993; Ravid et al., 2008), and specifi-
cally on the importance of morphology in spelling Hebrew (Gillis & Ravid, 2006),
we have found that rich morphological input may support spelling knowledge even
in children with hearing loss. This is because spelling constitutes part of a linguistic
network, implying a systematic relationship with structural domains—phonology
and morpho-phonology—on the one hand, and with meaning and function—lexi-
con, morpho-syntax, derivational and inflectional morphology—on the other.
At the beginning of this chapter, we made the hypothesis that children with HL
might benefit from the rich and robust morpho-orthographic information provided
by the structure of written Hebrew words despite their poor phonological abilities.
This hypothesis seems to be supported by the results of this study. Our findings
suggest that Hebrew-speaking children with hearing loss may not be impeded by
homophony and rely on morphological cues just as much as their hearing peers.
Some of the results of this study show, however, that this knowledge may arrive
somewhat later in the children with hearing loss (see Table 6.4), suggesting that
they might need some more time to organize their spelling knowledge in view of
written morpho-orthographic constructs, whereas such links may be forged much
earlier in hearing children.
The fact that the small group of older HL participants did particularly poorly
(see Table 6.4) may be attributed to the fact that several of them reported reluc-
tance in using their hearing aids at all times and may have consequently lost
verbal information, unlike the younger groups. As teenagers they might have
regarded the hearing aid as stigmatized, as reported in other studies (Arnold &
MacKenzie, 1998; Blood, 1997; Kent & Smith, 2006). Another possible expla-
nation might be the fact that currently deaf children are diagnosed and reha-
bilitated earlier and better than in the previous decade and, therefore, younger
deaf children might have an easier time responding to verbal (including spell-
ing) tasks. Our clinical recommendations not only focus on the importance of
early diagnosis and rehabilitation of hearing loss, but also on the importance of
hearing aids in rehabilitation across the school years, and finally on intensive
and extensive work on spoken and written tasks in the older age groups with
hearing loss.
Given the limitations of this study, we would like to see in the future a system-
atic replication of the current spelling task in much larger groups of deaf participants
across grade school and junior high school, which would provide us with meaningful
statistical information. Also, the current study examined spelling skills in participants
with moderate to severe hearing loss, and thus its results cannot currently be extended
to children with more severe hearing loss who do not attend regular schools, to chil-
dren rehabilitated by simultaneous language, or to children with cochlear implant
devices implanted at different ages. Nevertheless, this exploratory study shows that
knowledge of morphology may support spelling in Hebrew in children with hearing
loss, indicating potential avenues for future intervention. Thus, if replicated with chil-
dren with profound hearing loss, highlighting the relationship between morphology
and spelling would be of great interest in helping HL children learn to spell and read.
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CHAPTER 7
The Influence of Verbal Working

Memory on Writing Skills in Children
with Hearing Loss
BARBAR A ARFÉ, FEDERICA NICOLINI, AND
ELENA POZZEBON
W hen writing, children with hearing loss (henceforth HL) can generate as many
ideas as their hearing peers and can organize them in a logical order—for
example, by temporal and causal—relations (Almargot, Lambert, Thebault, & Dansac,
2007; Arfé & Boscolo, 2006). However, they experience difficulty translating their
ideas into words, sentences, and discourse structures. They write fewer words (Spencer,
Barker, & Tomblin, 2003), make more spelling errors than their peers (Alamargot
et al., 2007; Colombo, Arfé, & Bronte, 2012) and struggle in generating grammatical
relations between words and sentences, and connecting them in a text (Antia, Reed,
& Kreimeyer, 2005; Arfé & Perondi, 2008; Musselman, & Szanto, 1998). Many fac-
tors combine to hinder text production in children with HL, but their poor phono-
logical and morphological skills seem to be particularly important. Phonological skills
primarily have been associated with children’s difficulties in transcription (Colombo
Arfé, & Bronte, 2012), whereas morphological skills reflect limited or incorrect use of
linguistic devices such as pronouns, articles, prepositions and conjunctions (free mor-
phology) and of suffixes necessary for grammatical agreement (bound morphology)
(Geers, Nicholas, & Sedey, 2003; Spencer et al., 2003), which is clearly a great problem
in morphologically rich languages like Italian (Arfé & Perondi, 2008).
The association between these linguistic skills and the working memory skills of
children with HL have been neglected in research studies on writing. Nevertheless,
verbal working memory sustains the child’s ability to spell words, relate words in a
text, and support the coordination of spelling with other writing processes (see for
example Millogo, 2005; Kellogg, 1996; Swanson & Berninger, 1996).
The relationship between verbal working memory and written production is
both developmental and concurrent. Verbal working memory skills can explain
differences in language development and the acquisition of spelling (Baddeley,
Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998; Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990; Steinbrink & Klatte,
2008), which, in turn, influences the acquisition of writing. The relationship is also
concurrent, because the two systems of working memory and language production
(oral and written) share some components and draw on similar cognitive resources,
such as phonological encoding, serial ordering, and the processing and mainte-
nance of verbal information (Acheson & Mac Donald, 2009).
For children with HL, measures of verbal working memory have been shown
to be one of the best predictors of oral language and reading acquisition (Cleary,
Pisoni, & Geers, 2001; Geers, 2003; Pisoni & Cleary, 2003). Therefore, it is surpris-
ing that only one study to date has focused on the relationship between working
memory and writing in deaf children (Alamargot et al., 2007). Our study extends
this work by demonstrating how even a relatively simple working memory mea-
sure (the Digit Span task) can explain differences in a complex linguistic activity
such as writing. Productivity, grammar (clause construction), cohesion, and spell-
ing are the areas of written text production that are most compromised in children
with hearing loss (Alamargot et al., 2007; Antia et al., 2005; Arfé & Perondi, 2008;
Spencer et al., 2003; Wilbur, 1977). As such, we are especially interested in exam-
ining these aspects of writing performance in relation to working memory.
VERBAL WORKING-MEMORY IN CHILDREN WITH

HEARING LOSS
The expression “working memory” refers to a complex temporary- memory system

that encodes, maintains and elaborates information, and executive control func-
tions which enable the system to sustain the attention and regulate the effort during
the task.
Past research has shown that children with HL have specific weaknesses
when encoding and maintaining verbal and nonverbal information in serial order
in working memory tasks. Children and adults with HL are not sensitive to the
temporal order of information in the same way as their hearing peers (Rudner,
Andin, & Rönnberg, 2009; Rudner, Davidsson & Rönnberg, 2010; Rudner &
Rönnberg, 2008). It is assumed that this is directly related to the effects of early
auditory deprivation. Indeed, the cognitive processing abilities necessary to serially
encode, maintain, and retrieve verbal information seem to develop as a result of
the child’s early auditory experiences and language acquisition, which are hypoth-
esized to directly shape these mechanisms and the verbal working memory system
(Cleary et al., 2001). In children with HL, early auditory deprivation may hinder

this development, with consequences on the acquisition of verbal language and the
development of reading and writing.
ASSESSING WORKING MEMORY BY DIGIT SPAN TASKS
Digit span tasks are simple tasks commonly used to assess the individuals’ ability to
hold serial information in verbal working memory, to concentrate and to manipu-
late that information to produce some result. Digit span tasks are components of
the widely used Wechsler intelligence scales for adults and children (Wechsler,
1997a, 1997b). The Wechsler’s Digit Span subscales provide two different mea-
sures of verbal working memory: a forward and a backward digit span. Both are
measures of recall of digit sequences, but the first taps the ability to maintain and
rehearse sequential information in the direct (forward) order, the second in reverse
order (backward), requiring a transformation of the input and thus greater execu-
tive control (Kaufman, 1979). The total Digit Span score is the sum of forward and
backward spans.
Digit Span is considered a good measure of verbal working memory for chil-
dren with hearing loss (Cleary et al., 2001; Geers, 2003; Pisoni & Cleary, 2003).
In particular, Pisoni and Cleary (2003) show how forward digit span is a good
indicator of their rehearsal skills, that is of their ability to maintain information
in working memory via “refreshing” of the material to be remembered. This
ability predicts oral language acquisition (Cleary et al., 2001; Pisoni & Cleary,
2003). Digit Span scores also show significant correlations with the performance
of children with HL in cognitively demanding language tasks, such as reading
(Geers, 2003).
In its traditional form, the Digit Span task is administered aurally, through an
oral presentation of digits, but some variations of this task have recently been intro-
duced and tested (Helland & Asbjørnsen, 2004; Kemtes & Allen, 2008). Kemtes
and Allen, (2008) showed from a clinical perspective that a visual presentation of
Digit Span tasks may be a viable alternative to the standard auditory presentation
for individuals with hearing loss.
VERBAL WORKING-MEMORY IN WRITING
In hearing children’s writing, verbal working memory contributes significantly to

different aspects of written production: the ability to maintain temporary traces
and refresh verbal information can explain the lower-order transcription skills, such
as spelling and handwriting, whereas the executive component of verbal working
memory explains better higher-order text generation skills, that is, the translation
of ideas into words, sentences, and discourse structures (Swanson & Berninger,
1996). Alamargot et al. (2007) investigated whether this same pattern emerged for
W o r k i n g M e m o ry & W r i t i n g S k i ll s i n C h i l d r e n W i t h H e a r i n g L o s s [ 8 7 ]
Table 7.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF DEAF PARTICIPANTS WITH HIGH AND LOW
SPAN: HEARING THRESHOLD, FIRST LANGUAGE, COCHLEAR IMPLANTATION,
TROG SCORES, DIGIT SPAN
Low Span
P G Age HT FL CI TROG Tsd DS FD BD
C1 Boy 15 > 90 dB Oral - 26 >–3 sd 5 2 3

C2 Girl 14 > 75 dB Oral - 32 >–3 sd 6 3 3
C3 Girl 12 > 90 dB Oral - 50 >–3 sd 6 3 3
C4 Boy 10 > 75 dB Signs* - 16 >–3 sd 4 3 1
C5 Boy 11 > 90 dB Oral - 30 >–3 sd 3 1 2
C6 Girl 14 > 45 dB Oral - 18 >–3 sd 3 1 2
C7 Boy 10 > 90 dB Oral - 26 >–3 sd 6 4 2
C8 Boy 12 > 90 dB Oral - 33 >–3 sd 5 3 2
C9 Boy 14 > 90 dB Oral - 49 >–3 sd 5 3 2
C10 Boy 11 > 45 dB Signs - 42 >–3 sd 6 3 3
C11 Boy 9 > 90 dB Oral - 57 >–3 sd 3 3 0
C12 Girl 11 > 90 dB Oral yes 22 >–3 sd 4 2 2
C13 Girl 13 > 90 dB Oral - 32 >–3 sd 6 4 2
C14 Boy 11 > 75 dB Signs - 25 >–3 sd 6 3 3
C15 Girl 9 > 90 dB Oral yes 17 >–3 sd 4 4 0
C16 Girl 15 > 90 dB Oral - 41 >–3 sd 6 4 2
C17 Girl 9 > 75 dB Oral - 32 >–3 sd 5 3 2
High Span
C18 Boy 10 > 75 dB Oral - 74 =norm 10 6 4

C19 Girl 12 > 90 dB Signs - 61 >–3 sd 11 4 7
C20 Boy 9 > 90 dB Oral yes 60 >–3 sd 11 5 6
C21 Girl 14 unknown unknown unknown 48 >–3 sd 10 4 6
C22 Boy 14 > 90 dB Signs - 41 >–3 sd 12 4 8
C23 Boy 10 > 90 dB Oral yes 67 ≥–3 sd 15 7 8
C24 Boy 14 > 45 dB Oral - 78 =norm 13 7 6
C25 Girl 14 unknown unknown unknown 63 >–3 sd 12 5 7
C26 Girl 11 > 45 dB Oral - 44 >–3 sd 10 4 6
C27 Boy 11 > 90 dB Oral yes 71 >–2 sd 12 5 7
C28 Girl 13 unknown unknown unknown 77 =norm 13 6 7
C29 Girl 11 > 90 dB Oral yes 80 =norm 14 6 8
C30 Boy 12 > 90 dB Signs - 68 ≥–3 sd 10 5 5
C31 Boy 9 > 90 dB Oral - 65 >–2 sd 12 6 6
C32 Boy 13 > 90 dB Oral - 65 >–2 sd 10 4 6
C33 Boy 12 > 45 dB Oral - 48 >–3 sd 11 5 6
C34 Boy 11 > 45 dB Oral - 68 ≥–3 sd 10 6 4
Note: *Italian Sign Language.
P = Participant, G = Gender, HT = Hearing Threshold, FL = First Language, CI = Cochlear Implant, TROG = TROG

score, Tsd = TROG Standard Deviation from age equivalent norms, DS = Digit Span (total), FD = Forward Digit
span, BD = Backward Digit span.
students with hearing loss in French. The authors found a significant association
between students’ executive capacity of verbal working memory and their text gen-
eration skills, but only in compositional fluency (number of words written). They
did not find significant correlations between the temporary maintenance of phono-
logical information and spelling errors in students with HL.
The study presented in this chapter examines the writing performance of 34
children with HL from fourth to eighth grade (aged 9–14). The children were
divided in two groups according to their performance in the WISC-R Digit Span
test: High and Low Digit Span groups. The aim was to investigate which aspects of
text production were most influenced by verbal working memory skills and what
components of digit span (forward or backward) explained better their writing
performance.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were selected from a larger population of about 60 children who

were deaf. Participants with either a verbal Digit Span score above the 75th or
below the 25th percentile were selected for the study. An adapted digit span
task—the WISC-R (Wechsler, 1974)—was administered bi-modally to all chil-
dren in both the direct and inverse conditions. To maximize the children’s com-
prehension of the auditory stimuli, digits were displayed visually using the fingers
while being pronounced aloud. Participants’ responses were oral, in accordance
with WISC–R administration guidelines. Administration of this adapted version
of the Digit Span to a group of hearing children of same age as our participants
showed performances equivalent to those for the auditory administered version
(Wechsler, 1974).
Two groups were identified: 17 students with HL with digit span scores (low-
span group = LS; Mage = 11.76, age range 9–15), and 17 students with high digit
span scores (high-span group = HS; Mage = 11.76, age range 9–14). The two
groups were equivalent for gender (χ2 = .49, p = .49), age (F(1,33) = .3, p = .85),
first language (χ2 = .07, p = .79) and rehabilitation history (χ2 = 2.17, p = .14).
The children came from different regions of Northern Italy (Veneto, Lombardia,
and Emilia-Romagna) and from different schools, including special schools for
the deaf and public mainstream schools. The majority of children attended main-
stream schools. The characteristics of participants in the study are presented
in Table 7.1. With the exception of 4 children, all performed from 2 to 3 SD
below age equivalent norms on the Test for the Reception of Grammar (TROG;
Bishop, 1982). However, ANOVAs revealed significant differences between the
two groups in receptive grammar (TROG: LS M = 32.24 versus HS M = 63.41),
F(1,33) = 57.53, p<.001, and in a phonemic awareness (PA) task (Arfé & Rossi,
in preparation; LS M = 17.00 versus HS M = 30.76), F(1,33) = 44.39, p<.001,
with HS children outperforming LS children in both tasks. These differences
remained even when the four outliers were eliminated from the analyses.
Procedure
Children were asked to look at a picture story (Frog, where are you?) (Mayer, 1969),
tell the story to the experimenter, and then write the story for a hearing friend of
the researcher’s who was very interested in school-aged children’s written narratives
but did not know “Frog, where are you?” Instructions were given in written and oral
form or bimodally (oral language plus signs), according the preferred mode of each
child. No time limit was given.
The written texts were analyzed separately by the second and third authors for
length (number of words and clauses), grammatical and morphological accuracy,
word choice, spelling and cohesion. Scoring criteria are presented next. Inter-rater
agreement ranged between 73% for clauses to 100% for spelling errors. Cases of
disagreement were discussed and resolved.
Spelling Skills
Misspellings. The total number of misspelled words was calculated. Errors were
classified as either phonologically plausible (PP), if their spelling preserved the
phonology of the word (e.g., quarda versus guarda/he looks), phonologically
implausible (PI) if the spelling did not preserve the phonology (bambibino ver-
sus bambino/child) and morphological (M), if the misspelling seemed related
to an incorrect representation of the derivation or inflection of the word (e.g.,
il cane è caduta versus è caduto/the dog fell). Phonologically plausible errors
included single errors in accented words, such as accent omission (e.g., trovo
versus trovò/he found), errors in geminates (e.g., arrabiato versus arrabbiato/
angry), subsitutions (as in quarda versus guarda) or unacceptable orthographic
fusions (e.g., adetto versus ha detto/he said), which preserved the articulatory
and phonological structure of the word. Phonologically implausible errors
varied, from complex errors, where more than one grapheme was transcribed
incorrectly (as in bambibino versus bambino/child), and single errors, where the
error was limited to a single grapheme, but the omission or substitution did not
preserve the phonology of the word (as in sappa versus scappa/escapes). Errors
were coded as morphological only when the misspelling also reflected wrong
morphological representations of a word-ending or prefix, or the wrong appli-
cation of inflectional rules (e.g., il cane è caduta /the dog fell, incorrect inflec-
tion: feminine versus è caduto, correct inflection: masculine; or dormere /to
sleep, incorrect conjugation: second conjugation, versus dormire, correct: third
conjugation). These errors were phonologically implausible, but only limited to

word inflections and, differently from the other phonological implausible errors,
they consisted in the production of real words differing from the target word in
gender, number, verb conjugation, or mode.
Text Generation Skills
Total number of words. All meaningful recognizable orthographic strings within

the linguistic context of the text were counted as words. If the orthographic string
was unintelligible, it was not counted.
Total number of clauses. The texts produced were segmented in clauses (a
predicate and its argument). Complements of modal verbs and aspectual verbs
(e.g., andare a vedere/go and see; cominciò a piangere/started to cry) were considered
part of the main verb. Because students with HL use many infinitives, infinitives
alone or plus argument (e.g., e poi [Ø] andare via/and then [Ø] to go away; bambino
andare bosco/boy go wood) were coded as clauses (Arfé & Perondi, 2008).
Accuracy in word choice. Word choices were considered accurate when
the word was semantically correct in the context of the text. The proportion
of correct word choices over the total number of words used in the text was
computed.
Proportion of correct clauses. Only grammatically correct clauses were coded
and the proportion of correct clauses over the total number of clauses in text was
calculated.
Accuracy in free morphology. Function words (pronouns, articles, conjunc-
tions) were considered correct if they were grammatically correct in the context of
a clause or between clauses. The proportion of correct function words over the total
number of function words in text was calculated.
Accuracy in verb morphology. The total number of correct verb inflections
as a proportion of the total number of verbs produced was calculated. Due to the
incidence of errors in verb-noun agreements this was considered a good index of
bound morphology.
Free and bound morphology are particularly rich in Italian and thus constrain
the possibility of relating words in sentences and in the text.
Cohesion. Text cohesion is a measure of the overall quality of the text, indicat-
ing the extent to which clauses and linguistic information are organized and con-
nected to generate a fluent composition. We used the Scinto Index as a measure of
text cohesion1 (Scinto, 1984).
RESULTS
P values were adjusted for multiple comparisons to <.006. Bonferroni corrections

were used.
Individual Differences in Writing
Text Generation
The results revealed that the writing performance of the two groups differed sig-
nificantly for the proportion of misspellings, use of verb morphology, proportion
of correct clauses produced, and ability to generate text cohesion. No differences
between the groups were found for productivity (number of words and clauses pro-
duced), word choice, or the use of free morphology (see Table 7.2).
Spelling Errors
A separate MANCOVA with Span Group as between factor and Total Number of
Words covariate, was performed to compare the different types of spelling error in
the two groups. Bonferroni corrections were not used in this case, since only three
comparisons were performed. This analysis revealed a significant difference between
groups for phonologically implausible errors, F(1,32) = 4.443, p<.05, η2 = .13, more
frequent in the LS group (LS M = 4.59 versus HS M = 1.18). Morphological errors
were rare for both groups, but were significantly more frequent in the LS group (LS
M = 1.94 versus HS M = .76): F(1,32) = 8.030, p < .01, η2 = .21.
Table 7.2 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE LS AND HS GROUP

FOR TOTAL WORDS AND CLAUSES PRODUCED (TOT_WORDS AND
TOT_CLAUSES), MISSPELLINGS, CORRECT WORD CHOICES, CORRECT
VERB MORPHOLOGY (VERB_MORPH), CORRECT FREE_MORPHOLOGY
(FREE_MORPH),CORRECT CLAUSES (CORRECT CLAUSES) AND COHESION
(SCINTO INDEX). PROPORTIONS ARE REPORTED FOR MISSPELLING AND
CORRECTNESS
LS HS
Measure M SD M SD F(1, 32) p η2
Tot_Words 107 68.58 158 49.77 6.07 =.02 .16

Tot_Clauses 19.59 13.52 27.47 8.78 4.06 =.05 .11
Misspellings .11 .08 .03 .04 12.19 <.001 .28
Word Choices .98 .02 .99 .01 3.67 =.06 .10
Correct_Clauses .27 .24 .65 .27 19.47 <.001 .38
Verb_Morph .52 .28 .83 .18 14.72 <.001 .32
Free_Morph .48 .32 .47 .34 0.01 =.91 .00
Scinto Index .32 .29 .73 .19 24.51 <.001 .43

The Unique Contribution of Working Memory: Correlations
and Regression Analyses
The LS and HS groups also differed for receptive grammar (TROG scores) and
phonological awareness (PA) abilities. To control for the contribution of these
skills to writing we ran hierarchical multiple regressions.
Table 7.3 summarizes the results of Pearson correlations. The association
between age and writing measures was not significant. The association between
digit span scores and age, and between age, TROG, and PA were also not significant
(see Table 7.3).
Table 7.3 shows that forward and backward Digit Span scores correlated sig-
nificantly with misspellings, verb morphology, correct clauses, and cohesion.
Correlations with these measures ranged from -.51 to .70. TROG and PA scores
also correlated significantly with the same measures, ranging from .44 to .74 (see
Table 7.3).
Results of the hierarchical regressions are presented in Tables 7.4a, 7.4b, and 7.5.
Because we were interested in examining only the contribution of forward and back-
ward Digit Span to writing, we entered language (TROG) and phonological awareness
(PA) scores first, to control for these variables. Forward Digit Span was entered second
Table 7.3 SUMMARY OF CORRELATIONS BETWEEN AGE, DIGIT

SPAN SCORES, TROG SCORES, PHONEMIC AWARENESS SCORES
AND WRITING MEASURES
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1. Age 1
2. FD –.13 1
3. BD .19 .62** 1
4. TROG .02 .80** .70** 1
5. PA .11 .59** .66** .78** 1
6. Words total .30 .19 .45* .38* .34* 1
7. Clauses total .28 .15 .42* .32 .37* .93** 1
8. Misspellings -.16 -.51** -.58** -.57** -.53** -.57** -.53** 1
9. Word choices .03 .40* .27 .27 .42* .26 .25 -.62** 1
10. Verb_morph -.09 .60** .52** .44* .53** .44* .46* -.51** .34 1
11. Free_morph -.14 -.05 .02 -.09 -.30 .03 -.05 -.06 -.04 -.12 1
12. Clauses corr. -.06 .70** .57** .67** .51** .58** .49** -.67** .45* .77** .06 1
13. Scinto index .25 .65** .62** .72** .74** .37* .07 -.61** .44* .61** -.02 .65** 1
*p < .05, **p < .005.
Note: FD = Forward Digits scores; BD = Backward Digits scores; TROG = Receptive Grammar; PA = Phonemic

Awareness; Word choices = proportion of correct word choices; Verb_ morph = proportion of correct bind verb
morphology; Free_morph = proportion of correct free morphology; Clauses corr. = Correct clauses; Scinto
index = cohesion.
and then backward Digit Span to verify whether the more executive component of
digit span explained variance in writing after controlling for the ability to temporarily
maintain verbal information in memory, which is significantly predictive of language
performance in children with HL (Cleary et al., 2001; Pisoni & Cleary, 2003). Because
only misspelling, verb morphology, correct clauses, and cohesion appeared to differ
between the two groups, we considered these variables in our regressions.
Misspellings and Spelling Errors
Tables 7.4a and 7.4b display the results of the hierarchical regressions for the total
number of misspellings (7.4a) and type of spelling error (7.4b): PP, PI, and M errors.
After controlling for language and PA scores, Digit Span scores did not explain
further variance in misspellings (Table 4a).
PP errors. None of the factors considered explained variance in PP errors.
PI errors. Language scores accounted for 24% of variance in PI errors, but once
controlled for these skills, FD explained a further 16% of variance in PI errors: the
higher the FD scores the fewer PI errors in the texts.
M errors. None of the factors explained variance in morphological errors in spell-
ing. This effect could be due to the low incidence of these errors in the writing task.
Verb Morphology, Correct Clauses, and Cohesion
Table 7.5 reports the results of hierarchical regressions for verb morphology, cor-
rect clauses, and cohesion.
Table 7.4a HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSES: DEPENDENT

VARIABLES ARE TOTAL MISSPELLINGS
Misspellings
Predictor Δ R2 β
Step 1 .34**
Control variables
Step 2 .01
Forward Digit –.15
Step 3 .04
Backward Digit –.31
Total R2 .40**
N 34
Note: **p < .005.
Control variables: language skills (TROG and PA).

Table 7.4b HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSES: DEPENDENT
VARIABLES ARE PHONOLOGICALLY PLAUSIBLE (PP) SPELLING ERRORS,
PHONOLOGICALLY IMPLAUSIBLE (PI) SPELLING ERRORS, MORPHOLOGICAL
SPELLING ERRORS (M)
PP errors PI errors M errors
Predictor ΔR 2
β ΔR 2
β Δ R2 β
Step 1 .04 .24* .05

Control variables
Step 2 .01 .16* .05
Forward Digit –.38 –.67 –.37
Step 3 .02 .02 .08
Backward Digit –.78 .06 –.41
Total R2 .06 .40* .17
N 34 34 34
Note: *p ≤.01.
Table 7.5 HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSES: DEPENDENT

VARIABLES ARE VERB MORPHOLOGY, CORRECT CLAUSES AND COHESION
Verb morphology Correct clauses Cohesion
Predictor Δ R2 β Δ R2 β Δ R2 β
Step 1 .28* .44** .60**

Control variables
Step 2 .21** .08* .02
Forward Digit .76** .47* .24
Step 3 .02 .01 .00
Backward Digit .22 .17 .10
Total R2 .50** .54** .62**
N 34 34 34
Note: *p < .05; **p < .005.
Verb morphology. After language knowledge and PA skills were controlled

(R2 = .28), forward Digit Span explained a further 21% of unique variance in the
use of verb morphology. Backward Digit Span did not produce any further increase
in explained variance.
Correct clauses. Forward span contributed uniquely to variance in correct
clauses (R2change = .08), after TROG scores and PA skills were controlled, but again,
backward span did not contribute to explaining further variance.
Cohesion. A different pattern was found for cohesion, where the control
variables (TROG and PA scores) explained a significant part of the variance in
performance (R2 = .60), and forward and backward Digit Span did not contribute
further.
DISCUSSION
The forward and backward digit span scores of the children with HL in this study
were significantly associated with their transcription and text generation skills. This
result is consistent with other findings (Geers, 2003) and reveals that the Digit
Span task could be a valuable index of the working memory resources exploited by
children with HL in understanding and producing written language. Nevertheless,
the association between verbal working memory and language development (i.e.,
the child’s vocabulary, grammar, and phonological abilities) suggests caution in
interpreting these findings. Verbal-working-memory skills are developmentally
associated with language acquisition (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990). Therefore,
individual differences in verbal working memory also entail differences in other
language skills, which can, in turn, affect writing. To control for these factors and
examine the contribution of verbal working memory to writing, we ran hierarchical
regression analyses. The results of these led to the identification of three aspects
of writing performance that can be considered sensitive to the verbal-working
memory skills of the child with HL: the ability to spell, use verb morphology, and
translate ideas into complete clauses, that is, to organize the text at the microlevel.
Individual differences in these skills seem to be partly explained by the temporary
storage and rehearsal abilities tapped by the forward Digit Span task. Children with
higher forward Digit Span scores made less implausible spelling errors, used better
verb morphology, and produced more complete and correct clauses.
The greater ability of HS children to maintain sequential information in memory,
and, probably, their ability to refresh the phonological traces of words while writ-
ing, contribute to explaining why they produced less spelling errors and less phono-
logically implausible errors than the LS group. This finding is in contrast with those
of Alamargot et al. (2007) who failed to find these working-memory effects in their
study. The characteristics of the French and Italian orthography may clarify why. In
Italian, sublexical strategies are normally successful in spelling (Arfé, De Bernardi,
Pasini, & Poeta, 2012), and thus rehearsal and phonological memory skills (like
those tapped by the Digit Span task) may explain the spelling performance of the
children with HL, as they strongly support the use of these procedures. French has
a deeper morpho-phonemic orthography in which other factors may account for
the performance of writers with HL.
The ability of children with HL to maintain verbal information through rehearsal
also contributed to explaining text generation skills, especially the ability to link
words into clauses in a grammatically correct way. This suggests that the temporary
storage component of working memory may be crucial for the translation process
as well as transcription for these children.

In general, the results of this study suggest that verbal working memory may
be more involved when text generation requires the processing of linguistic rela-
tions. Word choices and productivity seem to be less affected by verbal work-
ing memory skills for these children. Further, the verbal-working-memory skills
considered in this study did not seem to explain the children’s ability to produce
the necessary relations between clauses to establish cohesion in a text: These
involve the use of free morphology (pronouns and conjunctions) and logi-
cal links (e.g., causal or temporal relations) to connect sentences. To produce
cohesion, linguistic skills seem more important. However, it is possible that the
capacity to generate linguistic relations between elements that are distant in the
text is affected by central executive functions that could be not well tapped by
the Digit Span task.
To date, interventions addressed to developing verbal working memory in chil-
dren with HL have been neglected, and most of the clinical and educational inter-
ventions in oral language address speech discrimination and phonological awareness
skills. Our findings suggest the need for interventions that are more focused on the
components of the working-memory system. However, it is also likely that the expe-
rience with language itself (either verbal or sign language), and complex language
tasks in particular (i.e., writing), could foster the development of this important
memory system. This may happen if children are explicitly taught to focus on lin-
guistic tasks that apply a cognitive load, such as relating sentences or discovering
linguistic relations in discourse or in a text (Arfé, Boscolo, & Sacilotto, 2012).
AKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was funded by the by the University of Padova, Grant STPD08HANE
Learning Difficulties and Disabilities from Primary School to University: Diagnosis,
Intervention, and Services for the Community.
NOTE
1. It corresponds to the number of recognizable and understandable links between clauses as

a proportion of the overall number of clauses produced in the text. A score of 1 was given
for two clauses that are logically and/or linguistically related, and a score of 0 when the
link between two subsequent clauses is unclear or unrecognizable.
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CHAPTER 8
Composing Academic Essays

Using Dictation and Technology to Improve Fluency
JOHN ALBERTINI, MICH AEL STINSON, AND
ARGIROUL A Z ANG ANA
C omposing an academic essay requires language proficiency, content knowl-

edge, and writing skill. Training students to use their knowledge and skills
to produce fluent, coherent, and interesting academic writing is the goal of many
first-year English composition courses at North American universities. As Faigley
and colleagues pointed out in 1985, “Of the three writing processes that have
received the most attention from researchers—planning, producing text, and revis-
ing—producing text is the most controversial and the least accessible (p. 43).” In
this chapter, we review research on the use of dictation and automatic speech recog-
nition to facilitate students’ production of text, and we report results of an explor-
atory study using a dictation-with-translation paradigm and automatic speech
recognition to compose college essays.
Researchers in the field have used one of two models to describe the production
or composition of text. In the Hayes-Flower model of composing, cognitive pro-
cesses operate on internal representations to produce written, spoken, or graphic
output (Hayes, 1996). The writer uses cognitive processes such as problem solv-
ing, decision-making, and memory (1996, p. 13). In another version of composing,
the writer goes back and forth between two “cognitive spaces,” a content space and
a rhetorical space (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). In other words, when writers
compose, they must decide what to say and how to say it. In these models, it is
assumed that fluent composing works best when the writer is able to draw rapidly
on language and content knowledge to make decisions about what to include and
how to design the text.
In 1979, Perl speculated that inexperienced adult writers’ preoccupation with
production skills such as spelling, punctuation, word choice, and syntactic form
interrupted the flow of ideas and lead to poorer quality texts. Scardamalia, Bereiter,
and Goelman (1982) asked fourth- and sixth-grade children to dictate texts and
found that these texts were generally longer and of higher quality than their written
texts. The authors attribute this difference to the condition of composing without
the “low-level demands of writing” (1982, p. 201). Because speech production is
mostly automatic, children dictating their thoughts could remain at higher levels of
representation and thereby produce much more relevant content.
The advent of speech recognition technology (henceforth, automatic speech
recognition, or ASR) suggested a new strategy for teaching writing to unskilled
writers, second language learners, and students with learning disabilities. Using dic-
tation and ASR would allow writers to bypass low-level demands such as spelling,
punctuation, and pen manipulation (De La Paz & Graham, 1997; Wetzel, 1997).
Young writers’ slow rate of handwriting, it was reasoned, may cause the contents of
working memory to be lost (Reece & Cumming, 1996). The point of using dicta-
tion and ASR would be to reduce cognitive load thereby increasing speed and flu-
ency while composing.
As a strategy for teaching composition, dictation belongs to the “process peda-
gogy” approach. Emerging in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
this new approach to composition took “talk-write” as opposed to “think-write”
as a model for writing conferences and classroom work (Killingsworth, 1993).
Educators like Zoellner and Elbow encouraged students to speak their ideas as an
initial step toward written composition (Killingsworth, 1993). Dictation was one
way to get their ideas on paper so that they could then reflect on them.
Early studies of dictation and ASR to teach writing showed mixed results. First,
young students were unfamiliar with the process of dictation. Second, the dictation
needed to be transcribed. Third, some composers lost their place when they could
not see an ongoing external representation of the text (Reece & Cumming, 1996).
More recently, MacArthur and Cavalier (2004) found that high school students
with learning disabilities produced higher-quality essays using dictation and ASR
than they did using handwriting. In their study, students wrote essays in three con-
ditions: by hand, by dictating to a scribe, and by using ASR. The essays produced
in both dictation conditions were qualitatively better than those written by hand.
Those dictated to a scribe were the best. The authors’ interpretation of these results
is that both dictation conditions freed the students from concerns about spelling
and handwriting, but that the use of ASR added the cognitive burdens of speaking
clearly and attending to the output for errors.
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students when composing are faced with chal-
lenges similar to hearing L2 students (see, for example, Albertini & Schley, 2011 for
a review of research). DHH college students, however, typically differ from hearing
L2 students in one important respect. Given a common underlying proficiency in
D e af S t u d e n ts C o m p o s i n g A ca d e m i c E s s ay s [ 1 0 1 ]
their native language and adequate motivation, hearing students from non-English
speaking backgrounds should be able to transfer the experience of learning to read
and write in their first language to the new language (Cummins, 1986). DHH stu-
dents who have learned a sign language typically come to the task with less such
experience, because sign languages have no common written form (Mayer & Wells,
1996; Mayer & Akamatsu, 2003).
Mindful of this challenge, instructors in North America have found ingenious
ways to take advantage of students’ knowledge of American Sign Language to plan,
produce, and revise text. To mirror the process of encoding speech to print, invented
written codes have been used to teach beginning deaf readers to encode sign into
print (Suppalla, Wix, & McKee, 2001). To contrast the grammars of ASL and
English and to teach translation and revision to college-age writers, written transla-
tions (Akamatsu & Armour, 1987) and video drafts (Christie, Wilkins, McDonald,
& Neuroth-Gimbrone, 1999) have been used.1 Biser and colleagues (1998) first
attempted the use of dictation to provide testing accommodation for DHH col-
lege students. In their study, students signed essays to an interpreter whose voiced
interpretation was later transcribed. Although the procedure seemed promising,
introduction of an interpreter raised questions of authorship and ownership of the
writing. Similarly, Schmitz and Keenan (2005) discuss the problem of evaluating
drafts that have been written with help of tutors and friends.
Our goal was to investigate the effect of a dictation-with-translation-paradigm
on the process of composing and the quality of a college essay. In this study, the
paradigm would only be used for production of a first draft. Students could then
make whatever revisions they wished in subsequent drafts, thus preserving author-
ship of the text. Here, students signed their drafts to a sign-language interpreter who
voiced an English version into a computer equipped with ASR software.
In this study, the main question was whether students would benefit from dictat-
ing a draft in ASL and then seeing a printed English translation of it almost immedi-
ately. Would students find a dictation-with-translation-paradigm helpful in writing
a first draft of a college essay, and would this paradigm make a difference in the qual-
ity of the writing? In other words, if this paradigm reduced cognitive load, would
the writers compose longer texts and produce more coherent writing?
METHOD
Participants
Participants in this study (4 female; 6 male) were recruited from first-year compo-
sition courses at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Their ages ranged from 19
to 28 years (Mage = 20.8 years), and hearing losses (pure tone averages were avail-
able for 7 of the participants) ranged from 73 dB to 115 dB (Mean hearing loss =
99.4 dB). All students considered themselves good users of ASL. (On a scale from
1 to 10, with 10 being “very good,” the students’ mean rating was 7.38; SD = 2;
[ 1 0 2 ] Part II: Impact of Oral Language Problems on Written Text

N = 9). One student came from a family with two deaf parents. All of the others
came from hearing families. All were fluent signers at the time of this study. Eight
out of the 10 reported that their preferred mode of communication was either ASL
alone or speech and sign together (“simultaneous communication”). Instructors in
deaf-only classes used simultaneous communication, and in mainstream classes sign
language interpreters typically used English-based signing with mouth movement.
Procedure
The students in this study were all enrolled in lower-level English composition
courses for which they were required to write several formal academic essays. These
assignments required analysis of personal experience and fact and opinion from
published texts. Topics ranged from the abuse of alcohol, to gambling addiction, to
gender roles in society. For this study, participants were asked to produce the first
draft for one assignment using a dictated text (the “ASR condition”) and the first
draft of a second essay on their own without dictation (the “standard condition”).
Before coming to an ASL-ASR session, each student was asked to prepare a men-
tal outline of points to include in the first draft. At the one-hour ASL-ASR session,
the student signed a rough draft. As shown in Figure 8.1, one of the investigators
videotaped the student, and the interpreter (with headset) spoke his interpretation
into the computer. The computer immediately converted this voice interpretation
into text on the computer screen.2 Punctuation and formatting were added and
transcription errors were corrected during and after the taping by the interpreter.
Figure 8.1.
The ASL-ASR Condition.
Before leaving the session, the student received a paper copy of the
ASR-generated text and the videotape of his or her signing. The students used these
to write a first draft (generally within one to two days) a copy of which was sub-
mitted to the investigators. The students also submitted a copy of the first draft of
another essay written on their own for the same class. At the end of the term, after
students had completed essays in the ASR and standard conditions, they returned
for short, evaluative interviews. Here students were asked if they found the ASR
text helpful in writing a draft, and they were asked to rate the quality and read-
ability of the ASR dictated text. They were also asked to rate the quality of the draft
written from the ASR text and the standard draft of another paper written on their
own. Regarding the ASR draft, we asked further whether (transcription) errors in
the dictated version caused difficulty when writing the first draft and affected their
understanding of the dictated texts. Students responded to each quality question by
circling a number on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 representing a rating of “Poor” and
10 representing a rating of “Very Good.” It was necessary to ask whether remaining
transcription errors had caused difficulty when writing a first draft, because some
homonym errors (there for their and they’re) and punctuation omissions remained
in the texts. The order for production of the ASR and standard drafts (e.g., ASR first
or second) was counterbalanced across participants. The time period between the
writing of the ASR and standard drafts varied from student to student.
The 10 written drafts from both conditions were subjected to two forms of anal-
ysis. First, to obtain a measure of overall quality, the drafts were given to a team of
five expert raters who rated them anonymously along with writing samples from
new students being evaluated for placement in developmental writing courses. The
raters were told only that they would see some writing samples different from the
writing placement examination. They were not told in what order or under what
conditions these additional samples had been written. Three raters independently
rated each sample, and the average of their ratings yielded a score for each draft. The
ratings were modified holistic ratings. That is, raters assigned a total of 25 points to
each of four categories: organization, content, vocabulary, and language.3 The score
for each paper could range from 0 to 100 points (Albertini, Bochner, Cuneo, Hunt,
Nielsen, Seago, & Shannon, 1986).
Second, to obtain a measure of cohesion, two of the investigators rated the
strength of connection between sentences in the essays. We read each draft essay
paragraph by paragraph and independently assigned a value from 1 to 5 to the con-
nection between the first and second sentence, the third and fourth sentence, and
so on. A rating of 1 indicated no apparent connection, 3 a weak connection, and 5
a very strong connection. We obtained a mean rating of text cohesion by assign-
ing a rating to each pair of contiguous sentences in an essay, totaling the ratings
and dividing this total by the number of pairs. Inter-rater agreement was generally
high (the same numerical rating or a difference of one point), ranging from 90% to
100% across 9 of the 10 draft essays. Agreement on the first essay was 77%, and we
attribute this lower agreement to an initial lack of calibration between the raters.

RESULTS
Table 8.1 displays the results of interviews during which the participants were asked
to rate the quality of their own written drafts and the ASR text. Remember that, in
the standard condition, students wrote the draft on their own, and in the ASR condi-
tion, they wrote their first draft using the text produced by ASR dictation. Although
the mean quality rating for the drafts written in the standard condition was 4.78, the
most frequent rating was a 4, indicating that students rated these as somewhat poor.
The mean rating of drafts written using ASR dictated texts was 6.65, indicating that
students thought these drafts were better in overall quality than the standard. Three
out of the 10 ratings were 6; 5 out of the 10 were higher than 6.
The mean rating of 5.85 for overall quality of the ASR text indicates that they
thought these were somewhat helpful. When we probed further and asked whether
transcription errors caused difficulty when writing the first draft, only 6 students
responded with a mean rating of 2.66 (0 = Don’t really bother me: 10 = Bother me a
lot; SD = 1.49) indicating that, in general, the mistakes did not bother these students.
We asked for a rating of the extent to which transcription errors affected understand-
ing of the dictated texts. Again only 6 students responded. The mean rating of 5.83
(0 = Not at all; 10 = Very much; SD = 3.13) suggests that the errors caused some
difficulty in understanding the texts (but see qualitative comments, later).
The discrepancy in these ratings suggests that although students may have had
difficulty understanding text segments when there were ASR errors, this difficulty
did not hinder production of their written draft. Because they all had short dead-
lines, we presume that the recentness of producing the dictated text helped them
recall the meaning of the dictated texts if there were errors.
Table 8.2 shows the length and the objective ratings assigned to 5 pairs of
essays: the ASR and standard written drafts. Unfortunately, we were unable to
obtain copies of standard drafts from all 10 students. Again, by “ASR draft,” we
mean the first draft written from the ASR-generated text. When we compare the
length of the papers, we see that 4 out of the 5 students (Michael, Stephen, Vanessa,
and Karen) wrote longer drafts in the ASR condition. When we compare the holis-
tic ratings of essay quality, we see that only Stephen’s ASR paper was judged to be
considerably better than the standard paper.
Table 8.1 MEAN STANDARD RATINGS ON QUESTIONS ABOUT USE OF ASR

TO SUPPORT WRITING
Rating M SD N
Quality of standard written drafts 4.78 0.99 7

Quality of ASR written drafts 6.65 1.70 10
Quality of ASR dictated texts 5.85 1.84 10
Note: Rating scale: 1 = Poor, 10 = Very Good.
Table 8.2 QUALITY OF DRAFT ESSAYS: OBJECTIVE RATINGS
Name Condition Essay Length Essay Quality Essay Cohesion

(total words) (Scale: 1—100) (Range: 1—5)
Michael ASR 873 55 2.91

Michael Standard 413 53 2.54
Stephen ASR 674 77 3.39
Stephen Standard 619 59 2.84
Ray ASR 928 79 2.93
Ray Standard 1409 75 2.92
Vanessa ASR 1713 61 2.94
Vanessa Standard 1469 63 2.85
Karen ASR 1742 58 2.78
Karen Standard 1089 75 2.94
Under “Essay Cohesion” in Table 8.2, we see that 3 out of 5 students wrote more
cohesive essays in the ASR condition, one student wrote texts with similar cohe-
sion, and only one student (Karen) wrote a better text in the standard condition.
Coding of the responses to the end-of-term interview questions lead to several
interesting findings. In response to the question, “Did the ASR text help you write a
draft?” of the 6 students who responded, 5 students responded positively and one
negatively. Examples of response are:
Student 1: “Yes, it gave me like something more to write about it.”

Student 3: “Yeah, I felt it helped because it gets me thinking.”
Student 5: “I read the printout and it had a lot of ideas, so that helped me write a
rough draft of the essay. When I looked at the paper I’d realize what
I forgot to include and then I could add that to my draft.”
In response to questions about transcription errors (Did you find mistakes in the
text? What kind of mistakes? Did the mistakes affect your understanding of the text?),
4 out of 7 students said they found more than just typos in the text. Three said that
words in the texts were different from what they had signed or finger-spelled. One
said that the message in the text was less direct than the signed message. As for the
effect of the errors (or changes) in wording on their understanding, 3 out of 5 said
that the changes impeded understanding, one said they did not bother him, and
one said that the changes aided understanding.
DISCUSSION
At the outset of this study, we asked whether dictating a draft of an essay in

ASL would help students compose more fluently and write better essays. Results

of using a dictation procedure with 10 students in college-level writing courses
indicated that, in general, they liked the procedure, had some difficulty with the
errors in the ASR-produced text, but believed drafts written using an interpreter
and ASR were qualitatively better than those written without the procedure.
Overall the procedure elicited positive ratings from the participants. However,
several students noted that the logistics of completing the ASR session (it was
difficult to schedule an appointment and to dictate their thoughts in sign lan-
guage) required more time than it normally took for them to write a rough draft
of an essay.
More specifically, we hypothesized that dictating a rough draft would help stu-
dents generate longer texts and better organize and connect their ideas. Their rat-
ings and comments indicate they generally believed this to be the case. Although
transcription and perceived translation errors clearly mitigated the students’ enthu-
siasm for the procedure, the results summarized in Table 8.2 provide moderate sup-
port for this hypothesis. Unfortunately results on essay length, quality, and cohesion
are available for only 5 of the 10 students. However, they show that students tended
to write more in the ASR condition and produced texts of equal or greater qual-
ity and cohesion than in the standard condition. The fact that 4 out of 5 students
wrote longer drafts in the ASR condition suggests that they were able to generate
texts more fluently in this condition. That the ratings of essay quality were mixed
suggests that the expert raters and the students focused on different aspects of text
quality. Recall that the expert raters were instructed to focus equally on four aspects
of writing: organization, content, vocabulary, and language. In their end-of-term
interviews, the students said they had focused on content when writing their first
drafts from the ASR-generated text. This is consistent with the process-oriented
approach in their writing courses. Moreover, despite some surface level grammati-
cal errors, the sentence-to-sentence cohesion was generally stronger in the drafts
written from dictated texts.
It should be noted, also, that topic selection might have played a role in writ-
ing quality. For Stephen and Karen, the large discrepancy between scores might be
attributed to level of engagement with the topic of the essay. For the ASR condition,
Stephen summarized a biographical sketch describing how, as a slave, Frederick
B. Douglas learned to read and write. His selection of detail showed his admira-
tion of Douglas’ persistence and ingenuity. For the standard condition essay, he
wrote a definition essay on people referred to in the United States as “Latinos” or
“Latinas.” Even though he establishes a personal connection near the end of the
essay (“There are a lot of Latinos in my neighborhood.”), the whole is basically a
list of cultural characteristics on the one hand, and stereotypical perceptions of
Latin culture in the United States on the other. Given the fact that the writer is an
African-American student facing his own literacy challenges at college suggests a
higher level of engagement with the first topic.
Karen wrote an essay about gambling addiction under the ASR condition and
one on the causes and effects of binge drinking under the standard condition.
In the former, she catalogued popular types of gambling in the United States
and social and economic consequences of gambling addiction. In the latter, she
presented effects and causes of binge drinking. To enhance her discussion of
causes, she included original data. She asked peers on campus “why they like to
drink” and quoted their responses. The higher rating of this essay seems related
to her higher level of engagement in the topic. Both writers produced better
essays on topics that they valued and liked and this influenced the quality of
their products more than the use of technology or a new instructional strategy
(the ASL condition). Boscolo and Mason (2003) discuss the importance of
topic in relation to reading, and Boscolo (Chapter 3, this volume) relates this
variable to writing as well.
Two limitations of the study are related to the sample size and to the fact that
data were collected under naturalistic conditions. Because we wanted to use real
assignments from ongoing writing classes, we had to work as best we could with
students’ tight schedules in a 10-week quarter. All 10 participants were asked to
submit a copy of the first draft of an assignment written under normal conditions in
the same course during the same term. As mentioned previously, we were unable to
obtain 10 standard drafts from all 10 students. “Normal conditions” meant for us a
draft written without dictation. However, some of the standard drafts may have had
the benefit of peer or teacher feedback.
Replication of this study with a larger sample in both naturalistic and experi-
mental settings might have lead to more definitive results. As several students com-
mented, the procedure worked best when they prepared a mental outline ahead of
time for the ASR condition. Even with more training of the voice files and improved
software, transcripts from the ASR condition would need to be edited. For some of
the students, the procedure added too much time to the process of writing a college
essay. On the other hand, students who compose in ASL or in a mixture of ASL
and English might appreciate the opportunity to focus more on content and thus
produce longer and more coherent dictated drafts.
Finally, some would argue that a dictation-with-translation strategy belongs in
a beginning writing class, where students are introduced to various tools for com-
posing fluently and efficiently. We would agree. However, this study suggests that a
procedure that allows even experienced writers to focus on higher-order processes
can lead to better results.
AUTHOR NOTE
This study was conducted as students took college writing courses. We thank the
instructors of these courses for their cooperation and support: Lorna Mittelman,
Rose Marie Toscano, Pam Conley, Linda Rubel. Maureen Barry, and Sybil Ishman.
We thank the raters of the NTID Writing Test for rating the essays used in this
study: Margaret Brophy, Kathleen Crandall, Susan Keenan, Eugene Lylak, and

Kathy Varone. We thank our expert sign-language interpreter, Aaron Gorelick.
Finally, we are grateful to the Provost of RIT for support of this project through a
Provost’s Learning Innovations Grant.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to the first
author: John Albertini, NTID/RIT, 52 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY
14623-5604; 585-475-6276 (V/TDD); jaancr@rit.edu.
NOTES
1. Akamatsu and Armour asked students to transcribe signed passages from short video clips
into a sign gloss notation and then turn this transcription into standard English. The pas-
sages were signed in English with mouth movement but no voice. Christie and colleagues
had students study videotaped models of ASL discourse and sign several drafts of their
own personal narrative. From the final draft, they produced a written version of the narra-
tive in English.
2. This was accomplished by means of IBM’s ViaVoice software engine (IBM, 2002), which
had been incorporated into the C-Print® Pro software application for captioning (Stinson,
Elliot, & Francis, 2008). The interpreter used a dictation mask produced by Martel, Inc.
(not shown in Figure 8.1), which housed the microphone in a cup that fit over the inter-
preter’s mouth, effectively minimizing background noise interference, as well as silencing
the dictation. As the student signed, the interpreter dictated a spoken English version of
the signed message continuously into the dictation mask, saying each word distinctly, at a
pace that kept up with the student.
3. Here, language was understood by the raters to include correct use of grammatical struc-
tures and punctuation, intelligible spelling, and clarity of reference and style.
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Children with Oral Language Difficulties
CHAPTER 9
Examining Early Spelling

and Writing Skills
A Comparative Analysis of Kindergarteners with
Speech and Oral Language Impairments and Their
Typically Developing Peers
C YNTHI A S. PUR ANIK , STEPH ANIE AL OTAIBA ,
AND FEIFEI YE
BACKGROUND AND GOALS
Among the three “Rs,” writing is more neglected than reading or arithmetic in
the United States (National Commission on Writing, 2003); not surprisingly, the
majority of students in U.S. schools do not write well enough to meet grade-level
expectations (NAEP, 2007). However, the ability to write is imperative to function
in today’s world, so writing difficulties are of concern to employers, educators, prac-
titioners, and researchers alike. The present chapter addresses writing and spelling
performance of two groups of kindergarten children who might be particularly
susceptible to difficulties with written language, namely children with language
impairments (LI) and children with speech impairments (SI). Most research to
date examining the written language difficulties of children with LI have focused
on older children and we are not aware of a single study examining writing in chil-
dren with SI. Thus, in this chapter, we report on the results of a study examining
the writing of English speaking kindergarten children with language and speech
impairments.
Literacy Difficulties of Children with Language Impairments
Accumulating evidence indicates that children with LI have reading problems and
are at risk for academic underachievement (Aram, Ekelman, & Nation, 1984; Aram
& Nation, 1980; Bishop & Adams, 1990; Bishop & Edmundson, 1987; Boudreau
& Hedberg, 1999; Catts, 1993; Catts & Kamhi, 1999; Magnusson & Naucler,
1990; Menyuk et al., 1991; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1990; Silva, 1980). Children
with LI perform more poorly compared to their typically developing (TD) peers
on measures of emergent reading prior to beginning formal reading instruction
(Boudreau & Hedberg, 1999; Gillam & Johnston, 1985). For example, Boudreau
and Hedberg reported differences between preschool children with LI and their
TD peers on measures of rhyme, letter names, and print concepts. These difficulties
continue as children progress through grade school as evidenced by the findings of
several studies that have followed children with a history of language impairments
and examined their reading skills in elementary school (e.g., Bishop & Adams,
1990; Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002). Catts (1993) compared the preva-
lence of second grade reading disabilities of 56 children with a preschool history of
speech-language impairments and of 30 typically developing children. His findings
confirmed that children with speech-language impairments had an increased risk
for reading disabilities.
Difficulties with reading are more pronounced for children with a persistent his-
tory of oral language impairments (Bishop & Adams, 1990; Bishop & Edmundson,
1987; Catts et al., 2002; Puranik, Petscher, Al Otaiba, Catts, & Lonigan, 2008).
In a large study of 1,991 students across first through third grades, Puranik, et al.
(2008), found that the oral reading fluency performance of students with LI was
significantly lower compared to their SI and TD peers, however, these problems
were more marked for children with persistent LI.
Compared to studies examining the reading difficulties of children with LI,
there are fewer studies examining the writing difficulties of this group of chil-
dren; however, that gap appears to be steadily closing. Converging evidence sug-
gests that children with LI have difficulty producing both narrative and expository
texts (Dockrell, Lindsay & Connelly, 2009; Fey, Catts, Proctor-Williams, Tomblin,
& Zhang, 2004; Gillam & Johnston, 1992; Gillam, McFadden, & van Kleeck,
1995; Liles, Duffy, Merritt, & Purcell, 1995; Mackie & Dockrell, 2004; Puranik,
Lombardino, & Altmann, 2007; Scott & Windsor, 2000; Windsor, Scott, & Street,
2000). Specifically, research shows that older children with LI use fewer words in
written discourse, produce shorter stories, make more syntactical errors, and show
relatively poor organization skills in their writing when compared to their TD peers.
Children’s knowledge of oral (listening and speaking) and written (reading
and writing) language develops concurrently (Berninger, 2000; Chaney, 1998;
Dickinson & Snow, 1987; Mason, 1980; Smith & Tager-Flusberg, 1982; Teale
Ea r ly W r i t i n g & Sp e ll i n g S k i ll s o f C h i l d r e n w i t h L I & w i t h SI [ 1 1 3 ]
& Sulzby, 1986). However, writing develops later (Vygotsky, 1978) and is thus
affected or facilitated by oral language (Shanahan, 2006). Hence, it is not surpris-
ing that elementary and middle school children with LI experience difficulties with
several aspects of writing in addition to their difficulties with oral language and
reading.
There is preliminary evidence to suggest that just as with reading develop-
ment, writing trajectories might be established early. Cabell, Justice, Zucker, and
McGinity (2009) found significant differences in the name writing (one of the first
words children learn to write) abilities of preschool children with LI, and their typi-
cally developing peers. In another study, Puranik and Lonigan (2012) administered
measures of oral language, nonverbal cognition, emergent reading and writing to a
group of 293 preschool children. These children were then divided into four groups
based on their language and cognitive performance—children with low cognition
and low oral language, children with low cognition and average oral language, chil-
dren with average cognition and low oral language, and children with average cog-
nition and average oral language. They found that as early as preschool, children
with weaker oral-language skills, lag behind their peers with stronger oral-language
skills in terms of their writing-related skills. The differences were not confined to
name writing alone, but also included letter writing and spelling. Apart from these
two studies, we were unable to find other studies examining the early writing abili-
ties of children with oral language difficulties or weak oral-language skills.
Literacy Difficulties of Children with Speech Impairments
Another clinical group that might be susceptible to writing difficulties is children

with SI. A diagnosis of SI is given when a child has problems with articulation (mak-
ing sounds) or phonological processes (sound patterns). Children with articulation
disorders exhibit milder difficulties producing speech that generally involve a few
speech sounds. Common articulation disorders include substitution of /w/ for
/r/ such as “wabbit” for “rabbit.” In contrast, children with phonological disorders
are considered to have more pervasive difficulties with producing speech sounds.
Their difficulties are described by error patterns as opposed to being isolated to
single sounds. For example, children exhibiting an error pattern called fronting,
would substitute in their oral language, and conceivably in their spelling, all sounds
made in the back of the mouth like /k/ and /g/ for those made in the front of the
mouth like /t/ and /d/ (e.g., saying “tup” for “cup” or “das” for “gas”) (American
Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.).
Unlike research documenting the literacy difficulties of children with LI, exami-
nations of the relationship between reading and speech impairments have resulted
in contradictory findings. Some investigations have led to the conclusion that chil-
dren with SI are at risk for later reading failure (Bird, Bishop, & Freeman, 1995;
Carroll & Snowling, 2004; Gillon, 2005; Larrivee & Catts, 1999; Leitão & Fletcher,

2004; Puranik et al., 2008), whereas other investigations have reported that the
reading abilities of children with SI are not significantly different from that of chil-
dren without SI (Bernhardt & Major, 2005; Hesketh, 2004; Leitão, Hogben, &
Fletcher, 1997; Nathan, Stackhouse, Goulandris, & Snowling, 2004). Of note is the
fact that investigations examining the literacy difficulties of children with SI have
been confined to reading and reading-related tasks.
However, children with SI may have writing difficulties. They may have difficulty
learning letter-sound correspondences, as a result of their articulation difficulties or
deficiencies in phonological processes, or they may have difficulties with phonologi-
cal memory and insufficient phonological representations (Bird et al., 1995; Bishop
& Adams, 1990), which, in turn, may lead to spelling difficulties. And spelling
impedes the quantity and quality of written composition (e.g., Aram 2005; Graham,
Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, & Whitaker, 1997). Difficulty with phonological mem-
ory could also mean difficulty holding words, ideas, or sentences long enough in
memory before it can be translated to writing. Therefore, in addition to examining
the writing skills of children with LI, we also examined writing in children with SI.
Our primary purpose was to compare the early spelling, handwriting, and writ-
ing skills for children with a diagnosis of LI and SI with those of their TD peers
receiving similar classroom instruction. We were interested in describing individual
differences in performance and also in learning whether our clinical groups would
manifest differences at this very early stage of writing. Converging evidence indi-
cates the importance of transcription skills (handwriting fluency and spelling)
for translating thoughts and ideas into written language, especially with beginning
writers (e.g., Berninger, Cartwright, Yates, Swanson, & Abbott, 1994; Berninger,
Whitaker, Feng, Swanson, & Abbott, 1996; Berninger, Yates, Cartwright, Rutberg,
Remy, & Abbot, 1992, De La Paz & Graham, 1995; Graham, et al., 1997; Puranik &
Al Otaiba, 2014). We thus examined handwriting fluency and spelling. In addition,
we examined writing at the sentence and discourse level, because writing requires
the processing, generation, and sequencing of increasingly larger units of written
language—from letters in words, to words in sentences, to sentences in paragraphs
(Arfé & Boscolo, 2006; Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008;
Dockrell, Lindsay, Connelly, & Mackie, 2007).
METHOD
Data for this study was taken from a larger longitudinal study examining the
effects of individualizing reading instruction within 14 public schools in a
moderate-sized city in north Florida. In this chapter, we focused on data for
children with SI and LI. These schools served students from a diverse range of
socioeconomic status; children qualifying for free and reduced lunch (a proxy
for socioeconomic status in the United States) at these participating schools
ranged from 8.2% to 92.6%. The schools had full-day kindergarten programs,
which included 90 minutes of core reading and language arts instruction using
Open Court (Bereiter et al., 2002). The Open Court curriculum provides sys-
tematic and explicit instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary,
and reading comprehension. Spelling and writing were not the focus of this cur-
riculum, nor did teachers systematically use any supplemental spelling and writ-
ing programs.
Participants
Participants for the present study included a total of 234 kindergarten children
from 21 teachers, ranging from 1 to 5 teachers per school. Of this group, 16 chil-
dren had a current school diagnosis of LI and 12 children had a diagnosis of SI.
The number of children in the two clinical groups is consistent with average preva-
lence rates reported for children with LI and SI in the United States (e.g., Tomblin,
Records, Buckwalter, Zhang, Smith, O’Brien, 1997). To identify students needing
speech or language services, the general practice in U.S. schools is to show a dis-
crepancy between the child’s chronological age and their speech (for children with
SI) or language (for children with LI) performance. These 28 children were being
served in mainstream classrooms and received speech and/or language therapy one
to three times per week depending on their Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).
Students are generally taken out of their classrooms for half-hour sessions to receive
these speech and language services.
Of the remaining 206 participants, 15 were dropped from this analysis because
they had current IEPs for intellectual disabilities, visual impairments, and so forth.
This resulted in a group of 191 children who formed the TD group who were from
the same classes as the clinical groups and receiving similar instruction. Table 9.1
(p. 120) includes demographic information for the two clinical groups (LI and SI)
and their TD peers.
Procedure
The assessment protocol for the larger study included a comprehensive battery of
cognitive, oral language, and reading assessments that took place in the Fall and/
or Spring of the school year. These assessments were individually administered by
trained Research Assistants (RAs). Writing measures were collected in the Spring
(or the end) of the kindergarten year and group administered in one session by
trained RAs. The classroom teachers were present during the administrations and
assisted the RAs as needed.

Measures
Written expression. For this task, the RAs provided a writing prompt. The RAs
said, “You have been in kindergarten for almost a whole year. Today we are going to write
about kindergarten. Let’s think about what you enjoyed about being in kindergarten.
What did you learn in school? Did anything special happen to you in kindergarten”?
Students were given 15 minutes to complete the task. Soon after administering
the writing task, the RAs read all the writing samples to ensure that they could
be understood. When a word was not understood because of illegible writing or
because a word was spelled incorrectly, the RAs asked the children to read their
samples and wrote the word they intended to write below the incorrect spelling or
illegible word.
The writing samples were coded to calculate three variables to assess writing
productivity at the discourse and sentence levels: (1) total number of words writ-
ten (TNW), (2) number of ideas expressed (Ideas), and (3) number of sentences
(Sentences). TNW was the number of words produced in writing by the subject. It
has been widely used by researchers when measuring productivity in writing (e.g.,
Berman & Verhoevan, 2002; Houck & Billingsley, 1989; Mackie & Dockrell, 2004;
Nelson, Bahr, & Van Meter, 2004; Nelson & Van Meter, 2002; Puranik, et al., 2007;
Scott & Windsor, 2000; Wagner et al., 2011) and has been shown to be an excellent
predictor of writing quality (e.g., Scott, 2005).
Ideas were calculated to examine the number of unique propositions/points
that children were able to express in writing. Given that kindergarten children are
beginning writers, their compositions were simple and generally included a list
of reasons that they liked kindergarten or a list of things they did in kindergarten.
Hence, we calculated an idea as the number of things/reasons the child provided
about what they did or liked in kindergarten. It generally included a subject and
a predicate (e.g., “I like kindergarten [1 idea] because we get to go to art [1 idea].
I like kindergarten”). However, children were also given points when their ideas
had a common subject and were joined by conjunctions (e.g., “And we get to go
to housekeeping [1 idea] and eat snacks [1 idea].”). Sometimes children repeated
themselves; as in the case of “I like kindergarten” in the preceding example. These
repetitions were not counted as an idea. Ideas that did not pertain to the prompt
(e.g., “I like sandstorms”) were also not counted because we attempted to count
only the number of unique propositions children were able to express that per-
tained to the prompt.
Number of sentences was calculated as the sentence level measure. Frequently,
children this age omit punctuations. In those cases, coders made decisions
about what constituted a sentence. A sentence was defined as a group of words
that expresses a complete thought, feeling, or idea and contained an explicit
or implied subject and a predicate containing a verb. For example one child
wrote: “Kindergarten is fun because I am good I do not get into trouble that is why
I like kindergarten.” Although the child wrote this sentence without any punctua-
tion, it was coded as two sentences: (1) Kindergarten is fun because I am good, and
(2) I do not get into trouble that is why I like kindergarten. Since we were attempt-
ing to capture productivity in writing, children were not penalized for grammatical
errors; however, only complete sentences were counted.
Spelling. To assess students’ ability to spell single words, we examined their
performance on a list of 14 words used in prior literacy studies (e.g., Al Otaiba
et al., 2010; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1989; Byrne, et al., 2006; Puranik & Al
Otaiba, 2012), which included decodable words (e.g., dog, man, plug, limp, tree,
went), sight (e.g., one, said, blue, come), and pseudowords (e.g., ig, sut, frot, yilt).
The RA read each word, read a sentence with the word, and then repeated the
spelling word (e.g., “Dog. I took my dog to the park. Dog.”). The pseudowords
were presented without a sentence but were repeated three times each (e.g., ig,
ig, ig).
Informed by prior studies, spelling was scored using a developmental scor-
ing system because it captures sophistication and variability in children’s spelling
attempts better than a dichotomous scoring system (e.g., Al Otaiba, et al; 2010;
Treiman & Bourassa, 2000; Treiman, Kessler, & Bourassa, 2001; Ritchey, Coker,
& McCraw, 2010). During the learning-to-write phase as in kindergarten, children
attempt to spell words by first randomly writing letters, then marking the initial
consonant, followed by marking final consonants drawing on their increasing
knowledge of letter-sound relationships (see Treiman, Kessler, & Bourassa, 2001).
Developmentally, vowels are marked last (Core, Puranik, & Apel, 2011). Hence, we
used a system in which children are given more points for representing phonologi-
cal and orthographic features of the target word as opposed to coding words as sim-
ply correct or incorrect. The possible scores ranged from 0 (lowest) to 6 (highest).1
Children’s scores on the 14 target spelling words were aggregated to form a single
spelling score for a maximum score of 84.
Handwriting fluency. Children were asked to write all the letters of the alpha-
bet in order, using lower case letters in 1 minute (Christensen, 2009; Hudson, Lane,
& Mercer, 2005; Wagner et al., 2011). This task was used to measure how well chil-
dren access, retrieve, and write letter forms automatically. Because of the age of the
participants in this study, we modified the scoring system to account for the devel-
opmental level of the children. Children’s responses were scored as 0 if a letter was
missing, incorrect, or not recognizable; scored as 0.5 if the letter was recognizable
but poorly formed or reversed; scored as 1 if the letter was well formed and rec-
ognizable. The order of the alphabet sequence was also taken into consideration,
that is, letters were counted as incorrect if they were written out of order. Students’
scores on the individual letters were aggregated to form a single handwriting flu-
ency score with a maximum score of 26.
Cognitive measures. Two subtests of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Scale
(K-BIT-2; Kaufman & Kaufman, 2001) were administered to measure verbal and

nonverbal intelligence. Standard scores are reported. For the Matrices subtest, a
student looked at six pictures to provide answers to an analogy; for example, car
goes with road; boat goes with _______ (ocean). For the Verbal Knowledge subtest,
students look at a series of six pictures and when asked a question are required to
point to the correct picture. The average reported reliability is .90.
Oral language. The Picture Vocabulary subtest of the Woodcock Johnson,
Third Edition (WJ-III; Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) was used to assess
expressive word knowledge. In this subtest, students name pictured objects that
increase in difficulty. The WJ-III is a widely used, validated, and reliable assessment
with a median reliability of .77. Standard scores are reported. Additionally, two sub-
tests of the Test of Language Development-Primary: Third Edition (TOLD-P:3;
Newcomer & Hammill, 1997) were used to measure oral language: the Sentence
Imitation (SI) and the Grammatic Completion (GC) subtest. The TOLD-P:3 was
designed to be administered to children between 4;0 and 8;11 years of age and can
be used to identify children who are significantly below their peers in language pro-
ficiency and can determine children’s specific strengths and weaknesses in language
skills. The Sentence Imitation (SI) subtest assesses a child’s familiarity with gram-
matical markers and word order. The Grammatic Completion (GC) measures the
production of language by testing the child’s ability to use various English morpho-
logical forms. Average reliability for the both subtests across all age groups is .90.
Reliability
For the handwriting and spelling measures, inter-scorer agreement was established
through a four-step process, directed by the first author, which included first creat-
ing a scoring rubric for the two measures. Second, the RAs were trained to use the
rubric with a small subset of children. Once they reached 100% agreement, then
each individually scored the writing samples. Third, 15% of the entire data set was
randomly selected to calculate inter-rater reliability. Writing samples were scored in
the same manner, except 20% of the entire data set was randomly selected to cal-
culate inter-rater reliability. Inter-rater reliability was 88%, 85%, and 86% for TNW,
ideas, and sentences respectively. For spelling, inter-rater reliability was 94.8% and
Cohen’s kappa was .92. For the handwriting fluency measure, inter-rater reliability
was 99% and Cohen’s kappa was .98. All discrepancies in scoring across the entire
sample were resolved through discussion and a final score was entered following
consensus.
RESULTS
Table 9.1 contains the demographic information for the three groups. There were
statistically significant differences between the groups for age, F(2, 216) = 4.07,
Table 9.1 DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION FOR LI (n = 16), SI (n = 12),
AND TD PEERS (n = 191)
LI SI TD
Age at testing (yrs, mns) Fall (M/SD) 5.5 (.09) 5.2 (.11) 5.2 (.02)
Age at testing (yrs, mns) Spring (M/SD) 6.13 (.44) 6.04 (.42) 5.82 (.47)
% free and reduced lunch Yes/No 15/1 11/1 111/80
Race/Ethnicity White 2 0 65
African American 14 12 123
Asian 0 0 3
Gender Male 14 11 99
Female 2 1 92
p < .05; the LI group was older than the TD group. There were also statistically
significantly differences between the LI, SI and TD group for gender, Pearson’s
λ2(2) = 13.99, p < .001. The two clinical groups had a higher proportion of males
compared to the TD group. This is in keeping with the generally higher proportion
of males compared to females with speech and language impairments. No statisti-
cally significant differences were noted between the SI and TD group and between
the SI and LI group on other measures. As can also be seen in Table 9.1, a very
high percentage of the children in the two clinical groups received free and reduced
lunch (FARL). In fact, only one student each in the LI and SI group was not from
a low socioeconomic status background. Given that we did not have adequate sub-
jects in the two clinical groups who were not on FARL to examine interactions, the
two students were removed from the analysis resulting in a LI group of 15 children
and an SI group of 11 children. To ensure group comparability, TD subjects from
relatively higher socioeconomic status (those not on FARL) were also removed
from the analysis when examining group differences on reading and writing mea-
sures. This resulted in a TD comparison group of 111 subjects on FARL.
Group comparisons were conducted using analysis of variance (ANOVA)
and using Scheffé for post hoc comparisons to account for unequal group sizes.
However, for three of our outcome variables (TOLD_GC, TNW, and Ideas), the
assumption of homogeneity of variance was not satisfied. For those three variables,
ANOVA was conducted using Welch’s F statistic and post hoc comparisons were
conducted using Games-Howell to account for unequal group variances and sizes.
Performance on the cognitive and oral language measures for the LI, SI, and TD
groups are presented in Table 9.2 and performance on the writing measures are
presented in Table 9.3. Performance differences were noted between the LI and TD
groups on the Matrices (nonverbal) and Verbal Knowledge (verbal) subtest of the
KBIT, and the vocabulary and oral language measures with the LI group showing
significantly poorer performance compared to the TD children. There were no dif-
ferences on any of the cognitive and oral language measures between the SI and TD

Table 9.2 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR COGNITIVE AND ORAL
LANGUAGE MEASURES FOR LI, SI, AND TD GROUPS ON FARL
LI (n = 15) SI (n = 11) TD (n = 111) F for 3-group contrast
M SD M SD M SD
KBIT (nonverbal) 83.60 13.05 86.55 11.97 91.71 11.89 3.61* (LI<TD)
KBIT (verbal) 76.60 13.26 82.64 12.85 88.55 13.63 5.71** (LI<TD)
Picture Vocabulary 86.47 6.99 94.18 8.86 98.26 8.67 13.16*** ((LI<TD)
TOLD_SI 3.87 2.48 6.08 3.07 8.07 2.73 17.31*** (LI<TD)
TOLD_GC 4.73 1.98 7.36 1.75 7.70 2.78 13.05*** (LI<TD; LI<SI)
Note: Differences significant at *p < .05, ***p < .001. FARL = Free and reduced lunch. KBIT (nonverbal) = Kaufman
Brief Intelligence Scale-2: Matrices; KBIT (verbal) = Kaufman Brief Intelligence Scale-2: Verbal Knowledge;
Picture Vocabulary = Woodcock Johnson, Third Edition (WJ-III): Picture Vocabulary; TOLD_SI/TOLD_GC =
Test of Language Development: Third Edition: Sentence Imitation/Grammatic Completion. For KBIT and Picture
Vocabulary-standard score mean is 100, SD ± 15; for TOLD standard score mean is 10, SD ± 3.
Table 9.3 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR WRITING MEASURES

FOR LI, SI, AND TD GROUPS ON FARL
Measures LI (n = 15) SI (n = 11) TD (n = 111) F for 3-group contrasts
M SD M SD M SD
Spelling 30.50 16.71 43.0 18.22 46.64 19.53 4.42** (LI<TD)

Decodable 11.92 6.81 13.89 6.70 17.64 7.62 4.31* (LI<TD)
Sight 11.07 6.37 16.67 8.54 16.44 7.18 3.50* (LI<TD)
Pseudoword 7.50 5.21 12.44 5.34 12.56 6.69 3.8** (LI<TD)
Handwriting
7.17 4.42 8.32 4.49 10.27 6.39 2.05
fluency
Sentences .38 .81 1.75 2.45 2.7 3.08 3.3* (LI<TD)
TNW 1.73 4.15 8.36 13.38 11.66 13.11 17.94*** (LI<TD)
Ideas .33 .82 1.73 2.53 2.62 2.78 22.52*** (LI<TD)
Note: Difference between LI and TD groups significant for all writing measures at * p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
FARL = Free and reduced lunch; TNW = Total number of words.
group. Although the children with SI had higher mean scores on the oral language
and cognitive measures compared to their LI peers, the differences between the two
groups was statistically significant only for the Grammatic Completion subtest of
the TOLD-P:3 (Newcomer & Hammill, 1997).
Differences between the LI and TD group were significant for most of the writ-
ing measures, with the LI children showing poorer performance compared to the
TD children. In particular, differences between the LI and TD group were signifi-
cant for spelling, number of sentences, ideas, and TNW (ps <.05) but not for the
handwriting fluency measure. Children with LI had difficulty spelling all types of
words: decodable, sight, and nonsense words. They also had difficulty formulating
sentences, generating ideas, and demonstrated reduced productivity as measured
by TNW compared to their TD peers.
Compared to the LI children, children with SI showed better performance on
writing measures. Whereas children with SI had lower mean scores for writing mea-
sures compared to the TD children, these differences were not statistically signifi-
cant. The SI children had higher scores on all writing measures compared to the LI
children, but once again these differences were also not statistically significant (see
Table 9.3).
DISCUSSION
The primary purpose of this study was to examine writing in children with LI and
SI, two groups of children that might be susceptible to difficulties with written lan-
guage. The results of this study add to the research regarding writing underachieve-
ment of children with LI, corroborating that these differences manifest very early
in children’s instructional experiences. Moreover, the results provide further evi-
dence of a relationship between the development of oral language impairments and
writing difficulties. Children with LI showed poorer performance on spelling and
written productivity compared to their classmates receiving similar instruction.
Children with SI also showed marginally poorer performance on handwriting flu-
ency, spelling, and TNW compared to their classmates, but these differences were
not statistically significant.
Our results regarding the writing difficulties of children with LI are analogous
to the reading difficulties faced by this group of children relative to peers with SI
and relative to their TD peers (e.g., Catts et al., 2002; Puranik et al., 2008). It is evi-
dent that students with LI not only struggle with reading as demonstrated by previ-
ous research, but also with writing beginning as early as kindergarten. Our results
corroborate the findings of Cabell et al. (2009) and Puranik and Lonigan (2012)
showing that writing deficits for children with LI surface very early.
Of the two transcription skills (handwriting fluency and spelling) examined,
children with LI showed statistically poorer performance only on the spelling mea-
sure compared to their TD peers (see Table 9.3). Their difficulties with spelling
included all types of words-sight, decodable, and nonsense words. Generalized
problems with spelling despite age appropriate handwriting skills at this early stage
of writing development might be a marker for a more general problem with writ-
ten language processing. Difficulty with a transcription skill such as spelling would
mean fewer resources available to devote to higher order writing skills such as gen-
erating text, planning, and revising (McCutchen, 1996). As it turns out, our results
indicate that children with LI had difficulty generating text when compared to their
TD classmates. They wrote fewer words and sentences and expressed fewer ideas
in their written output. This is consistent with the results of investigations showing
that older children with language impairment use fewer words in written discourse,

produce shorter stories, and have difficulty with text generation when compared
to age-matched controls (Bishop & Clarkson, 2003; Dockrell & Lindsay, 2000;
Fey et al., 2004; Mackie & Dockrell, 2004; Puranik et al., 2007; Scott & Windsor,
2000). Collectively, these findings regarding writing underachievement in children
with LI indicate that writing trajectories might be established earlier than previ-
ously documented.
On average, a TD kindergarten child from a low socioeconomic status back-
ground wrote approximately 12 words. In contrast, the average words written by
a child with LI was less than 2. Furthermore, children with LI on average were not
able to produce a single idea or a complete sentence compared to their TD peers
who were able to produce on average three ideas and over two complete sentences
in their written output. The LI children’s performance on sentences is particularly
troublesome since we did not consider grammaticality of sentences.
Recently in the United States, led by the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA), the Common Core
State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy was released with the goal of
providing consistent and appropriate benchmarks for all students. The Standards
set expectations that children in kindergarten are expected to produce complete
sentences in writing and to write about experiences, stories, people, objects, or
events. In the present study, writing performance of children with LI was far below
these new kindergarten grade-level expectations and is of much concern because
they will surely not be prepared to meet writing demands in first grade. Additionally,
research indicates that children who are poor writers in first grade are highly likely
to remain poor writers in fourth grade ( Juel, 1988); as with reading, it appears that
the seeds of success or failure in writing are also sown early.
Similar to their LI peers, children with SI had lower mean scores on all writ-
ing measures compared to the TD peers receiving similar instruction, although
the differences were not significant. These findings must be treated with caution
and not taken to mean that children with SI do not have difficulties with writing.
It is likely that we may not have had enough power to detect differences given
our small sample size. Second, large variability was noted in the writing scores.
Thus, it is plausible that some children with SI, perhaps the more severe cases,
have difficulty writing. A qualitative examination to figure out which students
with SI struggled with writing would be an excellent avenue for future research.
Our results must also not be taken to mean that children with SI will not develop
writing difficulties later. It is possible that, unlike the children with LI, difficulties
with writing for the SI children may surface later. Stronger oral language skills of
the SI group (compared to the LI group) may act as a moderating factor, at least
during these early years when the demands of writing are at a minimum. Perhaps
at this early stage, their difficulties with letter-sound correspondences or defi-
ciencies in phonological processing do not hinder their ability to spell simple
CVC words, but could become an issue when they are required to spell more
complex multisyllabic words. Alternatively, their difficulties with phonological
memory or insufficient phonological representations, which might present dif-
ficulties with holding words, ideas, or sentences in memory for writing, may
become problematic when the demands on writing increase at later grades. We
hope to extend these findings in our future studies as we longitudinally follow
and assess not only these children, but also a second cohort of kindergarteners.
Hopefully our planned longitudinal studies of these children and of a second
cohort of children will shed light on this issue.
CONCLUSION
The pervasiveness of literacy difficulties as documented in reading has led to

the focus on early intervention. Our results underscore the importance of tak-
ing a similar preventative approach to addressing writing difficulties in chil-
dren with LI from a very young age to hopefully prevent a Matthew Effect
(Stanovich, 1986). Most importantly, research has indicated that early literacy
difficulties are more likely to persist over time if timely intervention is not
provided (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Juel, 1988). In fact, reading trajec-
tories are fairly stable by third grade particularly for children with persistent
speech and language deficits (Catts et al., 2002; Puranik, et al., 2008). Similar
to the approach of prevention of reading difficulties, it is important to iden-
tify writing problems early in high-risk populations such as children with LI
and also possibly SI. Providing early intervention may result in greater success
before these deficits become stable or interfere with the acquisition of other
writing skills. Research indicates that reading interventions conducted early
in the kindergarten year for children with poor oral language skills results in
better outcomes than the same interventions conducted later in the kinder-
garten year (O’Connor, Bocian, Beebe-Frankenberger, & Linklater, 2010).
Similarly, spelling and writing interventions targeted early may result in better
outcomes compared to interventions that begin later. Thus, to improve chil-
dren’s academic readiness, classroom teachers, speech-language pathologists,
and educators need to target those specific early writing skills (in addition to
early reading skills), particularly for children at risk. Intervention goals for
children with LI may need to address written language deficits in addition to
oral language impairments. Readers are urged to refer to chapter 20 by Nelson
on linking assessment results to intervention.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Support for carrying out this research was provided in part by grant P50 HD052120
from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The

opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the
funding agency.
NOTE
1. Scores were awarded as follows: 0- no response or a random string of letters; 1- a single

phonetically related letter (e.g., for dog student wrote an o or a g); 2- a correct first letter
followed by other unrelated letters (e.g., dib or didl); 3- wrote more than one phoneme
that was phonetically correct (e.g., do); 4- all letters represented and phonetically correct
(e.g., dawg); 5- all letters represented and phonetically correct, and the student made an
attempt to mark a long vowel (e.g., blew or bloo for blue); only two words in the list, blue
and tree had long vowels; 6- word spelled correctly (e.g., dog).
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CHAPTER 10
Morphological Awareness and Spelling

Difficulties in French-Speaking Children
MONIQUE SÉNÉCH AL
L earning to spell is more than merely memorizing letter sequences and apply-
ing rules because it also involves developing adaptive and efficient strategies
(Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1999; Varnhagen, 1995). Moreover, the ease with which
children learn to spell is closely linked to the phonological transparency of the writ-
ing system. In transparent alphabetic languages such as Finnish, children can spell
most words by relying on their knowledge of sound-to-letter correspondences. In
more opaque languages like French or English, children may need to call on addi-
tional skills to build accurate orthographic representations for words. In this chap-
ter, we examined how French-speaking children who have poor morphological
awareness also have difficulty spelling words that carry morphemic information. Of
special interest was whether these children would report using morphological spell-
ing strategies when they represented morphological information in their spelling.
Morphological awareness refers to children’s linguistic insight that words can
be parsed in constituent morphemes (Carlisle, 1995; Casalis & Louis-Alexandre,
2000; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nunes, Bryant, & Bindman, 2006; McBride-Chang,
Wagner, Muse, Chow, & Shu, 2005). Children’s ability to reflect upon and manipu-
late individual morphemic units explains individual differences in children’s spell-
ing as reported in the meta-analysis by Sénéchal and Kearnan (2007). The literature
they reviewed was correlational in nature and the studies included oral measures
of morphological awareness. In Nagy et al.’s study both oral and written measures
of morphological awareness were used (Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughan, &
Vermeulen, 2003). As indicated in Table 10.1, the 11 studies that met their selec-
tion criteria were conducted on alphabetic languages and represented 1,122 chil-
dren. The mean correlation, adjusted for differences in sample sizes, was moderate
Table 10.1 STUDY CHARACTERISTICS AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS
BETWEEN MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS (MA) AND SPELLING
Study N Grade Child Lang. MA type r
Fowler & Liberman (1995) 48 2; 3; 4 E D .53

Hauerwas & Walker (2003) 88 3; 6; 7; 8 E I .28
Kemp (2006): Study 1 74 1;2;3;4 E D .44
Kemp (2006): Study 2 75 3;4 E Both .49
Lehtonen & Bryant (2005) 106 1,2,3 Fi I .49
Leong (2000) 226 4; 5; 6 E D .55
Levin et al. (1999) 40 k to 1 H I .44
Ouellette & Sénéchal (2006) 115 k F Both .40
Plaza & Cohen (2004) 199 1;2 F I .35
Sénéchal (2000) 112 2; 4 F D .48
Sénéchal et al. (2006) 39 4 F D .43
E = English; F = French; Fi = Finnish; H = Hebrew; I = inflections; D = derivations.
(r = .46, CIs = .40 to .52), and fairly stable across studies as reflected by a hetero-
geneity statistic that was not significantly different from zero (Q = 8.13, p >.05).
The heterogeneity statistic indexes the variability in correlations across individual
studies, and when it is not statistically significant, it means that this variability is
not greater than what would be expected by chance. In other words, the mean cor-
relation seems to be representative of the body of studies included. Sénéchal and
Kearnan also reviewed the individual studies to show that morphological awareness
made a unique contribution to spelling after controlling for age (Nunes, Bryant, &
Bindman, 1997a, b; Sénéchal, 2000), intelligence (Nunes et al., 1997a, b), previous
measures of spelling (Nunes et al., 1997a, b) or spelling of regular words (Sénéchal,
2000; Sénéchal, Basque, & Leclair, 2006), vocabulary (Fowler & Liberman, 1995;
Sénéchal, 2000), phoneme awareness (Sénéchal, 2000), and naming speed (Plaza
& Cohen, 2004). Taken together, these findings suggest that morphological aware-
ness has a robust association with spelling that cannot be explained by other key
predictors of spelling. In the present chapter, the findings of Sénéchal (2000) and
Sénéchal et al. (2006) were re-examined to assess the specific spelling difficulties of
French-speaking children with weak morphological awareness.
The French Orthography
The rules of word formation are very clear and phonologically transparent in some
languages such as Finnish, but they are less clear in languages such as English and
French (Vannest, Bertram, Jarvikivi, & Niemi, 2002). The English and French
orthography map onto the morphophonological structure of the language, because
M o r p h o l o g i cal Awa r e n e s s a n d Sp e ll i n g D i ff i c u lt i e s [ 1 3 1 ]
some spelling patterns represent the etymology of a word, or its morphology, in
addition to mapping phonemes onto corresponding graphemes. In fact, the French
written language represents aspects of morphology that are not represented pho-
nologically. For instance, inflected words and root words often end with silent
consonants that indicate morphological information. Consider that the plural is
most often marked with a final silent -s in nouns and a silent -nt in regular verbs
(e.g., bol/bols; il danse/ils dansent). Moreover, the silent final consonant in certain
nouns marks the relation with derivatives such as derived verbs (e.g., chant/chanter;
repos/reposer). Hence, the predominantly silent morphology means that children
must learn to spell words correctly without an oral reference (Alegria & Mousty,
1996; Cormier & Kelson, 2000; Fayol, Totereau, & Barrouillet, 2006; Pacton &
Fayol, 2003; Totereau, Thevenin, & Fayol, 1997). In research on marking the plu-
ral of nouns (-s) and verbs (-nt), Fayol and his colleagues observed that elemen-
tary children frequently failed to mark the plural (Fayol, Hupet, & Largy, 1999;
Largy, Cousin, Bryant, & Fayol, 2007); that when spelling homophones, chil-
dren overgeneralize the use of –s to verbs and the use of –nt to nouns (Totereau,
Barrouillet, & Fayol, 1998); and that even skilled spellers are easily disrupted in
their subject-verb agreement (Fayol, Largy, & Lemaire, 1994). These findings dem-
onstrate the increased difficulty of languages in which there is a mismatch between
phonological and morphological information.
Because morphological information in French is often marked orthographically
but not phonologically (Clark, 1985), then children’s morphological knowledge
could play an important role in learning to spell correctly. Indeed, French chil-
dren’s sensitivity to morphological information facilitated the choice of appropri-
ate homophonic endings in grades 2 and 3. In French, the phoneme /o/ can be
spelled o, ot, au, eau, but only the grapheme eau marks the inflection for the mas-
culine diminutive. Pacton, Fayol, and Perruchet (2005) found that children were
more likely to include the grapheme eau in their spelling of pseudo-words when the
sentence context clearly indicated that the pseudo-word was a diminutive (A little
/vitar/ is a /vitareau/) as opposed to when the sentence context did not indicate a
diminutive form (A tall /vitar/ is a /vitaro/). These morphological effects, however,
interacted with the graphotactic probability of the final two graphemes, such that
children spelled /o/ with the grapheme eau less frequently when the graphotactic
probability was low (i.e., f rarely precedes eau) than when it was high (i.e., v fre-
quently precedes eau). Taken together, these results suggest that children integrate
information from a variety of sources when they spell.
The research by Pacton et al. (2005) presumes that children acquire knowledge
about morphology through exposure to written texts, and that the extraction of mor-
phemic features does not require explicit processing, but may occur implicitly (also
see, Pacton & Deacon, 2008). Other research, however, has found that children can
use the morphological relations between words strategically and explicitly to help
them spell words accurately (Sénéchal et al., 2006). By thinking of the morpho-
logical relations among words, children can choose the correct spelling from other

possible spelling alternatives. Consider the case of the silent letters in the French
orthography. To spell accurately the silent t in chant, children can use their under-
standing of the link between chant and chanter to write the silent-consonant ending.
In the present research, children with good and poor morphological aware-
ness skills were to spell two kinds of words, namely, phonological and mor-
phological words. Phonological words were those that contained consistent
phoneme-grapheme patterns (Waters, Bruck, & Malus-Abramowitz, 1988) whereas
morphological words ended with a silent consonant and were those words for
which derivatives clearly revealed the silent-consonant ending. For example, rang
would be classified as a morphological word because the silent-letter g in rang can
be determined by thinking of its derivative, rangée. Children’s spelling accuracy
should be linked to how deeply children had to go in the orthographic structure of
words to extract the correct spelling. Hence, phonological words should be easier to
spell than were morphological words. To isolate the specific role of morphological
awareness to spelling morphological words, children high and low on morphologi-
cal awareness were matched on phonological awareness. Given the link between
phonological awareness and spelling phonologically transparent words, there
should not be any group difference on spelling phonological words. That is, the
group differences should only appear when children are presented with words for
which spelling is facilitated by relying on morphological awareness.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants. From an initial sample of 57 French-speaking grade 2 children who

had participated in Sénéchal (2000), a subsample of 20 children (50% girls) who
performed below the median on a morphological awareness task were selected.
The selected children were then matched on phonological awareness to 20 children
(55% girls) who scored above the median on morphological awareness. On aver-
age, the children were 7 years 6 months (SD = 4 mo). All the children were native
speakers of French, and French was the language of instruction in schools.
Morphological awareness task. A word analogy task of the type a:b::c:d was
selected to measure morphological awareness because Nunes et al. (1997a, b)
found that it was a better predictor of spelling as compared to other morphological
tasks. In this task, children are given a pair of words that are linked by a morpho-
logical relation (e.g., the noun danse and the derived verb danser). Then, they are
given the first item (e.g., the noun saut) of a second pair that has the same type of
morphological relation as the first pair. Children are to deduce the missing item
(e.g., the verb sauter). The morphological relations tested were: masculine to femi-
nine form (e.g., gris:grise::blond: blonde), noun to verb (e.g., repos:reposer::refus;
refuser), noun to other noun (e.g., écrit:écriture::toit; toiture), adjective to adverb
(e.g., rapide:rapidement::heureux: heureusement). In all cases, the target pair of
items included a silent consonant ending. The task included three practice items
and 12 test items; and Sénéchal (2000) reported the inter-item reliability for this
task to be adequate, Cronbach’s alpha = .72.
Phoneme awareness task. Children’s sensitivity to the phonology of spoken
French was measured with a phoneme-deletion task. Children were asked to say
what word is left when a specified phoneme is removed. Children were asked to
remove phonemes from the beginning or medial portions of one, two, and three
syllable words (e.g., port without /p/; souffrir without /f/; assigner without /gn/).
Children were given practice items for which they received feedback. The task
included three practice items and 15 test items; and Sénéchal (2000) reported the
inter-item reliability for this task to be good, Cronbach’s alpha = .83.
Vocabulary test. Including a measure of vocabulary was necessary because of
the known relation between vocabulary and morphological awareness. Specifically,
Sénéchal and Kearnan (2007), in their meta-analytic review, reported an aver-
age correlation coefficient of .48 (CIs = .44 to .52; 19 studies representing 2,556
children) between vocabulary and morphological awareness. Children’s receptive
vocabulary was measured with the Échelle de Vocabulaire en Images Peabody
(Dunn, Thérien-Whalen et Dunn, 1993). The norms for the test are from a French
Canadian sample and the average reported reliability for the test is .81. The stan-
dardized scores were used in the analyses.
Spelling task. Children spelled 30 words divided into two categories.
Phonological words (N = 10 words) were those that did not include any silent let-
ters and could be spelled using phoneme-to-grapheme knowledge (e.g., tiroir, éclair,
dollar, journal, lac, bocal, soif). Morphological words (N = 20 words) were those for
which the final consonant could be deduced by using derivatives (e.g., bavard, lent,
laid, camp, vent, rang, début). For example, the silent d in bavard could be deduced
from the feminine form bavarde. The categories of words did not differ signifi-
cantly in terms of written word frequencies and number of letters, syllables, and
orthographic neighbors (Sénéchal, 2000). The reliability for this task was good,
Cronbach’s alpha = .93.
Children listened to each word presented individually, then in a sentence that
clarified its meaning, followed by a repetition of the word. Children’s responses
were scored in two ways: once to reflect the correct spelling of the entire word and
once to reflect the correct spelling of the silent-consonant ending.
Results and Discussion
The descriptive statistics as well as the results of the statistical tests assessing
group differences are reported in Table 10.2. As shown, children differed on mor-
phological awareness, but not on phoneme awareness. Hence, any group differ-
ence in spelling should not be due to differences in their phoneme awareness.

Table 10.2 MEAN PERFORMANCE AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR EACH
TASK FOR GRADE 2 CHILDREN WITH HIGH (n = 20) AND LOW (n = 20)
MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS (MA) IN STUDY 1
Low MA High MA F(38)a Effect

sizeb
M SD M SD
Morphological awareness (max = 12) 4.0 1.1 7.3 1.3 75.7*** .67

Phoneme awareness (max = 15) 8.1 2.6 8.2 2.3 > 1.0 .00
Vocabularyc (max = 160) 108.7 9.4 123.6 12.7 17.9*** .32
Spelling (% correct)
Phonological words 43.5 20.3 44.0 21.1 > 1.0 .01
Morphological words 13.0 7.8 25.8 15.2 4.3* .10
Morphological words endings 18.5 10.1 31.3 15.9 4.0* .10
a
df = 37 for tests of spelling performance because of the inclusion of vocabulary as a covariate.
b
Eta square.
c
Standardized scores with test mean of 100.
*** p < .001; * p < .05.
However, children with high morphological awareness had a stronger vocabulary

than did children with low morphological awareness. Given this statistically sig-
nificant difference across the two groups, all tests examining spelling included
vocabulary as a covariate in an attempt to remove statistically the potential
impact of vocabulary.
The first question addressed was whether the children would differ on their use
of sound-to-letter correspondence rules to spell words. Because the children in
the two groups had equivalent phoneme awareness skills, group differences were
not expected, and none were found on spelling phonological words. This finding
is important because it shows that children with low morphological awareness are
able to apply their knowledge of how to translate sounds into orthographic patterns
when those patterns are phonologically transparent.
The second and central question was whether group differences would appear
when spelling morphological words that are more difficult because of the presence
of a silent letter. As expected, children with low morphological awareness had more
difficulty spelling words with silent endings than did children with stronger mor-
phological awareness (be it the entire word or the silent consonant ending). The role
of children’s awareness of morphology appears to be specific to spelling morphologi-
cal words because children with low morphological awareness were just as likely to
spell phonological words accurately as were children with stronger morphological
awareness. Finally, an analysis of spelling errors of word endings revealed that the
most frequent error was the omission of the silent consonant (63% of errors).
The pattern of findings for Study 1 is consistent with the notion that morphological
knowledge plays a specific role in spelling words, one that is limited to morphological
information. This finding constrains those of Nunes et al. (1997a, b) who had tested
the role of morphological awareness on children’s spelling of morphological informa-
tion only (i.e., spelling of the past tense). The finding also constrains the findings of
more general tests of the link between morphological knowledge and general spelling
skills (Fowler & Liberman, 1995). Findings such as these are important because they
provide guidance for the design of interventions targeted to the specific difficulties that
children experience and to the potential causes of those difficulties. For example, train-
ing children in morphological awareness should have an impact on spelling specific
types of words (those with morphological links to other words) as opposed to having
a general impact on spelling. Hence, the selection of appropriate outcome variables
becomes important when evaluating the efficacy of interventions. Moreover, the find-
ings also suggest that training in phoneme awareness alone or in vocabulary alone
might not lead to the expected benefits on spelling morphological words.
The significant advantage of children with strong morphological awareness
when spelling morphological words suggests that children are sensitive to the mor-
phological structure of words. It is assumed that children with weaker morphologi-
cal awareness cannot make use strategically of the relations among words as readily
as children with stronger morphological awareness. The findings, however, provide
indirect evidence of morphological strategy use. Children may not use morpho-
logical strategies at all, but find that orthographic representations of morphological
words are easier to store in long-term memory due to the redundancy in ortho-
graphic patterns among root words and their derivatives (Pacton & Deacon, 2008).
In Study 2, data from Sénéchal et al. (2006) were used to examine whether children
would report using morphological strategies, and whether the reported use of mor-
phological strategies would be linked to spelling accuracy.
STUDY 2
By thinking of the morphological relations among words, children can choose the
correct spelling from other possible spelling alternatives. A morphological strategy
can help in two ways: it alerts children to the presence of a silent-consonant end-
ing, and it allows the selection of the silent letter. It is expected that children with
weak morphological awareness would be less likely to report using a morphological
strategy, and, when they do, they would be less efficient in using it.
Method
Participants. Children were selected from an initial sample of 39 French-speaking

grade 4 children from Sénéchal et al. (2006, Study 2). There were 18 children

(61% girls) who scored below the median on the morphological awareness task
and 15 children (60% girls) who scored above the median. The remaining children
scored at the median and were not selected. On average, the children were 9 years
10 months (SD = 5 mo). French was the language of instruction in schools.
Spelling task. The experimental spelling task included six phonological words
(6 words: lac, bocal, journal, éclair, canif, tambour), and twelve morphological words
(12 words: gras, gratuit, épais, blond, tannant, bavard, rang, retard, habit, début, repos,
galop). The types of words did not differ statistically (all p >.24) in terms of number
of letters and syllables, orthographic and phonological neighbors, their frequency
of occurrence in French schoolbooks appropriate for grades 1 to 5, as well as their
phonology-to-orthography consistency. Sénéchal et al. (2006) reported that the
entire set of words as well as the subset of 12 morphological words had good inter-
item reliability with alphas of .86 and .85, respectively, but the reliability for the
phonological words was lower probably due to the inclusion of fewer items (alphas
of .58).
Strategy-use questions. After spelling each word, children answered a series of
closed-ended questions, followed by an open-ended question. The questions were:
“Did you know how to spell the word by heart; Did you spell the word by sounding it
out; Did you use another word to help you spell the whole word? And if so, what word
did you use?” For the open-ended question, children were asked whether there was
anything else they would add to help a friend spell the word (Varnhagen, 1995).
All responses were scored by two researchers, and inter-scorer agreement was 99%.
Disagreements were resolved by discussion.
Morphological awareness task. The same task as Study 1 was used.
Procedure. Administration of the experimental spelling task was followed
by the morphological awareness task. Testing was conducted individually in the
Spring of the school year.
Results and Discussion
The descriptive statistics and the t-tests are presented in Table 10.3. Both groups
of children performed similarly when spelling phonological transparent words.
Importantly, both groups of children reported using a similar amount of phono-
logical strategies, and were equally successful in spelling the words accurately when
they reported using a phonological strategy. Hence, the children with low morpho-
logical awareness were able to apply their knowledge of how to translate sounds
into orthographic patterns when those patterns are phonologically transparent.
This pattern of results replicates and extends the findings of Study 1.
The analyses of children spelling performance for morphological words revealed
that, as expected, children with low morphological awareness had more difficulty
spelling words with silent endings than did children with stronger morphologi-
cal awareness. Most importantly, children with weaker morphological awareness
Table 10.3 MEAN PERFORMANCE AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR EACH
TASK FOR GRADE 4 CHILDREN WITH HIGH (n = 18) AND LOW (n = 15)
MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS (MA) IN STUDY 2
Low MA High MA F(31) Effect

sizea
M SD M SD
Morphological awareness (max = 12) 6.5 1.4 10.5 0.7 102.6*** .77

Phonological words
Spelling (% correct) 64.8 24.2 75.6 26.6 1.5 .05
Phonological Strategy Use 71.3 38.3 63.3 35.2 > 1.0 .01
Efficiency of Phonological Strategiesb 60.6 27.0 72.1 34.2 1.1 .04
Morphological words
Spelling (% correct) 39.3 28.3 69.8 25.3 10.5** .25
Phonological Strategy Use 7.7 11.2 32.8 31.6 9.9** .24
Efficiency of Phonological Strategiesc 62.2 47.1 98.6 4.5 5.9* .23
a
Eta square.
b
Conditional probabilities of spelling correctly for the 16 low- and 14 high-morphological-awareness children
reporting using phonological strategies to spell phonological words.
c
Conditional probabilities of spelling correctly for the 12 low- and 10 high-morphological-awareness children
reporting using morphological strategies to spell morphological words.
*** p < .001; ** p < .01; * p < .05
were less likely to report using a morphological strategy to spelling words than did
children with stronger morphological awareness. Moreover, children who reported
using morphological strategies tended to spell the words correctly, but children
with weaker morphological awareness were less successful (62% of the time) as
opposed to children with stronger morphological awareness (98% of the time).
The analyses of spelling errors for morphological words revealed that over 80%
of errors were errors with the silent consonant, and, of these, the most frequent
error made by children was the omission of the silent-consonant ending (85%).
As in Study 1, silent-consonant endings were the major difficulty for spelling these
words accurately.
Taken together, the findings support and extend previous research investigat-
ing indirect evidence of the value of morphological strategy use (Carlisle, 1988;
Waters et al., 1988). The specificity of reporting morphological strategies when
spelling morphological words as well as the accuracy linked with these reports pro-
vides some converging evidence that children can use morphological knowledge
explicitly during spelling. However, the findings show that children with weaker
morphological awareness very infrequently report using morphological strategies
and, when they do, they are less efficient than children with stronger morphological
awareness.

IMPLICATION FOR TEACHING
The accumulated evidence suggests that children make use of regularities in the lan-
guage, be it phonological, orthographic, and morphological to read and spell words
(Christianson, Johnson, & Rayner, 2005). Given that languages vary in the clarity
with which oral language is represented in writing, then one should expect that the
relative role of phonological, orthographic, and morphological processing would
vary accordingly. In the present chapter, the focus was on the relative contribution
of morphological awareness to spelling in French. The findings of Study 1 and 2
show that children with weak morphological awareness have difficulty spelling
morphological words that include silent consonant endings. Importantly, the same
children do not show any relative weakness when spelling words with transparent
letter-sound correspondences.
There are a limited number of intervention studies designed to assess the
causal role of morphological awareness to children’s reading and spelling
(Arnbak & Elbro, 2000; Lyster, 2002; Nunes, Bryant & Olsson, 2003; Robinson
& Hesse, 1981). The findings from these studies show that children trained
in morphological awareness outperform children in control groups, but that
they typically perform similarly to children trained in phonological awareness
on general measures of reading or spelling. There is some evidence of specific
effects, however. For instance, Nunes et al. (2003) reported that morphologi-
cally trained children spelled past tense suffixes more accurately than did the
phonologically trained children. The findings in the present chapter also suggest
that it is important to expect specific effects.
Given the particular difficulties that multimorphemic words can pose, research-
ers have argued that systematic and sequential instruction of morphology is
needed during the elementary years of schooling (e.g., Carlisle & Fleming, 2003;
Henry, 1993; Green, McCutchen, Schwiebert, Quinlan, Eva-Wood, & Juelis, 2003;
Worthy & Viise, 1996). Morphological rules, however, are currently not taught or
taught partially to elementary-school children (Nunes et al., 1997a, b). Although
these observations were made for the English language, they also apply to French.
Perhaps, as Carlisle and Stone (2005) suggest, this is partly due to the fact that edu-
cators are more familiar with concepts of phonemes and phoneme awareness than
with concepts of morphemes and morphemic awareness. This may change in time
as we accumulate stronger scientific evidence on the valuable role of morphological
knowledge to reading and spelling.
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CHAPTER 11
Writing Abilities of Pre-adolescents

with and without Language/Learning
Impairment in Restructuring an
Informative Text
ORNA DAVIDI AND RU TH A . BER M AN
P roficient writing of extended texts requires a level of “linguistic literacy” involv-

ing coordination of a wide range of linguistic and executive abilities (Berman
& Ravid, 2009; Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002). In recent years, text construction has
become the focus of educational and linguistic research on normally developing
children (Boscolo & Cisotto, 1999; Cutler & Graham, 2008; Graham, MacArthur,
& Fitzgerald, 2007; Vincent, 2006) as well as ones with language difficulties (Beard,
Riley, Myhill, & Nystrand, 2009; Graham & Harris, 2005; Mackie & Dockrell,
2004).
The chapter reports an exploratory study examining the written productions
of typically developing Hebrew-speaking middle-school students compared
with their peers with language/learning difficulties. It is difficult to factor out
the specific role played by language in general school-based tasks, since impair-
ments may be in language and/or in overall learning strategies. Consequently,
the terms “children with language learning disabilities” (Scott & Windsor, 2000),
“language/learning impairment” (Gillam & Johnston, 1992), or “language
impairment” (Berman & Ravid, 2010) are used largely interchangeably in the
literature. Here, the label “language/learning impairment” (LLI) is adopted,
so as to avoid taking a stand on the priority of either language or learning, with
the slash denoting a deliberately vague connection between the two. LLI chil-
dren have been described as performing significantly below their classmates on
linguistic and other school-based tasks (Dockrell, 2009; Scott, 2004), including
pre-adolescents characterized as “struggling writers” (Boscolo, Gelati, & Galvan,
2012). Hebrew-based research demonstrates that large numbers of school-going
children experience difficulties with written text production in mastering spelling
and other notational skills (Ravid, 2011), in command of linguistic structures
(Ravid, Avivi-Ben Zvi, & Levie, 1999), and more global and conceptual aspects
of text generation (Zarif, 2005).
Participants in the present study were given an encyclopedic-type text to read,
which they were then required to rewrite in their own words from memory, without
access to the original text. Such reconstruction has several advantages: It involves
both reading and writing; it ensures a shared content-base, promoting between- and
within-group comparability; students need not generate their own original ideas;
and they can refer to the source text as a model of what content to include and how
to organize it, thereby facilitating the cognitively burdensome task of written text
production. At the same time, text reconstruction represents an active reflection of
linguistic and discursive abilities, rather than a merely memory-dependent replica-
tion of rote-learned material (Sandbank, 2004; van Dijk, 1979), and not having
access to the source text while writing means that students need to show that they
can construct an adequate mental representation of what they have read. Besides,
recalling material that has been read is critical for many school-based activities and
for academic success in general.
The text selected for reconstruction—about the medieval scholar
Copernicus—represents the biographical subgenre of encyclopedic discourse,
and, therefore, includes both factual scientific information and narrative elements
(Grabe, 2002; Swales, 1990). The non-narrative components (e.g., scientific
information about astronomy) are in line with expository prose and academic
writing (Graesser & Goodman, 1985), common in school textbooks (Boscolo,
1990), presenting complex cognitive and linguistic challenges (Nippold & Scott,
2010). Yet the text also follows the life-story of its protagonist, so it contains
sequential, episodic features of narrative (Labov, 1972), an early-acquired, acces-
sible genre of discourse (Berman, 2009) that should facilitate the task of written
reconstruction.
The texts we elicited were analyzed in relation to three domains: verbal pro-
ductivity—in terms of overall text length; complex syntax—use of hierarchical
dependencies in combining clauses into larger chunks; and thematic quality—
amount and accuracy of the information provided. Assessment of the first two
was based on prior research on text construction abilities of school children and
adolescents in Hebrew and other languages (Berman, 2008; chapter 2, this vol-
ume), whereas measures of thematic quality were designed specifically for the
present study.1 The writing of the LLI students was expected to differ from their
typically developing (TD) peers at the same age-schooling level along all three
dimensions.

METHOD
Participants
Participants were 20 native Hebrew-speaking seventh-grader middle-school stu-

dents aged 12–13 years.2 This age-schooling level represents an important stage
in development of writing abilities (Berman & Nir, 2010, 2011; Kellogg, 2008),
because the period between grade and high school involves both an institutional
shift and changes in school-based literacy activities and hence in students’ linguistic
abilities.
The 20 participants were divided into two groups of five boys and five girls—
typically developing students (TD) and their peers with language/learning impair-
ment (LLI) from well-educated, middle-class family backgrounds, attending the
same high-achieving school in central Israel. Students in both groups attend the
same classes, thereby sharing learning experiences. The TD group were rated by
their class teachers as average or above, hence normally achieving, in overall scho-
lastic performance. Students in the LLI group had been independently identified
as requiring instructional intervention (“remedial teaching” in Hebrew) in addi-
tion to their regular classroom curricula.3 Participants in both groups were selected
from a larger pool of seventh grade students to whom the first author—a qualified
didactic evaluator—administered a reading fluency test (taken from the test bat-
tery of Shany, Lachman, Shalem, Bahat, &, Zieger, 2006) which required them to
read aloud an informative text of 209 words long in nonvocalized Hebrew (Ravid,
2011). The 10 TD and 10 LLI students participating in the study all scored above
the 25th percentile (over 92 words per minute), and, hence, were able to decode an
extended piece of writing. That is, participants in both groups were at least average
for their age-schooling level on reading fluency, although the LLI students were
below expectation across a range of other language/learning skills, including read-
ing comprehension.
Procedure
Participants’ writing proficiency was assessed by their performance on recon-

struction of an encyclopedic text of 311 words and four paragraphs long in the
Hebrew original (see Appendix).4 To ensure that the research text was neither
too difficult nor too easy for normally developing children at the target age-
schooling level, text selection was preceded by lengthy piloting, in which the
first author presented several different texts for reconstruction to a mixed class of
over 37 grade students, including several previously identified as LLI. Paricipants
in the study were required to read and then reconstruct in writing the text on
Copernicus in a single class session, with no time-limit imposed, each partici-
pant handing in their text when reading was completed, before starting to write,
W r i t i n g A b i l i t i e s o f P r e -A d o l e s c e n ts w i t h L L I [ 1 4 5 ]
so that they could not consult the source text when writing. They were orally
instructed as follows (translated from Hebrew): “You are asked to read a text and
afterwards to write everything you understood and remembered from it in your own
words.” Students were not provided any further guidelines regarding the type of
text, how it should be read, how to organize their writing, or what language to use.
Data Analysis
Writing abilities were assessed along three complementary dimensions: thematic

content (by measures designed specifically for this study), verbal productivity, and
complex syntax. Inter-judge reliability on assessing thematic content, conducted on
12 of the 20 texts with an expert on students’ writing, yielded a high correlation: r
= .99, p<.001.5 The other measures, based on rich experience from prior research,
were assessed by both authors’ working together on half the texts written by each
group of students, yielding nearly 100% inter-judge agreement.
Verbal Productivity in the sense of overall written language output is developmen-
tally indicative of the writing skills of grade-school children (Malvern, Richards,
Chipere, & Durán, 2004; Silva, Abchi, & Borzone, 2010); it correlates with global
text organization abilities from middle childhood to adolescence (Berman &
Nir, 2009a); and it distinguishes significantly between typically developing and
language-disabled students (Scott & Windsor, 2000). In the present study, overall
text length was measured in both words and clauses. Total number of words—as
the basic building blocks of language—is criterial of both overall ability at produc-
ing written language output and command of writing conventions.6 Number of
clauses—as the basic unit for analysis of extended texts (Berman & Slobin, 1994;
Berman & Verhoeven, 2002)—provided an internal-reliability check on length as
measured in words, since the two correlate highly (Berman & Nir, 2009a; Berman
& Ravid, 2009). Overall length was supplemented by two other measures: num-
ber of words per clause—as a rudimentary measure of clause-level syntactic density,
indicating how much lexical and grammatical material is packaged inside a single
clause (Berman & Ravid, 2009); and number of clauses per “Clause Package” (CP),
defined by how many clauses are linked together in a single well-structured stretch
of syntax as an index of textual connectivity (Berman & Nir, 2009a).
Division of the source text into clauses and clause packages (CPs) is illustrated
in (1) for the first two sentences of the translated version (of 65 clauses, with 72
clauses in the Hebrew original). Clause boundaries are marked by a square bracket],
and angled brackets <. . . > indicate clauses embedded inside another clause.
(1) CP-1: Copernicus was born in Poland over five hundred years ago.] In those days,
most people thought] that our Earth was as flat as a table.] CP-2: They thought] that
<whoever went as far as the edge of the Earth> would fall off.]

Thematic Content—indicative of reading comprehension, retention, and
conceptual clarity in relation to the source text—was measured by amount and
accuracy of the information recalled at two levels: eight more general discourse
topics, defined as the core elements that organize a text into its thematic com-
ponents (Giora, 1985), similar to Britton’s (1994) “move-ons”; and 36 units of
information that provide further details about each topic as elaborative or non-
core elements of discourse (Britton et al., 1982; Giora, 1990; Matthiessen &
Thompson, 1988).
Clause-Combining Complex Syntax reflects advanced linguistic expression
and is indicative of Hebrew school-age written language development (Ravid &
Saban, 2008), of text construction in different languages (Berman & Nir, 2009a,
2009b), and of significant differences between LLI and normally developing
pre-adolescents (Scott, 2004; Scott & Windsor, 2000). Here, complex syntax
focused on use of hierarchically linked syntactic dependencies representing
dense packaging of information by combining clauses into large, interwoven
chunks of discourse (Berman & Nir, 2009a; Scott, 2004). Two types of such
dependencies were identified, “stacking” and “nesting,” as illustrated by the
clauses in angled brackets by translated excerpts from the source text in (2) and
(3) respectively. In “stacked” constructions, the subordinated unit is a coordina-
tion of two or more clauses packaged together in a single unit of complex syntax
(see chapter 21), while in “nested” dependencies, one type of complex clause is
inserted inside another.
(2) CP14: After many years of intensive work,] he found] that the earth is not only
round, but <that it also rotates on its own axis>] and, <moreover, that the moon
revolves around the Earth>,] while the Earth is a planet] that revolves around the sun]
(3) CP3: Ptolemy said] that <if the Earth were to spin like a top>,] a terrible wind would
arise] that would blow people straight from the Earth into Space
RESULTS
Given the small number of participants, non-parametric Mann-Whitney U tests

were applied to all measures. Text length was controlled for, given the variability in
length of texts between and within the two groups.
Text Length
The 20 reconstructed texts in the sample were measured for overall length in words,
clauses, and clause packages. Words were counted irrespective of spelling errors,
whereas only grammatically error-free clauses were included in the analysis. Clause
packages (CPs) were defined as groups of clauses packaged together into chunks of
clause-combining syntax, as illustrated in (2) and (3) above. Table 11.1 compares
the length of texts in words and clauses, number of words per clause, and number of
clauses per clause package in the two groups.
Table 11.1 displays significant differences between the two groups in overall text
length in words and clauses. For the typically developing participants, text length
ranged from 75 to 243 words (clauses 20 to 50), whereas for the LLI group texts
range from 61 to 118 words (clauses 15 to 28). The texts of the TD participants con-
tained over half the number of words (52%) and clauses (54%) than the source. In
contrast, LLI student’s text contained approximately a quarter of the original words
(28%) and clauses (27%). Clause density was similar in the two groups (TD M = 4.1
words per clause; LLI M = 4.3. There was, however, a clear and significant difference
between the groups in number of clauses syntactically combined in clause packages
(TD M = 3.8; LLI M = 2.9). One reason for this disparity is that, overall, students in
the LLI group produced more syntactically unrelated isolated clauses (on average,
0.9 isolated clauses, with 1 or 2 isolated clauses produced by 6 out of the 10 in the
group), whereas the TD group averaged only 0.5 isolated clauses, 1–2 produced by
only 4 of the 10 TD students. Table 11.1 also shows that the TD students recon-
structed on average significantly more clause packages than the LLI group.
Thematic Content
Reconstructed texts were compared with the original for two categories of con-
tent—eight more inclusive discourse topics (DTs) and 36 more specific units of
Table 11.1 MEAN TEXT LENGTH IN WORDS, CLAUSE, AND CLAUSE PACKAGES

(CPS) WITH STANDARD DEVIATIONS IN PARENTHESES, IN
RECONSTRUCTED VERSIONS OF A SOURCE TEXT, BY TD AND LLI STUDENTS
(n = 10 PER GROUP)
Measures of length TD LLI Z
No. of words in reconstructed texts 162 88 3.18***

(45.49) (18.30)
No. of clauses in reconstructed texts 39 20 3.48***
(8.40) (4.79)
No. of CPs in reconstructed texts 10.20 7.0 2.71**
(2.61) (1.82)
No. of words per clause 4.13 4.3 .30
(.37) (.84)
No. of clauses per CP 3.81 2.97 3.10**
(.48) (.65)
Note: Source text contained: 311 words, 72 clauses, 20 CPs; ***p < .001 **p < .01.

information (U-Inf), measured quantitatively, by number of participants mention-
ing each DT and clauses per DT (Table 11.2), and qualitatively, by type of U-Infs
and accuracy of reconstructed information (Table 11.3).
Table 11.2 shows that two of the DTs (3 and 7) were mentioned by all 10 of the
TD group, and the rest by between 9 to 6 of this group; in contrast, not a single DT
was mentioned by all 10 LLI students, three DTs (1, 4, 7) were mentioned by most
of the LLI group (8 or 9 out of the 10 students), with the other five DTs being men-
tioned by half or fewer of the LLI students. Table 11.2 also shows a clear difference in
average amount of details provided by the two groups: The TD group reconstructed
significantly more units of information per DT than the LLI, except for the first and
last of the DTs, and there was also a significant difference between the average num-
ber of U-Infs reconstructed by the TD group and the LLI group (see Table 11.3).
This quantitative difference in amount of information is supported by number of
clauses per DT (TD M = 4.47; LLI M = 2.41). There was a high correlation between
Table 11.2 NUMBER OF TD AND LLI STUDENTS MENTIONING EACH OF

EIGHT DISCOURSE TOPICS (n = 10 PER GROUP) AND MEAN PERCENTAGE
(%) OF UNITS OF INFORMATION (U-INFS) PER DISCOURSE TOPIC (DT),
(WITH STANDARD DEVIATIONS) IN RECONSTRUCTED TEXTS
Discourse Topics (DT) No. of students Mean % of U-Infs per DT in

mentioning each DT reconstructed texts
TD LLI TD LLI Z
1. The view of the Earth 9 8 87 73 1.45

prevailing in the time of (17) (21)
Copernicus (3 U-Infs)
2. Ptolemy’s view (5 U-Infs) 9 5 60 14 2.09**
(30) (19)
3. The role and power of the 10 5 38 17 2.67**
Church (6 U-Infs) (16) (14)
4. Copernicus’ life and studies 8 9 63 48 1.59
(5 U-Infs) (32) (18)
5. The impact of Columbus’ 7 2 53 17 2.49*
discovery on Copernicus (28) (28)
(3 U-Infs)
6. Copernicus’ research 8 5 62 22 2.69**
findings (4 U-Infs) (29) (24)
7. Eventual publication of 10 8 70 36 3.03**
Copernicus’ book (8 U-Infs) (16) (25)
8. World recognition of 6 3 60 30 1.31
Copernicus’ view (1 U-Inf) (52) (48)
Note: **p < .01 *p < .05.
overall text length in number of words and text informativeness measured by num-
ber of U-Infs in the reconstructed texts, r = .83, p < .001.
The eight DTs were also analyzed for quality of information reconstructed in
relation to three semantic categories (Berman, 1997). Eventives reporting on
narrative-type sequential happenings (the bulk of DTs 3, 4), Factuals providing
descriptive information about the circumstances surrounding the events reported
(DTs 1, 2, 5, and 6), and Affectives referring to subjective responses of characters
mentioned in the text (DT 7). Table 11.2 shows that narrative-like eventive episodes
(e.g., DT 4, describing events in Copernicus’ life) were similarly well-recalled by
both groups, as were pieces of information that report affective impact (such as
DT 7, publication of Copernicus’ book). In contrast, more factual and scientifically
informative topics (such as 2, Ptolemy’s view, and 5, the effect of Columbus’ dis-
covery of America) were significantly better recalled by students in the TD group
than by their LLI peers.
Table 11.3 shows a significant difference in number of reconstructed U-Infs
between the TD students compared with their LLI peers, whereas the information
provided by both groups was generally accurate, with hardly any serious errors in
the TD, somewhat more in the LLI group. On the other hand, only three of the 10
TD children made one seriously disrupting error each, as against over half (six) of
the LLI children.
Syntactic Complexity
The third dimension for assessing written language in the reconstructed texts was
interclausal syntactic complexity. Analysis revealed that students in both groups
constructed different types of subordinate clauses—complements, adverbials, and
Table 11.3 MEAN NUMBER (WITH STANDARD DEVIATION) OF

RECONSTRUCTED U-INFS AND PERCENTAGE (%) OF ACCURATE
AND INACCURATE U-INFS OUT OF TOTAL RECONSTRUCTED U-INFS,
BY TD AND LLI STUDENTS (n = 10 PER GROUP)
Types of U-Infs TD LLI Z
Mean No. of 20.20 13.30 2.47*

reconstructed U-Infs (5.51) (4.14)
Fully accurate U-Infs (%) 98 89 1.61
(4) (13)
U-Infs with minor 2 3 .09
inaccuracies (%) (4) (4)
Erroneous U-Infs (%) 3 9 1.15
(4) (12)
Note: *p < .05.

Table 11.4 MEAN PERCENTAGE (%) (WITH STANDARD DEVIATION)
OF SYNTACTIC DEPENDENCIES IN THE RECONSTRUCTED TEXTS,
BY TD AND LLI STUDENTS (n = 10 PER GROUP)
Syntactic Dependencies TD LLI Z
Nested dependencies (%) 2 2 1.06

(1) (1)
Stacking dependencies (%) 2 1 1.74*
(1) (1)
Note: *p < .05.
relatives—to much the same extent. On the other hand, more complex syntactic
dependencies by means of “stacking” and “nesting” of interclausal relations revealed
differences between the two groups, as shown in Table 11.4.
Table 11.4 shows that, when comparisons were controlled for text length, both
groups of students produced the same overall amount of nested dependencies.
However, Table 11.4 reveals a significant difference in use of stacking dependen-
cies by the TD students compared with their LLI peers; LLI students used these
constructions less frequently.
DISCUSSION
Results of this exploratory study revealed differences between typically develop-

ing pre-adolescents and their peers with language/learning difficulties in written
reconstruction of an encyclopedic article. Text length, measured by both words and
clauses, showed LLI children to produce far less written output than their typically
developing peers, even in the relatively scaffolded task of text reconstruction. Text
length is, therefore, a reliable indicator of writing skills at this point in develop-
ment (see also Scott & Windsor, 2000). The relative difficulty of LLI students in
this respect can be attributed to general cognitive problems such as poor working
memory (Kellogg, 1999) together with specifically language-based difficulties in
producing stretches of written output (Dockrell, 2009; Westby, 2002).
The texts of the two groups of students revealed several similarities in linguistic
expression. There were few violations of simple-clause syntax in either group, the
amount of explicit lexical connectors for linking clauses were similar, there were
no differences in syntactic density as measured by number of words per clause, nor
were there differences in overall amount of subordination.
In contrast, a range of differences were evident between the groups in textual
connectivity. The LLI group typically packaged together fewer clauses in syntacti-
cally and discursively motivated units of discourse than their typically developing
peers. They also tended to string single clauses linearly and to avoid hierarchical
syntactic dependencies in combining clauses. The scaffolding provided by the
reconstruction task could account for the larger average number of nearly four
clauses per clause package among the TD students in this study compared with
similar populations in producing original texts in Hebrew (Berman & Nir, 2009b).
Packaging together large chunks of information in a single syntactic envelope is a
cognitively demanding task that requires preplanning and considerable facility with
organizing verbal output, beyond the abilities of younger children in constructing
oral narratives in different languages (Berman & Slobin, 1994; McCabe & Peterson,
1991). Taken together, these findings indicate that the difficulties of LLI students
in achieving textual cohesiveness may derive from poorer cognitive abilities in pre-
planning and packaging information in complex chunks of linguistic output.
The study revealed a close connection between linguistic skills and discursive
abilities: Not only do LLI students package together less material in a single syntac-
tic chunk, they also reproduce less of the information provided in the original text
than their typically developing peers. The TD students related both to more key
components and to more elaborative details from the source text—reflected lin-
guistically in number of clauses reconstructed per discourse unit. Qualitatively, the
types of propositional content reconstructed by participants revealed a marked dif-
ference: LLI students related mainly to episodic narrative-like events, and referred
to affective content similarly to their TD peers, but they had difficulty in recon-
structing factual or scientific information that relies on external world-knowledge
or integration of the contents of the text as a whole. The LLI group also performed
more poorly on accuracy of their reconstructions, consistently with research on
oral retellings of verbal materials (Compann & Griffith, 1994; Ward-Lonergan,
Liles, & Anderson, 1998). Taken together, these findings demonstrate a complex
interplay of difficulties with memory recall and verbal reconstruction of textual
materials among children with language/learning difficulties.
The reconstruction task proved a useful tool for distinguishing between typi-
cally developing students and ones with language/learning difficulties. Recall tasks
have been used in studying text comprehension of college students (e.g., Britton et
al., 1982; Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978) and oral narrative retellings of younger chil-
dren (Cameron, Hunt, & Linton, 1988; Stein & Nezworsky, 1978; Stein & Glenn,
1979). However, they have served only marginally as a means of evaluating written
language skills (but see Sandbank, 2004; Silva et al., 2010). The present study sheds
light on text reconstruction as a complex cognitive process, and a largely neglected
window on later language development and writing abilities among both TD and
LLI students at different age/schooling levels. The methodology should be further
extended to compare students’ writing performance with their reading comprehen-
sion as a related skill, since reading and writing are two “deeply interdependent”
activities (Olson, 2006, p. 137).
Finally, the study points to the value of multilevel analyses that combine concep-
tual factors of thematic content and informativeness, linguistic expression, and tex-
tual cohesiveness, to examine the nature of language/learning impairment beyond

middle childhood. Directions for further research include: extending the investiga-
tion to larger groups of participants for more in-depth diagnostic purposes and sta-
tistical applications; addition of other areas of analysis such as spelling, lexicon, and
clause-internal syntax; comparing reconstruction skills in nonencyclopedic texts,
such as narratives or even poetry; and specification of individual profiles to pinpoint
particular areas of language/learning difficulties. Such procedures would supplement
this exploratory study in distinguishing linguistically specific from more general
learning difficulties, as an important basis for effective clinical assessment and devis-
ing classroom interventions among children with language/learning difficulties.
NOTES
1. Additional measures of lexical and grammatical abilities used in analyzing children’s origi-
nal text construction abilities (for English, see Nir et al., 2008; for Hebrew, see Berman
et al., 2011) appeared less suited to a reconstruction task—particularly in an exploratory
study such as the present.
2. The study reported here represents the initial stage of a larger piece of research now under
way.
3. The (highly centralized) Israeli school system has no officially accepted tool for diagnos-
ing language/learning impairment. Instead, around 10% to 15% of middle-school stu-
dents with observed learning difficulties are referred to remedial teaching on the basis
of (often privately obtained) evaluations of psychologists, special-education teachers, or
speech-therapists trained as “didactic evaluators.”
4. The Hebrew-language text was originally published in a young people’s periodical named
Inyan Chadash “Current Interest” (May 1988), and reproduced in a textbook of reading
comprehension for middle-school students used in the past but not currently (Mutzafi &
Shachar, 1990).
5. Grateful thanks to Dr. Irit Katzenberger, Director, Department of Speech Pathology,
Hadassah College, Jerusalem, for her help in this matter.
6. Hebrew conventions distinguish between the general term for word (mila) and a writ-
ten word (teva). The latter includes seven grammatical morphemes that are orthographi-
cally prefixed to the word that follows, all separate words in English and other European
languages: the definite article ha- “the,” the high-frequency conjunctions ve- “and,” še-
“that,” and the four basic prepositions le- “to,” be- “in, at,” me- “from,” and ke- “like, as.”
Hebrew words are often synthetically inflected, so more condensed than their English
counterparts. Compare the string li-x-še-ti-gmer-u—literally “to-as-that, 2ND MASC-finish,
FUT,PLUR = when you (Plural) will-finish”—written as single word; or ve-ba-bóker “and-in-
the-morning”—four words in English but one written word in Hebrew (Ravid, 2011).
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APPENDIX
SOURCE TEXT TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

Copernicus
Copernicus was born in Poland over five hundred years ago. In those days, most
people thought that our Earth was as flat as a table. They thought that whoever went
as far as the edge of the Earth—would fall off. There lived in Egypt two thousand
years ago a famous man of science, whose name was Ptolemy, who thought that the
world was round, although he, too, was certain that the Earth did not rotate on its

own axis. Ptolemy said that if the Earth were to spin like a top, a terrible wind would
arise that would blow people straight from the Earth into Space. He did not know
that the air rotates together with the earth.
In those days, the Christian priests had great power. Whoever did not believe
in what they believed in was condemned to death by fire or torture. The priests
believed that the Earth was unmoving, and that the Earth was the center of the
world. They said: “Whoever thinks otherwise does not believe in God.” Copernicus
thought otherwise.
Copernicus studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Cracow.
But this was not enough for him, and so he moved to Italy, where he studied medi-
cine, religion, and philosophy. He even reached the position of being the head of
the Church in the Polish city of Frauenburg, where he continued to work in medi-
cine. But watching the stars was his favorite occupation. When Copernicus was
aged about nineteen, Columbus discovered America. This was the first proof that
the world is round. Copernicus then decided to conduct research in order to find
the truth about the world.
After many years of intensive work, he found that the earth is not only round,
but that it also rotates on its own axis and, moreover, that the moon revolves around
the Earth, while the Earth is a planet that revolves around the sun. Copernicus sat
and wrote a book explaining all the wonderful things he had discovered. But he was
afraid to publish his book. For 33 years, Copernicus concealed his book without
publishing it. Only when he was old and close to death, he decided to reveal the
truth to the world, and sent his book to be published. Printing the book lasted a full
two years. Copernicus feared that he would not live to see it, but he did. A few hours
before his death, a messenger from the publishing house came to his home, show-
ing him the first copy of his book. But many years were to pass before the world
would come to know that Copernicus had been right.
CHAPTER 12
Writing Development of
Spanish-English Bilingual Students
with Language Learning Disabilities
New Directions in Constructing Individual Profiles
ROBIN L. DANZ AK AND EL AINE R . SILLIM AN
T his chapter addresses Spanish-speaking, English Language Learners (ELLs)

in the United States who are sequential bilinguals; that is, oral and written
English is acquired as a second language (L2) at school. Within this population,
substantial variation exists with regard to individual students’ language and literacy
learning experiences. The specific focus here is the writing patterns of ELLs with
atypical language development, who often present with multiple complexities in
authenticating their language learning profiles in both Spanish and English.
Writing is both a working memory and language process that depends on the
synchronous coordination of the (Berman & Nir-Sagiv, 2007; Berninger, 2009;
Berninger, Garcia, & Abbott, 2009): (a) formulation of words, sentences, and
discourse; (b) transformation of phonological, orthographic, and morphological
knowledge into text; and (c) efficient implementation of executive functions to plan,
review, and revise expression. Writing also conveys social identity, which further
influences how ELLs approach composing for academic purposes (Danzak, 2011a,
2011b; Ortmeier-Hooper, 2007). With rare exception (e.g., Paradis, Emmerzael, &
Duncan, 2010), the social identity of school-age bilinguals with language learning
disabilities (LLD) has not been a focus for understanding individual differences.
In this chapter, we first present an overview of Spanish-speaking ELLs in
U.S. public schools, including the challenges of identifying those with atypical
language development. Next, we provide a brief overview of the few studies on
the writing of ELLs with Language Learning disabilities (hereafter referred to as
ELL-LLD). Finally, we offer two case studies as examples of how individual dif-
ferences may be explored through a mixed methods profile analysis of ELL-LLD
writing that examines the expression of both literate language and social identity.
Spanish-Speaking ELLs in U.S. Public Schools: Overview
ELLs and programs. In 2009, 21% of U.S. students spoke a language other than
English at home (Aud et al., 2011), with Spanish speakers comprising 73% of these
students (Batalova & McHugh, 2010). More than half of these children (56%) were
born in the United States. Of those born outside the country, the majority (49%)
was also of Hispanic origin, with children from Mexico comprising 32% (Aud, Fox,
& KewalRamani, 2010).
Under the federal English Acquisition Act, students are tested for eligibility for
ELL services when their school registration forms indicate that a language other than
English is spoken at home. States vary in the assessments used to classify and measure
the progress of ELLs; generally, a score below a given proficiency cut-off on English
listening, speaking, reading, and writing will qualify the student for ELL services.
Special education. Another federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), applies to ELLs who may qualify for special education ser-
vices when they do not respond as expected to English language and literacy instruc-
tion. IDEA requires that ELLs referred for services are tested both in English and
in their first language (L1) to the greatest extent possible. In 2008, approximately
1,000,000 Hispanic students received special-education services nationwide (U.S.
Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, 2008). Most were
likely classified as having a learning (reading) disability (Aud et al., 2011).
The challenges of identifying ELLs with LLD. Bilingual students struggling
with oral and written language in the classroom may miss out on special education
services—or obtain services after a significant delay—whereas teachers and service
providers wait for their English language skills to develop (August, Shanahan, &
Escamilla, 2009). A major issue is that eligibility criteria vary by state, and these
criteria are not necessarily the same as diagnostic criteria that can reliably differ-
entiate a disability from normal variation (Silliman & Berninger, 2011). A general
clinical definition of atypical language learning is lower-than-expected language
development relative to age in the absence of particular developmental causes (e.g.,
intellectual disability, hearing loss, etc.) (Rice, 2004). Wallach and Butler (1984)
introduced the term LLD to emphasize the linkages between spoken language and
literacy learning. Others (Bishop, 2009; Kohnert, Windsor, & Ebert, 2009) pro-
pose that we are confronted with explaining a learning problem, not just a linguistic
problem, a supposition with which we agree. Indeed, population-based longitu-
dinal studies of monolingual English-speaking students with LLD show that the
disability persists for many at the end of their secondary education as reflected in
W r i t i n g D e v e l o p m e n t o f Spa n i s h-E n g l i s h B i l i n g ual S t u d e n ts [ 1 5 9 ]

continuing academic struggles (Conti-Ramsden, Durkin, Simkin, & Knox, 2009),
which include writing (Dockrell, Lindsay, & Palikara, 2011).
ELL-LLD Writing Patterns
A robust literature exists on the writing of monolingual, English-speaking children

with LLD (see Puranik & Otaiba, this volume). In contrast, studies on literacy—
especially those on writing instruction and outcomes for ELL-LLD—are rare
(August & Siegel, 2006; Graham & Hebert, 2010). The few investigations in this
area (Ruiz, 1995a, 1995b; Ruiz, Vargas, & Beltrán, 2002) were case studies con-
ducted in the elementary grades. These qualitative studies did not examine linkages
between oral and written language or systematically assess substantial quantities of
written texts, but rather focused on instructional strategies. Ruiz’s (1995a, 1995b)
work did emphasize the importance of understanding individual differences among
ELL-LLD students, as well as how to maximize their diverse strengths through sup-
portive instructional contexts.
Clearly, more extensive research on ELL-LLD writing is needed, particularly
with older students. However, given the diversity of this population, another essen-
tial area of inquiry is how to best capture individual profiles of ELL-LLD writers.
We propose that a mixed methods profile analysis has the potential power to cap-
ture strengths and challenges of ELL-LLD students.
METHOD
Designing a Mixed Methods Profile Analysis for ELL-LLD
In this section, we extend a previously conducted study of bilingual writing (Danzak,

2011b, 2011c) to explore two cases of ELL-LLD using a mixed-methods profile anal-
ysis. Mixed-methods designs integrate the methodologies of both qualitative and
quantitative research, emphasizing a pragmatic (i.e., “what works”) approach and
the incorporation of various types of data and analyses to best address the research
questions at hand (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). The convergence of qualitative and
quantitative methods results in outcomes that may be strengthened due to mutually
supportive findings, or challenged, in the case of conflicting findings, across the qual-
itative and quantitative aspects of the study. In many research contexts, including
the multifaceted, dynamic context of a bilingual classroom, mixed-methods designs
provide complementary strengths and nonoverlapping weaknesses of the qualitative
and quantitative methodologies ( Johnson & Turner, 2003).
The Danzak (2011b, 2011c) study was an embedded mixed methods design
(Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) in which qualitative and quantitative data were
collected simultaneously and analyzed sequentially, with an emphasis on the quan-
titative data. The bilingual writing of 20 ELLs in middle school was examined

within the authentic context of bilingual autobiography. Quantitative outcomes on
lexical, syntactic, and discourse measures of 148 texts (e.g., noun scale by Ravid,
2006, number of different words, mean length of T-unit, and a clausal complex-
ity measure) were compared across languages (Spanish-English) and genres
(expository-narrative). Qualitative analyses were applied to 60 texts and interviews
of a subgroup of six focal participants to explore how language and literacy learning
had shaped their identities as mono- or bilingual writers. The integration of qualita-
tive and quantitative outcomes resulted in student profiles that offered educators
and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) deeper insight into the focal participants’
language and literacy resources, strengths, and challenges.
What follows is a translation of the Danzak (2011b, 2011c) mixed methods
approach into a clinical tool for exploring individual differences in composing abil-
ity through a profile analysis of two students: Manuel and Daniel (pseudonyms).
A mixed methods triangulation design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) is applied
here; that is, quantitative and qualitative data are collected and analyzed simulta-
neously, with equal weight, to develop the profiles. Qualitative data are utilized in
describing the boys’ histories and identities, and quantitative linguistic measures
are applied to Manuel and Daniel’s writing to deepen the profile analyses.
QUALITATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS: THE CASE STUDIES
Both students, Manuel and Daniel, are bilingual, teenage boys from working class,
Spanish-speaking families; however, their similarities end there. Manuel, age 14
years (grade 8), from Mexico, struggles with basic composing skills, demonstrat-
ing challenges in global text organization, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and
morphosyntax. Daniel, age 16 years (grade 10), from Puerto Rico, who has mild
cerebral palsy, has overcome many language and literacy obstacles, but still faces
challenges with academic writing.
Manuel
A tall, quiet young man, Manuel was born in Mexico and moved to the United States
at age 11, when he entered grade 6 and began to learn English. Information about
Manuel, and his bilingual writing samples, were collected when he was 14 years
old and attending grade 8 at a public middle school on the west coast of Florida
(Danzak, 2011b, c). Manuel produced 18 written texts in Spanish and English. As
one of the focal participants, he was also interviewed and completed a question-
naire regarding his language and literacy history and usage.
Both in his writing and his interview, Manuel expressed that he was not happy
living in the United States and that he found learning English difficult, in part
because he did not identify with the U.S. culture: “No me puedo acostumbrar aquí”

(“I can’t get used to it here”), he stated in his journal. He preferred to use Spanish
for speaking and writing, and considered himself monolingual. However, Manuel
had experience studying an indigenous language, Otomi, in school in Mexico, and
had also been exposed to it through family members. Manuel claimed to under-
stand Otomi but not speak it. Manuel also stated in his interview that, as a Spanish
speaker in the United States, he had experienced language prejudice and that it
made him feel “depressed.”
By the end of grade 8, Manuel had not been referred for special education eli-
gibility. However, it was clear that he was struggling with writing at a basic level
in both L1 and L2. His texts were extremely short in length, and contained many
errors at the word, sentence, and text levels. His vocabulary consisted mainly of
basic words frequent in the oral language register. On a holistic writing measure
(Quellmalz & Burry, 1983), Manuel’s texts were generally scored as “not at all com-
petent” to “not very competent.” His minimal writing proficiency in English was
also verified by the grade 8 state writing test, on which Manuel scored 2.5 out of
6.0 points.
Daniel
Daniel illustrates the potential that can be achieved for children with disabili-
ties when community, family, and school serve as strong and positive supports
for achievement, and early intervention is secured. Information about Daniel
and his writing were obtained during a three-week writing workshop that he
attended at a university speech, language, and hearing center. At the time of the
workshop, Daniel was16 years old and attending grade 10 at a Florida public
high school dedicated to serving the academic and social needs of students who
required special education. During the workshop, various writing samples were
collected in English and Spanish, and informal interviews were conducted with
Daniel and his mother.
Daniel was born in Puerto Rico at 24 weeks, was diagnosed early on with mild
cerebral palsy, and moved to Florida with his family at age 4 years. Today, accord-
ing to Daniel’s mother, his disability primarily affects his fine motor skills. His first
language was Spanish and he was an early talker: “Speaking in full sentences by the
time he was 11 months old. People couldn’t believe it,” according to his mother.
Daniel has been educated only in English and has excelled in oral language learn-
ing. Spanish is regularly spoken at home and Daniel maintains fluent spoken lan-
guage skills to communicate with his family and community. When asked if he
spoke Spanish with friends, Daniel reported using a mixture of both languages, or
“Spanglish.”
In spite of his strong oral language skills, Daniel experienced significant difficulty
learning to read and write. During elementary school, he attended self-contained,
special-education classrooms for students with learning disabilities. By grade 3,

Daniel was still demonstrating preschool-level literacy skills. With intensive inter-
vention, he finally began to read and write, catching up to grade-level expectations
by the end of grade 3. Daniel has scored at or above grade level on reading and writ-
ing assessments since then.
Currently, Daniel struggles with math, and he has difficulties with spatial rela-
tionships. For example, he has directionality problems such that, while shopping,
his mother has to watch him carefully “because if he gets lost it will be very hard for
him to find his way back.” In writing, Daniel is eager to express his large vocabulary;
however, his sentences are often simple. Planning and organization represent his
biggest challenge, as Daniel has difficulty attending to the task and developing a
coherent text structure. These difficulties in the spatial and organizational realms
suggest that Daniel’s challenges extend beyond fine motor problems.
QUANTITATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS: THE WRITING ANALYSES
This portion of the profile analysis is based on two narrative texts each composed
by Manuel and Daniel, one in English and one in Spanish. Topics drew on their per-
sonal experiences or beliefs (see Appendix). Because Manuel’s texts were short in
length, two writing samples with related topics for each language were combined.
Manuel’s combined English topics were “Letter to a New Student” and “My First
Day of School in the U.S.,” and his combined Spanish topics were “My Future” and
“Three Wishes.” Daniel’s English topic was “My Dream Vacation,” and his Spanish
topic addressed “My Future.” Of note, neither boy routinely writes in Spanish at
school as both currently attend English-only programs.
One keystone of a literate register in writing is increased density of lexical and
syntactic items. Density here refers to the elaboration of meanings within noun
phrases and the use of sentence-level, syntactic devices for simultaneous expan-
sion and embedding. Thus, two aspects of density are highlighted in Manuel and
Daniel’s narrative writing in English and Spanish: elaborated noun phrases (ENPs)
and syntactic complexity.
Lexical Density: ENPs
ENPs increase sentence length (complexity) through pre- and/or postmodifica-

tion of the head noun, and package attributive information (density) into sen-
tences (Scott & Balthazar, 2010). For example, a simple descriptive noun phrase
such as “the talented athlete” is not as complex or dense as a descriptive noun
phrase with postmodification: “the talented athlete who scored the winning goal”
(Eisenberg et al., 2008). Increased sentence informativeness through optional
ENP embedding (Fang, Schleppegrell, & Moore, 2014; Ravid & Berman, 2010):
(a) appears to develop more rapidly during adolescence; (b) is characteristic of

Table 12.1 MANUEL AND DANIEL: EXAMPLES OF ELABORATED
NOUN PHRASES (ENPS) BY TOPIC (BASED ON EISENBERG ET AL.,
2008) (NUMBERS IN PARENTHESIS INDICATE FREQUENCY OF
THE ENP TYPE; ORIGINAL SPELLINGS ARE PRESERVED)
Noun English Writing Samples Spanish Writing Samplesb

Phrase
Manuel—Combined Daniel Manuel— Daniel
Typea
texts Combined texts
PRE1 (n = 5) (n = 1) (n = 12) (n = 8)

• this contry • one reason • mi futuro (my • mi sueño (my
• the school future) dream)
• my friend • mas casas • la jente (the
(more houses) people)
• todos los
inmigrantes (all the
immigrants)
PRE2 (n = 1) (n = 3) (n = 1) (n = 6)
• the first day • a lifelong dream • una barita magica • un deceo fuerte
• teachnological (a magic wand) (a strong desire)
advancements • serujia intensa
• China’s history (intensive surgery)
• una meta
importante (an
important goal)
PRE3 (n = 0) (n = 1) (n = 0) (n = 0)
• the brightly colored
buildings
POST (n = 7) (n = 6) (n = 3) (n = 10)
• two years righ here in • many remarkable • todos los que • la personalidad
the U.S.A disscoveries in viven en el pueblo perfecta para ser
• my familie from medical science (everyone that lives medico (the perfect
mexico • the many in the town) personality to be a
• one student to Guide teachnological • un deseo para doctor)
for whome where I go advances the country regalar (a wish to • la jente que me
has made give away) ayudaron (the
• their ancient forms people that helped
of selfdefense me)
• mi pacion para los
estudios medicos
(my passion for
medical studies)
a
PRE1 = Simple designating noun phrase (NP): 1 prenoun element + head noun; pre-noun element = determiner, demonstra-
tive, possessive, or quantifier; PRE2 = Simple descriptive NP: Determiner + one descriptive element (prenoun) + head noun;
descriptive element = adjective or modifier; PRE3 = Complex descriptive NP: Determiner + 2 or more descriptive elements
(prenoun) + head noun; POST = Complex NP with postmodification: Prepositional phrase or clause after the head noun.
b
For the purposes of this analysis, PRE2 and PRE3 include simple, postnoun descriptors in the Spanish texts (los estudios
médicos –medical studies = PRE2). POST refers only to use of phrases and clauses in noun postmodification in both lan-
guages (un deseo para regalar –a wish to give away; la señora que me ayudó –the woman who helped me; both = POST).
the specialized vocabularies of science and math; and (c) is a hallmark of more
literate sentence formulation in writing. Therefore, noun-phrase complexity pro-
vides a window into advancing meaning-form relationships through dynamic
interactions between the semantic and syntactic systems. When these interactions
are not well coordinated, the outcomes may be a less developed lexicon and less
complex syntax (Scott, 2010).
ENPs in Manuel and Daniel’s written texts were classified based on Eisenberg
et al. (2008), who examined ENPs in the oral narratives of 40 children ages 5,
8, and 11 years. (For a more in-depth approach to ENP evaluation in written
texts, see Ravid & Berman, 2010.) The frequency of the four ENP categories with
examples from the Manuel and Daniel’s texts are displayed in Table 12.1. A caveat
in applying any ENP classification system is word-order differences across lan-
guages. Like English, Spanish determiners, demonstratives, and quantifiers gener-
ally occur in the prenoun position (los libros, este libro, algunos libros; the books,
this book, some books); however, possessives may occur either pre- or postnoun
(mis libros, los libros míos; my books). In contrast to English, Spanish descriptive
elements (adjectives), in most cases, occur postnoun (el libro azul, un libro muy
interesante; the blue book, a very interesting book). Such examples were classified
as descriptive noun phrases, like their semantic equivalents in English, rather than
postmodifications.
Considering the number of ENPs in each category and the various examples, it
appears that Manuel’s writing included primarily simple designating noun phrases
(NPs) (especially in Spanish) as well as some complex NPs with postmodification
(more so in English). Daniel’s writing, on the other hand, demonstrated more vari-
ety (especially in Spanish), with more simple descriptive NPs and many, complex
NPs with postmodification that also involved prenoun modification. Based on
these patterns, and across both languages, Manuel seemed to lag in lexical density
whereas, for Daniel, it appeared to be a strength.
Syntactic Density: Clausal Complexity
To explore the syntactic density of Manuel and Daniel’s writing, two traditional
measures were applied first: mean length of T-unit (MLTU) and a clause density
ratio (CDR). Results are shown in Table 12.2. The combination of MLTU and
CDR provides a quantification of sentence complexity that, in some cases, may dif-
ferentiate the writing of typically developing English monolinguals from those with
LLD (Scott & Balthazar, 2010); however, as these authors note, caution should be
taken as these metrics do not reflect the sophistication of individual clauses.
As shown in Table 12.2, in both languages, Manuel demonstrated a greater
MLTU and CDR than did Daniel. This pattern occurred in Spanish despite Daniel’s
compositions consisting of more than double the total number of T-units. Thus, it
appears that, overall, Manuel wrote longer sentences (as measured by MLTU) that

Table 12.2 COMPARISON OF MANUEL AND DANIEL’S BILINGUAL WRITING
AS MEASURED BY TOTAL WORDS, TOTAL T-UNITS, MEAN LENGTH T-UNIT
(MLTU) AND A CLAUSE DENSITY RATIO (CDR) a
Text Language Syntactic Measure Manuel Daniel
English Total Words 173 129

Total T-Units 12 11
MLTU 14.4 11.7
CDR 2.25 1.73
Spanish Total Words 136 199
Total T-Units 8 18
MLTU 17.0 11.1
CDR 3.0 1.17
a
T-unit = a main clause and any subordinate clauses connected to it (Hunt, 1970). MLTU = total number of words
divided by number of T-units, is a measure of sentence length or text productivity. CDR = total number of indepen-
dent and subordinate clauses divided by number of T-units, is a ratio of subordinated to nonsubordinated clauses.
included more subordinate clauses (as assessed by CDR), whereas Daniel preferred
formulating shorter sentences with fewer embedded instances.
Manuel. In the English texts, an example of Manuel’s attempt at syntactic den-
sity is: “I like (a) to say to one student of mi contry (b) in this contry is not the
sime (c) because is alot of stuff so much different right here in the U.S.” (main verb is
italicized). This sentence, which mirrors talking, contains two nominal clauses in
the object position (a, b) and, within (b), an adverbial-causal clause (c), consistent
with a more advanced clause combining strategy that allows multiple depths of sub-
ordination (Scott, 2010). Manuel also attempted a complex ENP here, using both
prenoun (alot of) and postmodification (so much different. . . ). However, at both
the syntactic and lexical levels, his strategy use is offset by obvious difficulties with
English word order and verb morphology, such as the omission of auxiliary verbs
and obligatory subject pronouns (which are optional in Spanish). Misspellings are
also apparent and primarily involve the orthographic component, for example, let-
ter-sound misapplications (e.g., mi for my, wos for was) and absence of word bound-
aries (e.g., useto, canbe), which can indicate parsing issues.
In the Spanish texts, Manuel’s writing showed fewer morphosyntactic errors,
more grammatical appropriateness, and increased variation in verb morphology
in sentences that also contained multiple embedding levels. An example is: “y
(a) situbiera un deseo mas desearia (b) que todos los inmigrantes tubieran papele
(c) paraque no sufran (d) crusando el desierto”- “and (a) if I had one more wish
I would wish (b) that all immigrants would have papers (c) so that they would
not suffer (d) crossing the desert.” At a semantic level, this complex construction
includes “generic, impersonal reference to classes of people and objects” (Berman
& Nir-Sagiv, 2007, p. 81), i.e., immigrants, papers, which is more characteristic of

expository writing. At a syntactic level, it contains a conditional adverbial clause
(a) and a nominal object clause (b) with deeper embedding: (1) an adverbial
clause of purpose (c), described in Spanish grammar as an “oración final” (Gili
Gaya, 1972), which necessarily contains a verb in the subjunctive mood; and
(2) within this, an adverbial temporal headed by a gerund (d). Unlike the English
example, Manuel’s morphosyntax here is grammatically appropriate combined
with glimpses of the semantic ability to construct a more literate register. There
are numerous misspellings, however, comparable to the orthographic patterns of
the English texts.
Daniel. In English, Daniel demonstrated appropriate knowledge of morphosyn-
tax co-occurring with less embedding depth than Manuel. As this example demon-
strates, Daniel’s complexity strategies relied on ENPs that also were characteristic of
the more general and objective lexical references found in expository writing: “but
I know (a) that they have made many remarkable disscoveries in medical science.”
There is one nominal object clause (a) with Daniel’s lexical strengths manifested
by a complex ENP that included both prenoun (many remarkable) and postmodi-
fications (in medical science). Of interest, Daniel demonstrated some command of
derivational morphology throughout his writing, for example, remarkable, discov-
eries, technologically. His misspellings generally reflected orthographic uncertainty
about letter doubling, a challenge that Daniel attributed in his interview to learning
Spanish before English (letter doubling is infrequent in Spanish spelling).
Daniel’s Spanish texts illustrated a similar complexity strategy. Most sentences
contained only one subordinate clause; however, an example of a two-level embed-
ding did occur: “Yo se (a) que yo voy a ser el mejor medico (b) que pueda ser”—“I
know (a) that I am going to be the best doctor (b) that I can be.” Here, a nominal
clause is present in the object position (a) and, embedded within it, a relative clause
(b). Both clauses demonstrate correct verb morphology, including the use of the
subjunctive mood in the second clause. Additionally, this sentence shows Daniel’s
ability to transfer lexical complexity via ENPs with both pre- (el mejor) and post-
modifications (que pueda ser).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Manuel and Daniel: What We Have Learned?
In this chapter, we have presented a mixed methods profile analysis of two cases of
struggling bilingual writers, Manuel and Daniel. These students’ strengths and chal-
lenges in writing in both Spanish and English texts were illuminated by: (a) qual-
itative exploration of interviews, case histories, and linguistic density strategies;
and (b) quantitative examination of lexical density (through ENPs) and syntactic
density (through MLTU and CDR). The goal was to demonstrate how this sort of
profile analysis might provide a deeper understanding of individual differences in
writing to enhance clinical and instructional interventions for ELLs with LLD.

Manuel. At a superficial level, Manuel appeared to lack linguistic density
in both languages. Upon deeper analysis, he demonstrated glimmerings of
expository-style reference and sophisticated syntactic use through multiple,
embedded clauses in Spanish, which he attempted to transfer to his L2 writing.
However, due to his inexperience and lack of confidence with English and, per-
haps, nonsystematic instructional targeting of his multilevel needs, these efforts
were characterized by errors in word order, morphosyntax, and spelling. Manuel
is an excellent example of an academically struggling ELL who may appear, on
the surface, to manifest characteristics of LLD in English (e.g., morphosyntactic
errors), but shows the potential to rise to the occasion when assessed in L1. As a
consequence, any speculation that Manuel manifests LLD must be tempered until
more information is obtained.
However, the imbalance that Manuel displayed between low content elaboration
and higher levels of syntactic complexity in both languages is consistent with recent
findings on variations in the quality of English oral narratives (Colozzo, Gillam,
Wood, Schnell, & Johnston, 2011) that occur when processing demands affect
the coherence of story generation. Obviously, Manuel’s level of meta-awareness
requires more support, as well as increased motivation and confidence on his
part, to develop his academic English skills, in particular, in the conceptual-lexical
domain. Additionally, the content of Manuel’s writing revealed a sensitive young
man who was experiencing significant struggles with both language learning and
his identity as a Spanish-speaking immigrant (for details, see Danzak, 2011b). For
Manuel to embrace academic English language learning, he must have opportuni-
ties to participate in supportive contexts where he is a valued as a successful mem-
ber of the academic language community.
Daniel. Daniel’s profile varied greatly from Manuel’s, both qualitatively and
quantitatively. He was successful in transferring his lexical strengths via com-
plex ENP use from English, his language of schooling, to Spanish, a language
that he often speaks but rarely writes. Hence, Daniel’s portrait is consistent
with the second profile of narrative generation that Colozzo et al. (2011) iden-
tified—strong content elaboration and lower levels of syntactic complexity.
Based on MLTU and CDR outcomes, Daniel should be responsive to instruc-
tion in sentence combining (Silliman & Scott, 2009), using materials from vari-
ous academic subject areas (Scott & Balthazar, 2010), to further develop his
meta-awareness about syntactic density. Spelling instruction, especially learn-
ing orthographic patterns for letter doubling, would also build Daniel’s writing
confidence in English.
In contrast to Manuel, Daniel considers himself bilingual, and self-identifies as
a successful participant in the English-speaking, literate community. Daniel’s con-
fidence in his potential for academic achievement is evident in his “My Future”
text, in which he expresses his desire to become an outstanding physician who
will “revolutionize” medical practices. His motivation is evident in that his favorite
class is science. When writing, however, Daniel described himself as “lazy”: easily

distracted and bored when composing. These factors may be outcomes of atten-
tional and inhibitory issues that disrupt his planning abilities.
Since text composition skills extend beyond the language domain, both Daniel
and Manuel would benefit from cognitive strategy instruction to build their knowl-
edge about how to orchestrate narrative and expository composition more effec-
tively. The processing load of expository writing on executive functions appears
higher for sequential bilinguals than for monolinguals due to less familiarity with
the L2 (Graves & Rueda, 2009). Processing demands can also increase when there
is less awareness of and facility with the multiple levels of the academic language
register (Wilkinson & Silliman, 2008). In either case, heavier processing demands
can result in less flexible deployment of attentional resources during composition;
hence, it is also essential for students like Manuel and Daniel to be explicitly taught
about text organization and structure as well as genre-specific, cognitive strategies
for writing.
Benefits of Mixed Methods Profile Analysis
A mixed methods profile analysis can capture variation in students’ writing expe-
riences, resources, and challenges, providing deep understandings of linguistic
strengths and needs. It is also consistent with the growing recognition that
individual differences can only emerge from assessment of multiple domains,
including the cognitive, linguistic, and social domains (Colozzo et al., 2011;
Silliman & Berninger, 2011). For example, with regard to linguistic density,
Manuel and Daniel demonstrated that there were different ways to construct
complexity in writing. Manuel’s strength lies in sentence combining, whereas
Daniel excels with complex ENPs. Both boys showed evidence of cross-language
transfer (each in their area of strength), from their more-dominant language to
their less-dominant one. Overall, this snapshot of a mixed-methods profile anal-
ysis suggests that assessing writing in both languages, examining text features
at various levels, and exploring qualitative data—including text content—can
offer educators and SLPs a more complete picture, including the strengths, of a
struggling ELL writer.
To support these teens’ emerging identities, it is important that instruction/
intervention take place in a way that is culturally relevant and personally meaning-
ful to the students. Indeed, writing, like literacy and learning in general, is not only a
cognitive and linguistic task, but also a socio-cultural practice that occurs for a given
audience and purpose in a given context. As an integration of language and identity,
students’ written texts serve as maps that depict the hills and valleys of their lives.
To support the academic language and literacy development of ELL-LLD, we must
be willing to explore their maps and co-create them as students journey into new
roles as competent and confident participants in the literate community.

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APPENDIX
MANUEL AND DANIEL’S WRITING SAMPLES, SEGMENTED INTO

T-UNITS * (Original Spellings and Punctuation Preserved)
Manuel
A. English Combined Texts: Letter to A New Student, My First Day of School in the U.S.
1. I like to say to one student of mi contry in this contry is not the sime because
is alot of stuff so much different right here in the U.S.A.
2. and I like to tell hem may by hi can’t get useto like me.
3. still can’t get useto very good. even though I have two years right here in the U.S.A.
4. maybe you miss so much your familie from mexico because they canbe far.
5. Im stil miss my familie from mexico. Because every day I thynk them.
6. me when I come to the U.S.A and come to the school the first day wos so
much nervous because I don’t now anybody.
7. and then thy take me to the office because they present me one student to
Guide for whom where I go.
8. and then He shome the clases.
9. so he is now my frend.
10. He is a good frend with me.
11. and then I think that I’m nerbes.
12. is not good for me becaust suner or later I was goin to be leess nervous.
*Numbers represent T-units, a main clause and any subordinate clauses connected to it
(Hunt, 1970). Due to linguistic differences, T-units may be segmented differently from Hunt’s
traditional description when comparing English and Spanish texts (See Danzak, 2011c, for
explanation and illustration).

B. Spanish Combined Texts: My Future, Three Wishes
1. yo para mi futuro quiero ir a mexico para travajar en mexico.

2. tambien planeo ayudar a mi pueblo para que se a mejor que los demas porque
ami nunca megusta quedarme atras.
3. Poner una escuela consultar contodos los que viven en el pueblo o poner mas
casas.
4. si yo tubiera una barita magica quisiera que volviera anaser y quitar toda la
pobresa y alludar alos pobres.
5. Tambien quisiera aser qureser a mexico porque nunca quisiera que mi pais se
quede atrás.
6. por eso quiero aser creser a mexico.
7. y situbiera un deseo mas desearia que todos los inmigrantes tubieran papele
paraque no sufran crusando el desierto.
8. si tubiera un deseo para regalar selo regalaria a mi mama por que puede
desiar muchas cosas como en su limpiesa de la casa para que no se canse
mucho.
C. English Translation
Me for my future I want to go to mexico to work in mexico. also I plan to help my

town so that it can be better than the rest because I never like to be left behind Put
up a school work with everyone who lives in the town or put up more houses if
I had a magic wand I would want to be born again and remove all the poverty to
help the poor I would also want to make mexico grow because I would never want
my country to be left behind that is why I want to make mexico grow. and if I had
one more wish I would wish that all immigrants had papers so that they would not
suffer crossing the desert if I had one wish to give away I would give it to my mom
because she might wish for many things like cleaning her house so she doesn’t get
too tired.
Daniel
A. English Text: My Dream Vacation
1. I would go to China.
2. I would take my mom, my dad, my Grampa, and [sister].
3. One reason I would like to go to china is to look at the many teachnological
advances the country has made.
4. I would like to learn about their ancient forms of self defense.
5. I do not know too much about china.

6. but I know that they have made many remarkable disscoveries in medical
science.
7. If I go to China I would have achieved a lifelong dream.
8. When I see pictures of China I imagine the brightly colored buildings.
9. I imagine directing the history behind the country.
10. I could not leave Chine without seing the Great Wall of China.
11. China’s history and teachnological advancements is the main reasson for why
I would go to China.
B. Spanish Text: My Future
1. Mi sueño siempre acido ser medico.

2. Los profesonales de medicina a cambiado mi vida.
3. Yo tengo la personalidad perfecta para ser medico.
4. Yo quiro ser medico pa acerles un favor a la jente que me ayudaron.
5. Yo tengo un deceo fuerte para sanar a la jente quando estan en un estado
devil [débil].
6. Mi pacion para los estudios medicos empezo en el octavo grado.
7. Yo me emerce en los estudios medicos despues que me enferme cuatro años
atras y casce me mori.
8. Yo nescesitava serujia intensa para salvarme la vida.
9. Yo estava muy agradecido a la señora que me alludo.
10. Yo voy a dedicar el ruestro de mi vida a ser un sanador.
11. Yo tengo una meta importante.
12. Yo quiero estudiar medicina en [nombre de la universidad].
13. Yo se que yo voy a ser el mejor medico que pueda ser.
14. Yo no voy a permitar que nada y nadie me pare.
15. Yo me estado preparando para hacer me sueño de ser medico una realidad.
16. Yo voy a dedicar mi vida a hacer excelente como medico.
17. Yo voy a revoloutionar la manera en la quidan a los pacientes en los
ospitales.
18. Voy hacer excelente en lo que hago como medico.
C. English Translation
My dream has always been to be a doctor. Medical professionals changed my life. I have
the perfect personality to be a doctor. I want to be a doctor to do a favor for the people
who helped me. I have a strong desire to heal people when they are in a weak state.

Mi passion for medical studies started in the eighth grade. I was immersed in
medical studies after I got sick four years ago and I almost died. I needed intense
surgery to save my life. I was very grateful to the woman who helped me. I want to
dedicate the rest of my life to being a healer.
I have an important goal. I want to study medicine at [name of university].
I know that I am going to be the best doctor that I can be. I am not going to let
anything and anyone stop me. I been preparing myself to make my dream of being
a doctor a reality. I am going to dedicate my life to being excelent as a doctor. I am
going to revolutionize the way in the patients are cared for in hospitals. I am going
to do excelent in what I do as a doctor.

CHAPTER 13
Written Narratives from French

and English Speaking Children with
Language Impairment
JUDY S. REILLY, JOSIE BERNICOT, THIERRY OLIVE, JOËL UZÉ,
BEVERLY WULFECK , MONIK FAVART, AND M ARK APPELBAUM
M ost typically developing children are good speakers of their native language
by about five years of age and, as they enter school, they begin to acquire
its graphic representation—writing. However, children with language impairment
(LI) experience problems in acquiring both spoken and written language and stud-
ies that have considered the written language of children with LI have found these
problems to be persistent. But these studies have been limited to children acquiring
English as their first language. To better understand both the process of writing
development and the nature of LI, this chapter investigates the written language
of children with LI and typically developing children acquiring either French or
American English as their native language. To contextualize our writing study, we
first present a brief overview of language impairment and a short comparison of
French and English grammar and their writing systems.
Children with language impairment are typically developing children with no
known neurological, emotional, or hearing problems and yet they demonstrate
significant difficulties in acquiring their native language. The majority of children
who receive a diagnosis of LI as they enter primary school have a documented
history of initial delay in the onset of language and persistent problems in expres-
sive language through the school years, notably with grammatical morphology
(e.g., Fey, Catts, Proctor-Williams, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2004; Leonard, 1998; and
Rice, Wexler, & Cleave, 1995). In addition, some children with LI also exhibit
concomitant problems in receptive language (Leonard, 1998). Although a subset
of children with LI appear to “catch up” in their spoken language abilities (e.g.,
Bishop & Edmonson, 1987), many continue to show subtle deficits in spoken
language with more severe problems in written language, see for examples the
following studies: Bishop & Clarkson (2003), Dockrell, Lindsay, Connelly, &
Mackie (2007), Gillam & Johnston (1992), and Scott & Windsor (2000). As
noted earlier, the vast majority of such studies, especially on writing, have been
conducted with children and adolescents acquiring English. In this chapter we
compare the written language of children and adolescents with LI who are acquir-
ing French as their first language with those learning English to investigate: (a)
what is common across the LI groups; and (b) the role of the particular language
on the LI profile.
Before we present our study, a brief background on written English and French
will provide background. French is a Romance language whereas English is part
of the Germanic family. French has a highly developed system of inflectional mor-
phology in which nouns are marked for gender (masculine/feminine) and number
(singular or plural) and articles and adjectives agree in both gender and number
with the noun they modify (la petite fille, le petit garçon, les petites filles, les petits
garçons). Verbs are inflected for number, person, and tense. In addition, the pro-
nominal system is complex, marking person, number and case; object and reflexive
clitics are preverbal. In contrast, English has lost most of its inflectional morphol-
ogy, although plural is marked for nouns, and verbs have a third person singular –s
in the present tense. In English, this impoverished morphology is phonologically
realized, whereas in French, much of the inflectional morphology is silent, posing a
particular challenge for children learning to write.
With respect to written French and English, Modern English results from
a series of historical changes and was strongly influenced by the introduction of
French at the time of the Norman invasion of Britain in the 11th century, thus
English orthography is a composite of different subsystems of spelling (princi-
pally Germanic, Norman-French, and Latin-Greek). Both French and English have
deep or opaque orthographies and English has probably one of the most difficult
and complex spelling-to-sound correspondences (see Share, 1995, 2008). In fact,
the major source of spelling difficulties results from the lack of correspondence
between pronunciation of the words and their spelling. However, French also pres-
ents difficulties in that the French morphological system is highly complex, and
its inflectional morphology is more or less silent. For example, in class 1 verbs –er
verbs, the inflectional endings for first (je parle); second (tu parles); and third per-
son singular (elle, il parle), as well as third person plural (ils, elles parlent) all share
the same pronunciation [parl], however, they have distinct written forms.
To highlight these differences and the challenges posed to beginning writers, we
present the same sentence in French and English:
The little girl met her friend at the café and then they climbed the hill to go home.
W r i t t e n Na r r at i v e s f r o m C h i l d r e n w i t h L I [ 1 7 7 ]
La petite fille a rencontré sa copine au café et puis elles sont montées la colline pour aller
chez elle.
(agreement markers for gender and number are underlined)
In summary, our goal is to see how these linguistic differences affect the acqui-
sition of writing in French and English students, both those who are typically
developing and those who are LI, as well as how these profiles change with age and
experience.
THE STUDY
Seventeen French speaking children and adolescents (ages 7–16) with LI and 31
typically developing (TD) age matched peers provided codable written stories as
did 30 American English speaking participants with LI and 60 TD. In both lan-
guage communities, children with LI were diagnosed by local speech language
pathologists. To be included in the LI group, the criteria included a significant
language impairment in oral language in the absence of hearing impairment, frank
neurologic deficits (seizure, CP, stroke) or significant social/emotional disorders.
The child must have a nonverbal IQ score above 80, as well as score 1.5 or more
standard deviations below the mean on a standardized language test of oral lan-
guage (e.g., CELF-R).
To address how growing up in a particular language community affects learn-
ing to write, we asked children and adolescents to write a story about a time when
someone had made them mad or sad. After the children had written their stories,
they were given an opportunity to read the story aloud and to edit their texts. Table
13.1 presents example texts from French and English speaking children, both typi-
cally developing and from those with language impairment.
In assessing their written narratives we looked at a variety of linguistic indi-
ces: the length of their written narratives, the nature and rate of morphological
and spelling errors, and finally, the use and types of complex syntax. Length was
counted as the number of clauses; a clause is defined as a verb and its arguments.
Morphological errors were both errors of commission and omission and included,
for example, errors in number and gender agreement, subject-verb agreement, and
verb tense. The total number of errors was divided by the total number of clauses to
yield a proportion of errors. Complex sentences included, for example, clefts, those
with verb complements, coordinate and subordinate connectors, relative clauses.
Similar to the calculations for morphological errors, the total number of complex
sentences was divided by the number of clauses to create a proportion of complex
syntax. Spelling errors were tallied and the total was divided by the number of
words in the text.

Table 13.1 EXAMPLE NARRATIVE TEXTS FROM ENGLISH AND FRENCH
SPEAKING CHILDREN
English Written Narratives
Caroline (TD) 9;0

Sometimes my best friend, Brianna’, makes me mad. When we play hand-ball, sometimes I get her out.
She starts crying and tells a teacher. The teacher tells her to be a good sport and Brianna won’t talk to me
the rest of the day. That was last year. Now she rarely get_ mad a me, let alone at hand-ball. When I do get
her out, she is a good sport but sometimes she passes back the ball a bit harsh__ as if she were silently
fuming.
Laura (LI) 9;1
I drow a picer f for my friend a and it make her fill good.
I drew a picture for my friend and it made her feel good*.
French Written Narratives
Célia (TD) 9;9

Le matin moi et Flavie ont étaient copine_ et quand je revien_ l’après midi elle n’ait n’était plus ma copine.
Elle me dit c’est parce-que tu ne joue_ pas avec moi. Je lui répons que je joue toujours avec elle. Et Flavie
me dit je n’ai suis plus ta copine. Et Flavie me dit qu’elle n’ait plus ma copine.
Coralie (LI) 9;6
C’est un copine et c’est bas caré avec ma cousine à mon anniverser_
C’est une copine qui s’est bagarrée avec ma cousine à mon anniversaire
*Italicized version is what the child read back to the experimenter and is included for clarity. Errors are underlined.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The statistical results reported next are tests of simple effects which, essentially, test
for group differences at specific levels of one or more other factors, for example,
TD-LI differences for French writers. These tests are different from plain t-tests
within subgroups because, in the tests of simple effects, the entire data set, as
opposed to a subset, is used to estimate the error variance and degrees of freedom
for the statistical tests, and the degrees of freedom are generally greater in the test
of simple effects.
Story Length (Clauses)
As can be seen in Figure 13.1, in English but not in French, the samples differed
in the length of their stories as measured by the number of clauses. Specifically,
the TD group of English speakers wrote longer stories than the LI group (t = 3.61,
df = 134, p < . 001), whereas for the French groups, stories did not differ significantly
in length across the two populations. And, as we see in Figure 13.2, separating the
16
14 TD LI
12
Number of Clauses
10
0
French: TD = LI English: TD > LI
Figure 13.1.
Length of narratives (number of clauses) as a function of language and group.
18
16 TD LI
14
Number of Clauses
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Younger Older Younger Older
French English
Figure 13.2.
Length (number of clauses) as a function of language, age and group (TD, LI).
groups into children (ages 7–11) and adolescents (12–16), does not reveal statisti-
cally significant differences in performance by age for any of the four groups, that
is, French TD, French LI, English TD, nor English LI. However, in the typically
developing group of French students, there is a small (t = 1.83, df = 130, p = .069)
trend toward longer stories in the adolescents than in the younger writers, but small
numbers prevent our being able to make a strong statement.

Morphology
As noted earlier, an important difference in English and French is in inflectional

morphology. To calculate rates of morphological errors (and complex syntax), we
used the number of clauses in each as a denominator to control for varying lengths
of the children’s narratives. As can be seen in Figure 13.3, it appears that the French
morphological system does indeed play an important role in the development of
writing. Looking at Figure 13.3, for both the French and the English speaking chil-
dren, the LI groups makes significantly more errors than their typically developing
peers; for French writers t = 3.54, df = 134, p < .001 and for English writers t = 2.13,
df = 134, p = .035. In addition, the French writers, both TD and LI groups, make
significantly more morphological errors than their English speaking counterparts t
= 11.57, df = 134, p < .001. As such, the complexity and relative silence of French
morphology clearly pose a challenge for all French students.
However if we again split the groups into younger and older (Figure 13.4), we
see that both the older TD French group (t = 4.37, df = 130, p < .001) and the older
LI French group (t = 2.04, df = 130, p = .043) make markedly fewer morphological
errors than do their younger French counterparts; as such, both typically develop-
ing children and those with LI seem to be acquiring the French written system,
but at different rates. For the English speakers, there are no statistically significant
differences between the age groups in error rate: Both younger and older LI groups
make more errors than their TD peers. In sum, we see that age, language, and neuro-
developmental status (TD versus LI) play a role: French students master the writ-
ten morphology later than their English counterparts, but both French and English
participants with LI continue to struggle with written morphology.
2 TD LI
1.5
Morphological Error Rate
0.5
0
French: TD < LI English: TD < LI
–0.5
Figure13.3.
Rate of morphological errors as a function of language and group (TD, LI).
2.5
TD LI
Rate of Morphological Errors

2
1.5
0.5
0
–0.5
French English
Figure 13.4.
Rate of morphological errors as a function of language, group and age.
Complex Syntax
Whereas problems in grammatical morphology are a hallmark of LI, studies

have also reported decreased use of complex syntax in narratives (e.g., Reilly et
al., 2004; Scott & Windsor, 2000). To investigate the rate of complex sentences
we calculated the frequency with which children used complex syntax by con-
structing proportions of complex structures divided by story length in clauses.
Using complex or simple sentences is a rhetorical choice; simple sentences are
perfectly grammatical. However, using complex sentences, for example, makes
explicit the relation between two (or more) events and increases the density
of information. In comparing complex sentence rates, we found that for both
language groups, the LI groups use less complex syntax than the controls; for
French writers, t = 3.16, df = 134, p = .002, for English writers t = 1.96, df = 134,
p = .05. Interestingly, the English speaking groups used relatively more complex
sentences than the French speaking participants (t = 4.40, df = 134, p < .001)
as can be seen in Figure 13.5. Looking across age groups (Figure 13.6), we see
that for both languages the LI adolescents used more complex syntax than their
younger counterparts (for French, t = 2.62, df = 130, p = .010; for English t =
2.26, df = 130, p = .026).
What might explain such differences in syntactic profiles of the French and
English students? According to studies of discourse that have looked at rhetori-
cal styles across languages, English is characterized as one that relies heavily on
hypotaxis or subordination, whereas French tends more toward isotaxis or favor-
ing independent clauses over subordination. Interestingly, both French and English
have a broad repertoire of sentence types; both languages include simple clauses,
coordinate clauses and multiple types of subordination (e.g., clefts, relative and
adverbial clauses). However, data from adult writers show preferences for particular

0.9
0.8 TD LI
Rate of Use of Complex Syntax

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
French: TD > LI English: TD > LI
Figure 13.5.
Rate of use of complex syntax as a function of language and group (TD, LI).
0.9
0.8 TD LI
Rate of Use of Complex Syntax
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
French English
Figure 13.6.
Rate of use of complex syntax as a function of language, age and group (TD, LI).
syntactic constructions (Nir & Berman, 2010); specifically, adult French writers
prefer simple over subordinate clauses whereas English writers use increased sub-
ordination. Interestingly, these same preferences of syntactic style are evident in
the children’s writing as well. What is striking is that this feature of how language
is used, that is, the preference for independent or subordinate clauses, is evident in
the LI as well as the TD groups. Thus, it is not only that all these children are learn-
ing to write French or English, they are also learning the rhetorical style, in this case,
the syntactic preferences for written language of their linguistic community.
Spelling
Finally we look at spelling in these two languages. Both have opaque writing sys-
tems, irregular sound-letter correspondences, and a substantial number of silent
letters. In English, but not in French, (see Figure 13.7) the children with LI make
more errors than their typically developing peers (t = 3.04, df = 134, p = .003),
and in both languages, in both the TD and LI groups, the adolescents make fewer
errors than younger children (see Figure 13.8); for French TD, t = 2.41, p = .017,
for French LI, t = 2.55, p = .012, for English TD, t = 2.40, p = .018, and for English
LI, t = 3.51, p = .001. All tests are based on df = 130. In short, everyone is learning
to spell.
When we look more closely at the errors of the children, there are some inter-
esting linguistic and group differences. Many spelling errors from the TD groups
0.25 TD LI
0.2
Spelling Errors per Word
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
French: TD > LI English: TD > LI
Figure 13.7.
Spelling Errors per word as a function of language and group (TD, LI).
0.3
TD LI
0.25
Spelling Errors per Word
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
French English
Figure 13.8.
Spelling errors per word as a function of language, age and group (TD, LI).

Table 13.2 SPELLING ERRORS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH FROM WRITTEN
NARRATIVES FROM STUDENTS WITH LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT
Errors in English Errors in French

• stcay: Stacy* • mavoler: m’a volé
• trae: trash • Ses té: c’ était
• chufball: trouble • commen ses: commencer
• thone: threw • alecole: à l’ école
• a stopon: accept • bas caré: bagarré
• srtr: shirt • le caleuabe: l’escalope
• hirrind: Harrington • cuisiniaire: cuisinière
* target word
are phonologically plausible, for example, sistr for sister in English and metrese for
maîtresse in French. However, errors from the LI group also included more phono-
logically implausible spellings as in uling for ugly. Across languages, errors in English
were largely word internal, for example, herd for heard. In contrast, in French, a size-
able number of errors were segmentation errors. Table 13.2 contains some exam-
ples of these types of errors. This difference may reflect the differing stress patterns
of English and French, where English stress is word delineated, whereas French is a
syllable-timed language. In sum, both the structure of the language and the child’s
age and neurodevelopmental status affect his ability to spell.
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, we see that LI has significant effects on children’s writing. Students

with LI make more morphosyntactic errors, use less complex syntax and make more
spelling errors in their writing than their typically developing peers. However, stu-
dents, both typically developing and those with LI also very much reflect the language
community in which they are growing up: French morphology is more challenging
than that of English, regardless of group; French writers, both TD and LI, use less
complex syntax in their writing than their English-speaking counterparts. In sum,
learning to write poses a greater challenge for children with language impairment
than their typically developing peers, but both the structure of the target language,
as well as the community’s rhetorical preferences define and shape this challenge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was in part supported by P50 NS22343: Neurological Bases of Language,

Learning and Cognition. We would like to thank Stephanie Chaminaud, Lucie
Broc, and Jun O’Hara for their help with transcription and data coding, Julian Parris
for graphics, and the staff at PCND for collecting the children’s stories. We are espe-
cially grateful to the children and their families who generously participated in
these studies.
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CHAPTER 14
A Review of Dyslexia and Expressive

Writing in English
EMM A SUMNER , VINCENT CONNELLY,
AND ANNA L. BARNETT
INTRODUCTION
Considerable advances have been made in understanding the cognitive processes

underlying reading and spelling problems in individuals with dyslexia. However
there has been much less work on issues related to their writing. Writing is a more
difficult skill because it involves production as well as processing of print, and
poor writing is a barrier to educational progress. In fact adults with dyslexia report
that writing, not reading, is their biggest problem (Burden, 2005; Mortimore &
Crozier, 2006). School exams are traditionally weighted toward assessment based
on producing extended written responses. It has been shown that students with
dyslexia achieve lower levels of success in exams than their peers (Richardson &
Wydell, 2003), whereas a large sample of poor readers identified in a childhood
sample continued to have poor spelling in their mid-adult life and 80% of the sam-
ple reported difficulty with writing a letter or filling in a form (Maughan, Messer,
Collishaw, Snowling, Yule, & Rutter, 2009). Although very high achieving uni-
versity students with dyslexia studying medicine do appear to do as well as other
students on exams including writing short answers (McKendree & Snowling,
2011), even in this population there are some persisting difficulties with written
assessments, and adults with dyslexia do better with extra time in exams (Gibson
& Leinster, 2011).
DEFINITION OF DYSLEXIA IN ENGLISH
Dyslexia is a developmental disorder characterized by a specific word-level deficit

(Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008) and so there has been
much speculation about the overlap between dyslexia and children with oral lan-
guage difficulties (Catts, 1996; Hulme & Snowling, 2009). However, a number of
thorough reviews (Bishop & Snowling, 2004; Catts, Adolf, Hogan, & Weismer,
2005; Pennington & Bishop, 2009) have made a clear claim that children with dys-
lexia are distinct from those with wider language problems such as specific language
impairment (SLI). Therefore, we shall concentrate here on those individuals who
have been identified with dyslexia only and whose dyslexia is not symptomatic of a
wider oral language difficulty.
In the United Kingdom, there have been many different definitions of dyslexia
(Brooks, 2007). The varied use of these definitions has led to many heated debates
not just in academia or education but more widely in Government and the media.
In response to this debate the UK government commissioned a report into the
identification and teaching of young people and children with dyslexia and literacy
difficulties. The Rose report (2009) provided a working definition of dyslexia in the
UK context that is reproduced in full below:
Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and
fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in
phonological awareness, verbal memory, and verbal processing speed. Dyslexia occurs
across the range of intellectual abilities. It is best thought of as a continuum, not a dis-
tinct category, and there are no clear cut-off points. Co-occurring difficulties may be
seen in aspects of language, motor co-ordination, mental calculation, concentration and
personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia. A good
indication of the severity and persistence of dyslexic difficulties can be gained by exam-
ining how the individual responds or has responded to well-founded intervention.
(Rose, 2009, p.30)
This definition, while still stirring up some controversy was generally well received
by the academic and educational communities of interest in the United Kingdom.
However, in practice, many assessments made in schools still rely on distinct
cut-off points and tie the diagnosis to a discrepancy between reading and IQ (Bell,
McPhillips, & Doveston, 2011). There have been similar debates proposed in the
United States (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003).
English speaking children with dyslexia will usually show difficulties in devel-
oping appropriate levels of accuracy, as well as fluency, when reading and spelling
words. On average, they are less accurate and slower at reading single words and
Dysle xia and E xpressive Writing in English [ 1 8 9 ]

they are invariably even poorer at spelling the same words (see Hulme & Snowling,
2009). A large and complex literature has shown that the majority of children with
dyslexia have difficulties with the phonological aspects of reading and spelling in
English (Hulme & Snowling, 2009; Kemp, 2009), but a growing literature points to
learning problems related to orthography as well as phonology in dyslexia (de Jong
& Messbauer, 2011; Snowling, 2011). The coding of phonological information in
memory and the transformation of phonological information into orthographic
codes (written words) is difficult for these children (Berninger et al., 2008; Gayan
& Olson, 2001). Many individuals with dyslexia also have problems with rapid
naming of letters ( Jones, Branigan, & Kelly, 2009) and working memory spans
appear to be smaller (Gathercole, Alloway, Willis, & Adams, 2006). However, most
researchers argue that the difficulties faced by children with dyslexia when dealing
with print have their impact specifically at the word or subword level ( Jackson &
Coltheart, 2001). These word-level deficits then, in turn, will affect processing at
other levels of written language.
THE WRITING PROFILE OF ENGLISH SPEAKING CHILDREN

WITH DYSLEXIA
The preceding review shows that there are a number of reasons to predict that chil-
dren diagnosed with dyslexia in English would experience difficulties with writing.
When examining the composition of English-speaking individuals with dyslexia,
a number of differences from their peers are quickly noticed. First of all, they con-
tain many more spelling errors than essays produced by other individuals of the
same age (Coleman, Gregg, McLain, & Bellair, 2009). It is also no surprise that the
compositions are shorter and are rated more poorly in both content and organiza-
tion than their peers without dyslexia (Connelly, Campbell, MacLean, & Barnes,
2006; Gregg, Coleman, Davis and Chalk, 2007; Sterling, Farmer, Riddick, Morgan,
& Matthews, 1998). Furthermore, there are reports that they are very slow writers
(British Dyslexia Association, 2011; Rose, 2009); and motivation to write in these
children may also be a key issue when faced with a more difficult task than their
peers (Berninger & Hidi, 2007; Graham, Berninger, & Fan, 2007).
PROBLEMS WITH READING?
Reading is a critical skill for a writer ( Juel, 1988). Reading develops the complex
vocabulary, written grammatical knowledge and the appropriate background con-
text to draw upon when composing and allows for rapid reviewing of the written
text. Reading back and forth through the text when writing has been shown to
be a common occurrence for typically achieving children and adults (Wengelin,
Leijten, & Van Waes, 2010) and re-reading has been associated with increased text

quality (Breetvelt, Van den Bergh, & Rijlaarsdam, 1996); but ironically slower writ-
ers appear to need to rely on reading more when writing than more fluent writers
(Beers, Quinlan, & Harbaugh, 2010). Furthermore, strong links between reading
comprehension and writing skills have been shown to grow through the primary
school years (Bourke & Adams, 2010; Juel, 1988). Thus, difficulty with reading
acquisition has consequences for both vocabulary growth and reading compre-
hension, since the struggle to recognize words will hinder sufficient practice in
developing comprehension skills (Cain, 2009; Carlisle & Rice, 2002). Therefore,
difficulties with reading will impact on the development of writing, in particular
spelling (see next section), thus leading to a delayed writing profile.
However, reading and writing are separable processes and are likely to interact
differently at different developmental stages (Abbott, Berninger, & Fayol, 2010;
Shanahan, 2006). This complicates matters, and, although reading and writing are
strongly correlated, reading is rarely reported to account for more than 50% of the
variance in writing at any one point in development (Fitzgerald & Shanahan, 2000;
Shanahan, 2006). Therefore, it is reasonable to propose that the writing difficulties
of children with dyslexia may be limited to specific areas around spelling, vocabu-
lary and the “lower level” writing processes. In fact, a study of high-achieving uni-
versity students with dyslexia showed no difference in higher-order writing skills,
such as essay organization and coherence, compared to same-age peers when writ-
ing essays, but they still produced many more of the spelling errors that are typical
of those with dyslexia (Connelly, et al, 2006). There have been no carefully con-
trolled intervention studies that have shown direct effects of reading interventions
on the development of writing skill in children with dyslexia that we have found to
date.
PROBLEMS WITH SPELLING?
A major difficulty that children with dyslexia have when beginning to learn to
write is learning to spell. Their poor phonological skills inhibit the development
of orthographic knowledge (Fayol, Zorman, & Lete, 2009). Children with dyslexia
find it difficult to make associations and store representations of word-specific
spelling conventions (Bruck, 1993; Olson, Wise, Johnson, & Ring, 1997). This
is particularly true in the English language where spellings are often irregular and
these conventions must be learned implicitly (Moats, 1995; Tsesmeli & Seymour,
2006). There are also strong frequency and consistency effects in learning to spell in
English that will be accentuated by poorer and thus less frequent reading (Nation,
Angell, & Castles, 2007). Children with dyslexia continue to have difficulty with
spelling even when their problems in reading words seem to have resolved (Kemp,
Parilla, & Kirby, 2009) and the essays of students with dyslexia contain many more
spelling errors compared to typically achieving age-matched peers (Connelly et al.,
2006; Sterling et al., 1998).

Misspelling can also have a direct influence on ratings of text quality (Berninger,
Vaughan, Abbott, Begay, Byrd et al., 2002). Spelling is a key predictor of writing
composition quality in both typical children and in children with dyslexia up to
the age of 11, and even beyond (Abbott et al., 2010; Berninger et al., 2008; Gregg
et al., 2007). Good spellers use fluent and efficient strategies to spell, whereas poor
spellers are slow and effortful in their spelling (Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1999).
Having to concentrate on spelling words takes time away from the purpose of writ-
ing and means less text is produced in the equivalent time to those without spell-
ing problems (Connelly et al., 2006; Gregg et al., 2007) and there is an increasing
link between text length and text quality as children and adults make progress in
writing (Berninger & Swanson, 1994; Gregg, Coleman, Stennett, & Davis, 2002).
Over time, the constraints on writing from transcription exert less influence on
text quality in typically developing children, and they are able to devote more
resources to higher-order cognitive processes (Berninger & Swanson, 1994), but
children with dyslexia persist in their struggle with spelling (Puranik, Lombardino,
& Altmann, 2007; Sumner, Connelly, & Barnett, 2011). Spelling interventions have
achieved some success with children diagnosed with dyslexia (see Brooks, 2007),
and improvements in spelling can lead to improvements in written composition
(Berninger et al., 2002). Thus a large part of the difficulty that children with dys-
lexia have with writing could be partly dealt with through specific spelling inter-
ventions that will then have indirect effects through to improved compositional
development.
DOES POOR SPELLING INFLUENCE VOCABULARY CHOICE AND

GRAMMAR WHEN WRITING TEXT?
Vocabulary knowledge requires both phonological and semantic representations

and is heavily related to amounts of reading experience (Wise, Sevcik, Morris,
Lovett, & Wolf, 2007). Vocabulary levels are likely to be slightly delayed in children
with dyslexia due to reduced reading exposure. This may, in turn, have a detrimen-
tal effect on ratings of written work, since a high-graded text is typically associated
with a higher level of lexical diversity and sophisticated grammatical constructions
(Grobe, 1981; Olinghouse & Leaird, 2009).
There has been very little work on written vocabulary choice in children with
dyslexia. Quotes such as: “Many participants in our research studies lament that
they cannot write compositions that express their ideas without limiting those
ideas to the words they think they can spell without embarrassment.” (Berninger
et al, 2008. p.17) are common in the literature but actual studies examining this
issue are still quite rare. Research in Swedish appears to show a link between
spelling and vocabulary choice. It was found that adults with dyslexia showed
less lexical diversity and density in their written language but not in their spoken
language when compared to their peers (Wengelin, 2007). Sterling et al (1998)

analyzed the syllable length of vocabulary choices made in a free writing task
completed by English-speaking university students with and without dyslexia.
Students with dyslexia used many one-syllable words, rarely using words con-
sisting of up to three syllables. Their age-matched peers, however, used propor-
tionally more words of three syllables and longer. By way of contrast, Connelly
et al. (2006) found no difference in lexical diversity between a sample of UK
students with dyslexia and a chronological age-matched group when a timed,
more-complex expository writing task was rated. This study used a more dif-
ficult writing task than did Sterling et al. (1998). Therefore, the two studies sug-
gests that when given an easier writing task, the individual with dyslexia may
choose easier-to-spell vocabulary but, when faced with a task in which complex
language is required, they do respond to the task vocabulary requirements. The
essays produced in the Connelly et al. (2006) study were complex and showed
appropriate use of low-frequency words where required. Thus, conflicting results
from studies in English means that it still remains open to debate whether poor
spelling contributes to constrained written vocabulary choices in individuals
with dyslexia.
A study of individuals with dyslexia between the ages of 11 and 21 used a “writ-
ing through retelling” task and found no difference in lexical diversity between
those with dyslexia and age-matched controls (Puranik et al., 2007). Rather, a
third group of children with more general language impairment had poorer lexical
diversity. However, these children with dyslexia produced as many grammatically
incorrect sentences as the language-impaired group. Although these findings are
intriguing, scoring of the syntactic errors of the sentences may have included count-
ing errors in inflexional morphology. Inflexional morphology is a specific spelling
weakness for individuals with dyslexia ( Joanisse, Manis, Keating, & Seidenberg,
2000); therefore, the report of syntactic problems from the Puranik et al. (2007)
study may be compounded by their spelling difficulties.
PROBLEMS WITH HANDWRITING?
Another reported difficulty children with dyslexia face when writing may be related
to handwriting skill. Speed of handwriting is a strong predictor of written composi-
tion length and quality in typically developing children and even in some adults
(Berninger and Swanson, 1994; Connelly, Dockrell & Barnett, 2005; Graham,
Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, & Whitaker, 1997). Berninger et al. (2008) recruited
a sample of 122 children with dyslexia and tested them on a range of measures,
including handwriting automaticity (using an alphabet writing task). Although no
comparison group was used, the results did indicate that children were impaired
in handwriting speed (1.1 SD below the mean of Graham et al., 1997) but that
neither handwriting speed nor motor skills predicted written composition qual-
ity whereas spelling skill did. Other studies (using different tasks) also appear to

show that the handwriting of children with dyslexia is slower than peers (Sovik
& Arntzen, 1986; Sovik, Arntzen, & Thygesen, 1987) and continues to be slower
in adulthood (Hatcher, Snowling, & Griffiths, 2002). However, some studies have
found no evidence of handwriting speed differences for children with dyslexia
compared to their peers (Martlew, 1992) and while there may be differences in
handwriting speed in adulthood this may not differ from equivalent spelling-ability
matched controls (Connelly et al., 2006).
A pattern of mixed results is not uncommon in dyslexia research due to the
different tasks used to measure the same activity. The handwriting tasks under-
taken have also included speeded writing and there is evidence that many, but
not all, children with dyslexia have problems with speeded tasks generally
(Katzir, Kim, Wolf, O’Brien, Kennedy et al., 2006). Therefore, the mixed pic-
ture regarding handwriting speed could be explained by individual differences
in speed of accessing letter like forms in memory and integrating those with
hand movements to produce letters. Speed of accessing letters in a RAN task was
found to be predictive of writing quality in a sample of eleven year old children
with dyslexia (Berninger et al., 2008). Letter knowledge is highly predictive of
spelling in the early years of schooling in English (Muter, Hulme, Snowling,
& Stevenson, 2004) and children with dyslexia are slower at developing letter
knowledge (Bishop & Snowling, 2004).
With reported incidences of movement difficulties in dyslexia (Iversen,
Berg, Ellertsen, & Tonnessen, 2005) and co-morbidity with developmental
co-ordination disorder (DCD) (Chaix, Albaret, Brassard, Cheuret, Castelnau
et al., 2007); it is possible that slow handwriting may be a direct consequence
of poor motor control and coordination. It is rare for motor performance to be
separately assessed or DCD considered in studies of writing in children with
dyslexia. In our own work, when general motor difficulty has been ruled out,
handwriting has still been found to be slow. However, detailed analysis of the
writing task, using a digital writing tablet, demonstrated that the actual move-
ment of the pen to form letters was as fast as age matched peers (Sumner,
Connelly, & Barnett, 2011, 2012).
Another explanation for slow writing in samples with dyslexia may be more
directly related to spelling. If children with dyslexia are struggling with spelling,
they may show more pauses in writing to try and process the spellings of words.
If so, then they slow down the process of transcription, leading to slower writing
than would be expected. It has been demonstrated in keystroke-logged essays in
Swedish that adults with dyslexia produce more pauses overall and in particular
more within-word pauses than age-matched controls (Wengelin, 2007; Wengelin
& Stromqvist, 2000). Using a digital writing tablet, it has also been recently dem-
onstrated that a sample of children with dyslexia paused more frequently during
writing and were slower at composing a text than age-matched peers. As mentioned
earlier, however, the speed of the pen on the page was identical to peers, whereas the
amount of time pausing was the same as spelling-ability-matched children (Sumner

et al., 2011, 2013). Therefore, it seems that the pure writing speed of children with
dyslexia is not slow in itself but when required to spell while writing, more frequent
pausing slows the overall writing process down. Handwriting is constrained by
spelling. These are important findings, demonstrating that more frequent pausing
and not writing speed may be the real issue behind the slower pace of handwriting
in children with dyslexia. These findings need to be more widely investigated and
taken into account when modelling the development of writing.
LOOKING AHEAD
This review has shown that children with dyslexia have difficulty learning to write.
This difficulty appears to be primarily driven by the children’s impairment in word
and subword-level learning. This has an impact on their ability to interweave read-
ing and writing processes leading to a severe impact on spelling, the slowing down
of composing and an impact on vocabulary diversity when composing. We suspect
there is less evidence for a clear handwriting problem and the slower pace of writ-
ing in children with dyslexia may be mediated by problems with pausing to spell.
However, given the specificity of the problems faced by children with dyslexia the
prognosis for remediation remains good. Interventions to support spelling have
been shown to impact on written expression. These interventions take a lot of time
and effort (Berninger et al., 2002) but could prove to support the composing skills
of children with dyslexia.
One reason for the current lack of depth in understanding has been the diffi-
culty in measuring what aspects of writing children are actually struggling with.
Research on text production in children with writing difficulties has usually been
limited to a focus on products/outputs at single points in time (see special edition
Reading & Writing 2008 Vol1/2) not the process of production. The tools needed
to measure process have, until recently, either involved oral protocols or complex
cognitive tasks in school contexts, or are required to be conducted in experimental
laboratories. These methods, although sound in principle, are not ideal for examin-
ing process in primary-school-aged children. Thus, the majority of the research on
writing and dyslexia has taken place with adults not children.
Recent work has shown, through the use of real time data from portable digital
writing tablets, that typically developing children’s spelling and handwriting pro-
cesses are intimately linked at the level of the within-word syllable (Kandel, 2009).
Kandel demonstrated that the spelling of a word is produced syllable by syllable
and that children prepare the movement to produce the first syllable before starting
to write. The child then begins to program in parallel the movement to produce the
second syllable on-line, while still engaged in writing the first few letters. Kandel’s
work has also shown that other levels of language are important to the spelling of
a word such as the initial morpheme and the selection of the appropriate graph-
eme. This ties in well with our recent work showing the importance of analyzing the

detailed writing processes of children with dyslexia (Connelly, Dockrell, & Barnett,
2011; Sumner et al., 2013).
This microstudy of writing has very important implications for the study
of children with dyslexia. For example, it may be that, to write a word most
efficiently, the child requires the ability to chunk that word into syllables. It is
known that children with dyslexia have difficulty with the segmentation of word
spellings. Thus, it will be important to demonstrate how and at what level chil-
dren with dyslexia are similar to the typically developing children sampled in
Kandel’s work.
It is also very important to look at the impact of the spelling patterns of dif-
ferent written languages. French is (like Spanish) a more syllabically based writ-
ten language than English and so one could make different predictions about
the level of chunking required to write English spellings efficiently. Thus, a
breakdown in spelling could take place at different linguistic levels (e.g., mor-
pheme, syllable, grapheme, etc.) when children struggle with writing in different
languages.
Finally, the ability to process complex linguistic information in typically develop-
ing children requires an efficient working memory system. As shown in Berninger
and Swanson’s (1994) developmental model of the writing processes, working
memory regulates the recursive processes engaged while writing and responds to
specific task needs. A limited working memory capacity has been found in children
with dyslexia (Gathercole et al., 2006). Although under-researched at present, these
limited memory resources, along with the high cognitive cost of spelling irregulari-
ties in the English language, may disrupt the high-order processes, such as idea gen-
eration and word selection, and the lower-level transcription skills. Further study
into the detailed links between language, spelling, and handwriting will allow us to
understand the processes that compete for resources in these children when writing.
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CHAPTER 15
Written Spelling in French Children

with Dyslexia
SÉVERINE CA SALIS
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Developmental dyslexia is defined as a specific reading impairment that is mostly

associated to phonological deficits. Although the definition includes both reading
and spelling impairments, most research has focused on reading difficulties, and
less is known about spelling. Spelling difficulties are generally reported to remain
even when reading difficulties are overcome in dyslexia; however, the aspects of
spelling that are specifically impaired remain to be specified. This question is par-
ticularly central in French, where spelling is particularly inconsistent, whereas read-
ing is mostly regular. The aim of the present study is to investigate spelling in French
children with dyslexia.
Dyslexia
Developmental dyslexia is a developmental disorder that affects learning to read.

The current definition recommended by the International Dyslexia Association is
“a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by
difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and
decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonologi-
cal component of language” (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003, p. 2).
The dyslexia diagnosis excludes children with hearing loss or language impair-
ment by definition. In France, the criterion for dyslexia is a reading delay of
24 months on a standard test that measures reading-aloud skills.
The Dual Route Framework
The dual-route model accounts for procedures used in single-word reading

(Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001). The lexical procedure (also
termed orthographic) relies on the activation of word-specific orthographic and
phonological memory representations. The non-lexical procedure (also termed
phonological) uses a sublexical procedure based on grapheme-phoneme cor-
respondences (GPC hereinafter). The lexical procedure can process all familiar
words, regardless of whether they are regular or irregular in terms of their GPC, but
does not permit the processing of unfamiliar words or pseudowords because these
items do not have lexical representations. The nonlexical procedure can succeed in
reading pseudowords and regular words but not irregular words. Weight of each
procedure may depend on the transparency of orthography in alphabetical systems.
The Impact of Orthographic Transparency on Dyslexia
Studies conducted in English have evidenced strong deficit in pseudoword reading

in dyslexia, in terms of both accuracy and speed. The deficit is apparent when per-
formance is compared not only to chronological age-matched children, but also to
reading age-matched children (see Van Ijzendoorn & Bus, 1994 for a review). This
strongly indicates that the sublexical procedure is severely impaired. English has
one of the deepest orthographies among alphabetic scripts, requiring the learning
of large numbers of GPC. In more transparent orthographies, the pseudoword defi-
cit is revealed by extreme slowness rather than inaccuracy (in German: Wimmer,
1996; in Italian: DeLuca et al., 2002, in French: Sprenger-Charolles Colé,
Kipffer-Piquard, Pinton, & Billard, 2009).
Regularity and Inconsistency of French Orthography
French is considered as relatively transparent in reading and highly inconsistent

in spelling. Ziegler, Jacobs, and Stone (1996) calculated the bidirectional incon-
sistency of spelling and sound in French using the French BRULEX database
(Content, Mousty, & Radeau, 1990). A striking result of the analysis conducted
on monosyllabic words was that 12.4% are inconsistent from the spelling-to-sound
correspondence point of view, whereas 79.1% are inconsistent from the sound-to-
spelling correspondence point of view. The Manulex-infra database (Peereman,
Lété, & Sprenger-Charolles, 2007) examines grapheme-to-phoneme (GP) consis-
tency and phoneme-to-grapheme (PG) consistency in words addressed to children
(grades 1 to 5). The results confirm the strong discrepancy between inconsistencies
in reading and in spelling. GP consistency was estimated, according to its position
in the word, at 96% in the initial position, 80% in the middle position, and 92%

in the final position. So in all, the level of consistency observed in reading is high.
By contrast, PG consistency was estimated at 91% in initial, 76% in middle and
45% in final position. Thus, a drastic drop in consistency is observed in spelling.
This discrepancy is shared by most orthographies even though it is very strong in
French: many regular words contain inconsistent spelling. For the sake of clarity, we
will refer to “regularity” when considering GPC (reading) and “consistency” when
considering PGC (spelling). Given this discrepancy, it turns out that some read-
ers, who read quite well, experience instead difficulties with spelling (Frith, 1980).
In addition, as pointed by Fayol, Zorman, and Lété (2009), spelling requires pre-
cise knowledge about the letters and their positions in words, whereas reading via
the lexical route can be performed with only a partial orthographic information,
when this knowledge (even incomplete) permits distinguishing one word from
the others. Indeed, spelling depends on relying on several regularities: phonologi-
cal, orthographic and morphological, in addition to orthographic lexical retrieval.
These linguistic processing have been found to be involved in spelling difficulties in
dyslexia in English (Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008).
Phonological Strategy in Spelling
Spelling necessitates a deep phonological analysis of the word to be spelled: each

phoneme has to be identified to be converted into a grapheme. Indeed, spelling
errors are, mostly, phonologically plausible in normal developing French spellers
(Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, Béchennec, & Serniclaes, 2003).
At first glance, given their poor phonological skills, children with dyslexia are
expected to perform poorly on phonological procedure in spelling. In English,
Bruck and Treiman (1990) used a spelling-level match design to investigate the
spelling of word-initial consonant clusters. Children with dyslexia failed to spell
the second consonant of clusters, as did the normal readers/spellers, but were even
more impaired when spelling pseudowords. However, other studies have failed to
evidence any difference between groups, with children with dyslexia and controls
making similar proportions of phonologically motivated spelling errors (Bourassa
& Treiman, 2003).
Graphotactic Knowledge
Phonological procedure is not sufficient to spell words given the inconsistency

of French orthography. Pacton, Fayol, and Perruchet (2005) have empha-
sised the role of graphotactic knowledge (distributional properties of letters):
Children do also learn regularity about orthography, like for example, the
fact that double consonants can be observed in median position but in nei-
ther beginning nor end of words, or that some letters can be doubled (e.g., n
W r i t t e n Sp e ll i n g i n F r e n c h C h i l d r e n w i t h D y s l e x i a [ 2 0 3 ]
in French) whereas other cannot be (e.g., h French). Examining pseudoword
spellings in second and fourth graders, Pacton, Fayol, and Perruchet (2002)
observed that the sound /o/ was spelled eau mostly at the end of the words,
au and o at beginning and median position, in accordance with distributions
observed in French orthography.
Concerning dyslexia, Bourassa and Treiman (2003) observed that English-
speaking children with dyslexia and spelling-level matched controls made similar
proportions of graphotactically legal spellings (see also Cassar, Treiman, Moats,
Pollo, & Kessler 2005). Note, however, that children with dyslexia have been
recently shown to be more sensitive to consistency than reading age controls
(Davies & Weekes, 2005).
Morphological Knowledge
Morphological structure also contributes to spelling. As indicated by Deacon,

Conrad, and Pacton (2008), both suffix (e.g., the French diminutive -ette, the –ed
past tense) and root are used by children when spelling words. Indeed, when a child
has to spell a derived and infrequent word, knowing the spelling of the root can help
him or her given that the root remains consistent (e.g., ea in healthy can be driven by
the root heal). Concerning dyslexia, Bourassa and Treiman (2003) have shown that
children with dyslexia use the principle of morphological consistency to the same
extent as spelling-level controls.
Specific Orthographic Knowledge
Besides these sublexical strategies, children may retrieve the lexical orthographic
form, which is referred to specific orthographic knowledge, in order to spell words.
Indications of lexical orthographic knowledge may be obtained through three
kinds of effects: frequency, regularity, and analogy. Alegria and Mousty (1996)
found that frequency effects occurred late in the developmental course. In the
same line, Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2003) observed regularity effects at the onset
of literacy. Both results reflect a late use of orthographic lexical knowledge. By
contrast, Lété, Peereman, and Fayol (2008) observed a jump of frequency effects
between first and second grade in French, and Martinet, Valdois, and Fayol (2004)
found that young children can use lexical analogy when spelling new words. Few
data are available on dyslexia. In German, children with strong phonological defi-
cits experience word spelling difficulties (Wimmer, Mayringer, & Landerl, 2000).
In Italian, a recent study with adults with dyslexia suggests that most of their dif-
ficulties lie in word learning rather than phonological skills (Romani, Di Betta, &
Tsouknida, 2008).

Predictors of Spelling
In line with the aforementioned studies, main predictors of spelling abilities are
phonological awareness (Treiman, 1993), rapid naming (Landerl and Wimmer,
2000), and morphological awareness, that is the ability to manipulate morphemes
(Casalis, Deacon, & Pacton, 2011). We are not aware of studies examining grapho-
tactic knowledge as predictor of spelling, but a recent study indicates that this kind
of knowledge could be more a consequence than a predictor of reading (Deacon,
Benere, & Castles, 2012).
THE PRESENT STUDY
In all, several aspects of spelling have to be examined in dyslexia. Whereas English

studies have indicated that performance was similar to spelling-level matched chil-
dren, studies conducted in transparent languages have indicated a more marked
deficit in lexical orthographic knowledge. As mentioned before, the case of French
is interesting given its discrepancy between consistency in reading and spelling.
Given this inconsistency, it seems important to distinguish irregularity and incon-
sistency and neutralize one aspect when the other is under study. The aim of the
present study was to assess spelling in French children with dyslexia, as compared
to reading-level matched children (to equate on word exposition). Four specific
research questions motivated the study:
Question 1: Are French children with dyslexia more impaired than their reading-age con-
trols in spelling? More precisely, which spelling procedure is more impaired
if any?
Question 2: Is there a specific impairment in phonological pseudoword spelling strategies
as compared to word spelling?
Question 3: What is the impact of GPC regularity on spelling?
Question 4: What are the concurrent predictors of spelling in dyslexia?
METHOD
Participants
Fifty children with dyslexia took part in the study. All were native French speak-
ers and attended school regularly. Their diagnoses of developmental dyslexia were
based on DSM-IV criteria: a reading age of at least 24 months lower than expected
according to chronological age, and IQ as measured by the WISC greater than 85
to exclude global intellectual difficulties. The children had normal or corrected-to-
normal visual acuity. Children presenting with attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD), specific language impairment (SLI), an anxiety disorder, or a
neurological or psychiatric disease were excluded. Chronological age ranged from
8 years 9 months to 13 years 10 months (Mage = 10.11, SD = 16 months). Their
grade level ranged from third grade to eighth grade. Reading age, as assessed by the
Alouette test (Lefavrais, 2005), was 7 years 6 months (SD = 8 months, range = 6;6 –
9;10). Forty-five children composed the reading-age-matched control group (RA
henceforth). Mean age was 7 years 5 months (SD = 4 months) and reading age as
assessed by the Alouette test was 7 years 6 months (SD = 6 months). They were
enrolled in school in the second and third grades.
Materials
Spelling Test
A list of 20 words was created for the purposes of the study: 10 were regular (e.g.,
tomate- tomato) and 10 were irregular from the GPC point of view (e.g., hiver- winter).
They were strictly matched in terms of number of letters and for inconsistency from
the PGC point of view. Standard tests were not used because they usually control for
regularity in reading but not for consistency in spelling. A list of 20 pseudowords was
elaborated for the purpose of the experiment. Ten items were phonologically short
and simple (CVCV structure, e.g., doumin) and 10 were phonologically complex or
long (CCVCCV structure or CVCVCV structure, e.g., trafor, mispro). All included
sounds that can be spelled several ways, but all spellings were acceptable.
Reading
The standardized Alouette test was used to establish a reading-age level. This test
involves reading a text of 265 words aloud as quickly and accurately as possible. The
final score yields a reading age, taking into account both speed (how many words
are read during 3 minutes) and accuracy. The Belec battery (Mousty, Leybaert,
Alegria, Content, & Morais, 1994) was used to explore reading procedures and
identify subtypes of dyslexia. In this test, children have to read 40 regular words:
20 irregular words and 40 pseudowords. As a whole, the dyslexic group performed
worse on pseudoword reading and equally well on regular and irregular words, as
compared to the reading-age control group. In addition, this procedure identified
2 children with surface dyslexia and 12 children with phonological dyslexia, too
small a number of dissociated profiles to allow specific comparisons.
Phoneme Deletion
The children were asked to pronounce what remained after removing the first pho-
neme of a pseudoword. The items were monosyllabic and bisyllabic pseudowords

beginning with a CV, CVC, and CCV syllable (30 items). Items were pronounced
by the experimenter. Reliability for this test is .78.
Visual Abilities
The Benton Retention Test was used as a measure of the retention of complex non-
linguistic figures. Children were required to look at a complex figure and then rec-
ognize it among 4 alternatives. There were 12 figures.
Judgment of String Similarity. On this test, two strings of letters (set 1) or non-
letter symbols (such as Greek letters, §, #, etc., set 2) were presented. Children were
requested to answer whether the two strings were identical or different. The strings
differed only in the order of elements. Score was the number of correct responses
in the course of 2 minutes.
Morphological Awareness
A sentence completion task (see Casalis, Colé, & Sopo, 2004) was administered.
On this task, children have to complete a sentence with a derived form (e.g.: “a man
who runs is a. . .,” runner). Reliability is .76.
RESULTS
Question 1: Are French children with dyslexia more impaired than their RA controls in
spelling? More precisely, which spelling procedure is more impaired if any? To answer
these questions, the performance of children with dyslexia was compared to read-
ing level-matched children on word (orthographically correct) and pseudoword
spelling. In general, higher performance is to be expected in pseudoword over word
spelling, given the inconsistency of French orthography. In dyslexia, the situation is
difficult to anticipate: On one hand, it is easier to spell items such as pseudowords
given that many graphemes are possible for one phoneme, contrary to words; on
the other hand, pseudowords are more difficult to process in dyslexia because of
phonological impairment. To answer this question, we computed an ANOVA with
group (children with dyslexia versus RA controls) as between-subjects factor and
item lexicality (words versus pseudowords) as a repeated measure. The dependent
variable was the number of items correctly spelled: correct spellings (in terms of
orthographic accuracy only for words1). Reading age-matched children performed
better than children with dyslexia (respectively 70.5% and 55%, F(1,93) = 9.987,
p = .002, Table 15.1). Scores were higher for pseudowords than for words (respec-
tively, 69.1% and 55.73%, F(1,93) = 20.565, p < .001). However, there was no inter-
action between group and item lexicality (F < 1). In all, spelling was more impaired
Table 15.1 PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT RESPONSES IN SPELLING BY SCORING
TYPE FOR EACH CATEGORY OF ITEMS (STANDARD DEVIATION IN BRACKETS)
Dyslexics Reading-age Controls
Orth Ac Phon Ac Ortho Ac Phon Ac
Regular words 52.2 77 68.9 93.6

(30.6) (26.7) (30.1) (7.7)
Irregular words 44.4 71.2 59.1 92
(31) (28.4) (31.3) (8.7)
Short pseudowords 65 58.8
(30.3) (16.3)
Long pseudowords 58.8 72.9
(33.7) (21.1)
Note: Orth Ac = orthographically accurate; Phon Ac = phonologically accurate.
in children with dyslexia than in RA controls, and similarly on both procedures:

nonlexical and lexical.
Question 2: Is there a specific impairment in phonological pseudoword spelling
strategies as compared to word spelling when only phonological accuracy (and not
conventional orthographic patterns) is taken into account? The second question
thus concerns the nonlexical procedure. We computed an ANOVA with group
as a between-subjects factor and items lexicality (words versus pseudowords) as
repeated measure. The dependent measure was phonologically acceptable spellings.
There were more phonologically acceptable responses for words than for pseu-
dowords, respectively, 82.9% and 69.1%, F(1,93) = 54.459, p < .001. Children
with dyslexia were outperformed by RA controls: respectively 68% and 84.9%,
F(1,93) = 15.132, p = .001. There was no interaction (F < 1) between group and
item lexicality. We further explored the nonlexical procedure by examining effect
of complexity on pseudoword spelling. Simple pseudowords were spelled more
accurately than complex pseudowords. Again, children with dyslexia were outper-
formed by RA controls: F(1,93) = 8.271, p = .005, without interaction (F < 1).
There was a length effect, F(1,93) = 27.513, p < .001, but, again, there was no
interaction (F < 1).
Question 3: What is the impact of GPC regularity on spelling? The third ques-
tion explores the lexical procedure. As mentioned earlier, French orthography is
highly inconsistent. We thus considered only inconsistent patterns for both regu-
lar and irregular words. If normal readers rely on phonological recoding to memo-
rize orthographic patterns, as suggested by the self-teaching hypothesis proposed
by Share (1999), we thus expect these children to spell irregular words less well
than regular words, even if both are matched on inconsistency. If children with
dyslexia use alternative strategies (other than phonological recoding) to memo-
rize orthographic patterns, they could be less affected by regularity in reading than

normal readers. To answer this question, we computed an ANOVA with group as
a between-subjects factor and word type (regular versus irregular) as a repeated
measure. Regular words were spelled more accurately than irregular words,
respectively, 60.1% and 51.4%, F(1,93) = 26.220, p < .001. Again, RA controls out-
performed children with dyslexia (64% versus 48.3%), F(1,93) = 26.22, p < .001,
and there was no interaction between group and regularity. Regularity’s impact
on reading was further explored by comparing regular and irregular word spelling
with phonologically acceptable spelling as a measure of accuracy. The aim of this
analysis was to examine how irregularity in reading affects the phoneme-to-graph-
eme correspondence in spelling. An ANOVA was conducted with the same design
and with phonologically acceptable spelling as the dependent measure. Interestingly,
regular words were spelled more accurately from a phonological point of view
than irregular words (respectively, 84.8% versus 81%), F(1,93) = 11.449, p = .001.
There was a group effect, with children with dyslexia outperformed by reading
age-matched children, F(1,93) = 20.403, p < .001. Finally, there was a group by
word regularity interaction, F(1,93) = 3.812, p = .01, indicating that the difference
between irregular and regular words was larger for children with dyslexia.
Question 4: What are the concurrent predictors of spelling in dyslexia? We conducted
two hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine what factor beyond read-
ing level explained variance in spelling. The aim of the first regression analysis was
to identify a predictor variable for word spelling (orthographic accuracy), the second
regression for pseudoword spelling (phonological accuracy).
In both analyses, chronological age was entered first and reading age second.
Potential predictors then included phoneme deletion, rapid naming, morphologi-
cal awareness, visual retention test.
In the word-spelling regression analysis, chronological age accounted for 14.5% of
variance and reading age for an additional 40.8%. The two combined thus accounted
for a total of 55.3%. The next step identified rapid naming as an independent pre-
dictor, accounting for an additional 3.3% of the variance. In all, these factors thus
accounted for 58.6% of variance in word spelling performance (Table 15.2).
In the pseudoword-spelling regression analysis, chronological age accounted for
a nonsignificant 5% and reading age for an additional 33.1%, accounting for 38.1%
of variance. The next step identified phonological awareness as an independent
predictor, accounting for an additional 19.8% of variance. The final step identified
morphological awareness as an independent predictor, accounting for an additional
8.4% of variance. In all, these four factors thus accounted for 66.3% of variance in
word-spelling performance (Table 15.2).
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
These results clearly suggest that French children with dyslexia experience more
difficulty in spelling than the reading-level matched controls, for both lexical and
Table 15.2 HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR WORD
SPELLING AND PSEUDOWORD SPELLING
Word spelling (orthographic accuracy)

Step Predictor variable β ΔR²
1 Chronological age .07 14.5 *

2 Reading age .721 40.8 ***
3 Rapid Naming –.227 3.3 *
Pseudoword spelling (phonological accuracy)
1 Chronological age –.125 5 ns

2 Reading age .420 33.1 ***
3 Phoneme deletion .329 19.8 ***
4 Morphological awareness .359 8.4 **
Note: Values reported are unstandardized b coefficients and changes in R² as they are entered into the model.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
nonlexical procedures. However, spelling is more impaired than reading in both

procedures, and it is not possible to locate a strongest deficit in one of the proce-
dures. The results of this study suggest that children with dyslexia apparently do
not develop alternative strategies to memorize orthographic patterns, and they are
sensitive to the regularity of GPC. In addition, they seem to have more difficulty
producing phonologically acceptable spellings with irregular words than with regu-
lar ones. Analyses of errors clearly indicated that this was due to presence of correct
letters at the wrong location, such as inversion of letters (for example, album [book]
spelled ablum or fils [son] spelled fisl). This suggests that children with dyslexia are
sensitive to letter identities and can memorize them, but that they have not devel-
oped accurate knowledge of orthographic patterns.
Regression analyses revealed that spelling is strongly dependent on reading
level. Predictors of word and pseudoword spelling differ slightly. Although reading
level accounts for the largest proportion of variance, rapid naming accounts for a
significant amount of the variance in word spelling while phonological awareness
(phoneme deletion) does so for pseudoword spelling. Morphological awareness
partially accounts for variation in pseudoword spelling and not in word spelling. In
all, these results show that phonological skills apparently explain spelling beyond
reading—in other words, they can contribute more to spelling than to reading. It
is striking that no visual abilities—neither complex figure recognition (Benton,
1982) nor the string similarity judgment—accounted for any part of spelling per-
formance. The judgment of string similarity is a visual discrimination test that does
not require storage and processing of written words in working memory (without
being able to view them); this requirement could be more involved in spelling.
Instead, only measures of language abilities contributed significantly to spelling
performance in both word and pseudoword spelling. Finding that morphological

awareness contributes to pseudoword spelling may be explained by the fact that
children tried to use all their linguistic knowledge and all possible clues on word
structure. A similar result has been found in Italian (Arfé, De Bernardi, Pasini, &
Poeta, 2012). The strong inconsistency of French orthography leads to additional
challenges in spelling. These challenges are different in nature from the difficulties
readers face when reading irregular words. As revealed by error analysis, children
with dyslexia are poorer at spelling irregular words even when only phonological
accuracy is taken into account. This indicates that children with dyslexia may pay
attention to letter identity, to a certain extent, but without being able to report cor-
rect order or maintain phonological plausibility. This attention to specific ortho-
graphic pattern may not be operant when the phonological deficit is too strong.
This is not to say that there is no need for stimulation that develops knowledge
about orthographic patterns. Finally, our results reveal an interesting contribution
of morphological awareness to spelling. As mentioned before, children with dys-
lexia use morphological knowledge when spelling. In addition, French children
with dyslexia have been shown to be sensitive to morphological structure when
manipulating language (Casalis, Colé, & Sopo, 2004). Result of the present study
indicates that this knowledge contributes to spelling in dyslexia. Besides, mor-
phological awareness has been proven to contribute to spelling in normal spellers
(Casalis, Deacon, & Pacton, 2011). Given that French orthography is at least partly
based on morphology, this could be a future direction to explore.
NOTE
1. Because pseudowords can only be spelled according to a phonological procedure, only

phonological accuracy can be scored for these items.
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CHAPTER 16
Written Spelling in Spanish-Speaking

FR ANCISCA SERR ANO AND S YLVI A DEFIOR
A ccording to cross-linguistic studies (Defior, Martos, & Cary, 2002; Serrano,

Genard, et al., 2011; Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003) Spanish is an alpha-
betic written system positioned on the transparent side of the European orthog-
raphies’ opacity-transparency continuum (Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987). As a
transparent orthography, it is characterized by a high degree of consistency in terms of
grapheme-phoneme relationships; actually, it is mainly governed by biunivocal1 graph-
eme to phoneme correspondence (GPC) rules for reading and phoneme-grapheme
correspondence (PGC) rules for spelling (Defior & Serrano, 2007). However, it does
present certain complexities that make the process of literacy acquisition harder to
accomplish, especially in spelling (Defior, Jimenez Fernandez, & Serrano, 2009).
Cross-linguistic studies address the importance of the orthography characteristics and
the children’s linguistic environment on literacy acquisition (Serrano et al., 2011; Seymour
et al., 2003). The relevance of cultural practices, mainly school and home literacy practices
has also been highlighted (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Valle & Defior, 2011).
Spelling differs from reading with regard to the nature of processes involved;
spelling requires additional productive processes (in-out) than those needed in
reading. In addition, spelling and reading may differ in consistency, with spelling
normally found to be more inconsistent than reading in many languages. Recently,
Caravolas, Lervåg et al. (2012) showed the difference in consistency between read-
ing and spelling in four European languages (English, Spanish, Czech, and Slovak).
Orthographic consistency was estimated as the frequency with which a particular
grapheme–phoneme (for reading) and phoneme-grapheme (for spelling) mapping
occurs divided by the total frequency of the grapheme/phoneme, no matter how
it is pronounced/spelled (consistency values range from 0 to 1). The estimates for
reading/spelling consistency were: English .72/.62, Czech .90/.92, Slovak .90/.92,
Spanish .96/.90, showing differences in consistency across languages and regarding
reading and spelling in each language (Caravolas et al., 2012).
Thus, in Spanish, previous research has shown how spelling is characterized
by a greater degree of opacity than reading (Caravolas et al., 2012), mainly due
to the existence of the inconsistent graphonemes ( Jiménez, Defior, Cantos, &
Serrano, 2006). In the case of Spanish, spelling is characterized by the presence of
phoneme-grapheme inconsistencies. That is, there are often several possibilities to
write a word, all of them phonologically but not orthographically correct, such as
in Spanish the word barco (meaning “ship”) and the pseudomophone varco, that
is sounded like the real word, namely barco, because both graphemes b and v are
sounded /b/. These inconsistencies are caused by sound patterns that can be repre-
sented by two or more different graphemes (Stone, Vanhoy, & Van Orden, 1997).
For example, in Spanish, /b/ can be represented b, v or w, like in beso /beso/ – kiss –,
vaso /baso/ – glass – or wáter /bater/ – w.c. – and /x/ can be represented g or
j, like in gente /xente/ –people– or in jefe /xefe/ –boss–. When confronted with
inconsistent graphonemes,2 writers cannot determine the correct grapheme by
only applying PGC rules; they have to rely on other kind of knowledge like word-
specific (lexical), morphological, or semantic knowledge (Defior, Alegria, Titos, &
Martos, 2008; Ehri, 1993).
The asymmetry in opacity between reading and spelling is another factor that
may partly account for the greater difficulty of spelling over reading (Ehri, 1997;
Jiménez-Fernández et al., 2006; Landerl, Thaler, & Reitsma, 2008). For example,
Jiménez-Fernández et al. (2006) using the same set of words in reading and spell-
ing tasks showed that Spanish-speaking children acquire reading skills earlier than
spelling skills. In contrast, they reached the ceiling effect in reading as early as the
second year of primary education, but the ceiling effect in spelling was not observed
even in the fourth grade.
The orthographic code complexities may affect differentially both phonologi-
cal and orthographic procedures of spelling (Alegría & Mousty, 1994; Brown
& Ellis, 1994). Previous studies have shown that the presence of complex gra-
phonemes affects the processing of English word and pseudoword reading (e.g.,
Rastle & Coltheart, 1998; Venezky, 1970; 1999) as well as in Italian (Burani,
Barca, & Ellis, 2006), French (Rey & Schiller, 2005) and Spanish (Defior et al.,
2009).
Defior et al. (2009) investigated how typically developing children learn the
Spanish spelling rules (consistent and inconsistent graphonemes and words with
a stress mark), as well as how their word-specific knowledge develops from first
to fourth grade. Results pointed out the effect of grade and type of complexity on
spelling performance, showing that children acquire spelling skills early in terms of
phoneme-grapheme correspondence rules, but word-specific knowledge develops
more slowly. This study highlighted the importance of word-specific knowledge, as
well as the need of prosodic knowledge for using the stress mark, being the spelling
W r i t t e n Sp e ll i n g i n Spa n i s h- Sp e a k i n g C h i l d r e n w i t h D y s l e x i a [ 2 1 5 ]
of inconsistent graphonemes and the rules for the use of stress mark the hardest for
children to learn.
Goulandris’ review (2003) across different orthographies shows how ortho-
graphic consistency not only influences the development of reading and spelling
in typically developing children, but also may affect the manifestation of dyslexia.
Further research in different orthographies has supported this statement (e.g.,
Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008; Chung, Ho, Chan, Tsang,
& Lee, 2011; Maughan, Messer, Collishaw, Pickles, Snowling, Yule, & Rutter, 2009).
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability with neurological origin, characterized by
difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and
decoding abilities (IDA, 2002). It is associated with phonological processing deficits
(Paulesu et al., 2001), which are closely related to the development of poor reading
and spelling skills (Caravolas, Hulme, & Snowling, 2001; Wagner et al., 1997). This
learning disability is persistent, and it affects people of otherwise normal intellectual
capacity. Children with dyslexia’s poorly developed decoding skills make it difficult
for them to build up complete and accurate orthographic representations of words
in long-term memory; this, in turn, may contribute to their spelling problems, par-
ticularly when simply “sounding out” a word will not produce the correct spelling
(Alegria & Mousty, 1994; Snowling, 2000) and when specific word knowledge is
needed.
A greater chance of school drop-out, low educational achievement, and unem-
ployment (e.g., Daniel, Walsh, Goldston, Arnold, Reboussin, & Wood, 2006), as
well as emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., Morgan, Farkas, Tufis, & Sperling,
2008) have been associated with difficulties in dyslexia as well.
Children with dyslexia’s spelling problems generally persist into adulthood (e.g.,
Berninger et al., 2006; Bruck, 1993). Some studies have shown that phonological
representation deficits might be responsible for more persistent spelling than read-
ing difficulties (Bruck & Treiman 1990; Cassar, Treiman, Moats, Cury Pollo, &
Kessler, 2005), due to the greater difficulty of spelling over reading (Ehri, 1997;
Jiménez-Fernández et al., 2006; Landerl et al., 2008).
In this chapter, we present a study exploring spelling difficulties at the word
level in Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia. We are interested in examining
the influence of the Spanish orthographic code complexities on these difficulties.
For complexities of the orthographic code, we defined the phoneme-to-grapheme
correspondence (PGC from now on) complex rules, such as the digraphs, contex-
tual influence, and position influence; additionally we also considered the inconsis-
tent phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence, the silent letter h, and the stress-mark
assignment rules (these complexities will be illustrated in the Method section; also,
for a detailed description, see Defior et al., 2009). Besides these orthographic code
complexities, Spanish counts another phonological complexity, the consonant
cluster. There are some consonant clusters (tr, pl, pr, dr, fr, fl, gr, gl, cr, cl, br, bl), that
can appear only in syllable-onset position. The spelling of consonant cluster poses
a major phonological difficulty to young children because the clusters are treated

as phonological units and are difficult to segment into their separate phonemes
(Treiman, 1993). Studies both in English (Bruck & Treiman, 1990) and Spanish
(Defior, Martos, & Aguilar, 2003) have shown children´s difficulties in consonant
cluster spelling in early writing acquisition. These difficulties might reflect a general
problem in phonological segmentation, more concretely, to analyze spoken syl-
lables into phonemes; the high level of coarticulation of the consonant phonemes
in the cluster might contribute to this difficulty. Previous research has shown that
this type of syllabic structure negatively affects children with dyslexia’s spelling per-
formance more than typically developing children’s one (Serrano & Defior, 2011).
The main aims of this study were:
- To study spelling difficulties at the word level in Spanish-speaking children with

dyslexia, comparing their performance with two groups of typically developing
children—one matched for chronological age and one matched for reading age
- To test the influence of the Spanish orthographic code complexities on these
difficulties.
METHOD
Participants
Thirty-one children with dyslexia (mean age = 11.8 years old; range = 9.6 to

16.9 years old; 15 girls and 16 boys) were selected from a sample of nearly
100 children with learning difficulties from third grade of primary education
to fourth grade of secondary education. All of them were pointed out as hav-
ing reading and writing difficulties by their teachers and had received literacy
skills-based treatment to overcome their difficulties. This treatment was carried
out in private psychological clinics or at school and primarily consisted of pho-
nological processing exercises (word recognition and phonological awareness).
As part of the selection process, PROLEC standardized subtest of pseudoword
reading (Cuetos, Rodríguez, & Ruano, 1996) for participants up to the fourth year
of primary education and PROLEC-SE (Ramos & Cuetos, 1999) for children from
the fifth year of primary education onward, were administered. Cognitive ability
was assessed with SPM scale of RAVEN test (Raven, 1995).
Dyslexic (DX) group´s selection was made following the diagnostic criteria of
the DSM-IV-R (First et al., 2002), that is, literacy achievement, evaluated with a
standardized reading test, was below expectations given age, cognitive ability and
educational opportunities. Therefore, all children were evaluated with literacy
and cognitive ability tests to ensure they have a specific problem in literacy skills.
Children with dyslexia were selected as a function of being below the 25th percen-
tile in pseudoword reading (accuracy, speed, or both) and an averaged performance
on cognitive ability (mean percentile score above 50).
Two control groups were also selected, following a reading-level match design.
The chronological age-matched group (CA) was composed of 31 typically devel-
oping children (mean age = 11.9 years old; range = 9.6 to 16.2 years old; 19 girls
and 12 boys) who were matched to the children with dyslexia children on age. The
reading level-matched group (RL) was composed of 31 typically developing chil-
dren (mean age = 9.8 years old; range = 7.7 to 10.4 years old; 19 girls and 12 boys)
selected to be of the same reading age/level as the children with dyslexia. Reading
age/level was determined by the PEREL test (Soto, Sebastián, & Maldonado,
1992). This is the only test assessing reading age in Spanish up to 9 years. This test
was used in absence of tests assessing spelling-age in Spanish.
None of the children in control groups had delayed reading, spelling, or low cog-
nitive ability as a function of their results in the standardized subtests described.
Children in each of the three groups had comparable social background. All of
them were recruited from schools in the same city area. Finally, all the participants
had to meet the following other criteria: (a) averaged to high cognitive ability, (b)
no known neurological deficits, (c) no sensory (visual or auditory) impairments,
or, if they existed, they were corrected, (d) regular school attendance. Children who
did not fulfill these requirements were not included in the study. Characteristics of
the sample can be observed in Table 16.1.
Table 16.1 SAMPLE FEATURES. MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
Group
Dyslexia Reading Chronological Comparison’s Effect size

n = 31 level-matched age-matched p value d
n = 31 n = 31
Age (months) 140 110,77 141,23 DX = CA>RL** .31

(24.74) (8.86) (25.01)
Intelligence 59.19 56.03 61.35 ns
(Raven test) (16.08) (31.06) (26.04)
-mean percentile
score-
Pseudoword 24.40 90.50 77.30 DX<CA** .74
reading (29.00) (6.60) (32.40) DX<RL** .42
-mean percentil
score-
Reading age 100,87 102,83 + 118 ns
(months) (6,88) (7,48)
(P.E.R.E.L.
test)1
*p < .05; **p < .01.

1
P.E.R.E.L. test is a standardized reading test comprising 1st to 3rd grade of primary school population. Therefore,
the test maximum possible score is 9;10 years old. CA group children exceed this reading level, thus the maximum
test reading score was assigned to this group.

Instruments and Procedure
A word dictation task was carried out. A total of 102 medium frequency (500 to 100
occurrences) words were selected from a dictionary of word frequency for Spanish-
speaking children (Martínez Martín & García Pérez, 2004). The overall range of fre-
quency in the dictionary is 5.000 to 0.1 occurrences. Disyllabic and trisyllabic words
were used.
Simple graphoneme words, words with consonant cluster, and words with com-
plex and inconsistent graphonemes and stress mark were selected. The complexities
of the Spanish spelling system were grouped into 6 categories: digraph, contextual
influence, position influence, inconsistency, letter h + vowel, and stress mark, fol-
lowing the study of Defior et al. (2009). Here, is a short description of the types of
complexity studied:
(a) Simple graphonemes. Words included only biunivocal phoneme-to-

grapheme correspondence rules (1 sound: 1 letter). For example, diana
–dardboard– /diana/.
(b) Consonant clusters. Words included one consonant cluster (tr, pl, pr, dr, fr,
fl, gr, gl, cr, cl, br, bl), appearing only in syllable-onset position. For example,
prensa – press– /prensa/.
(c) Digraph. Words included a phoneme represented by a grapheme compound
of two letters (correspondence 1:2); for example, chiste –joke– /cîste/ in
which phoneme /cˆ/ is represented by ch.
(d) Contextual influence. Words included a consonantal phoneme whose
transcription depends on the sound of the accompanying vowel; e.g., cisne
–swan– /θisne/ where the phoneme /θ/ followed by /e/, /i/ is spelled with
a c but if accompanied by /a/, /o/, /u/ it is spelled with a z; e.g., zapato –
shoe – /θapato/.
(e) Position influence. Words included a phoneme whose transcription depends
on its position in the word; e.g., the case of /rˇ/, which is transcribed as r in
the initial position (rosa –rose– /rˇosa/) and rr (perro –dog– /perˇo/) in the
inter-vowel position.
(f) Inconsistency. Words containing a phoneme that may be represented by two
or more graphemes without any rule determining the appropriate graph-
eme; for example, /b/ can be represented by v, b, or w, for example, vaca
–cow– and baca –roof rack–, both pronounced /b/. Specific word knowl-
edge is needed to correctly write these words.
(g) Letter h + vowel. Words included the letter H followed by a vowel, which is a
silent letter in Spanish, e.g., helado –ice cream– /elado/. It is another incon-
sistent category; specific word knowledge is needed to correctly write these
words.
(h) Stress mark. Words containing a stress mark for the tonic vowel, for exam-
ple, sultán –sultan– /sul’tan/. Prosodic knowledge plus stress mark rules are
needed to correctly write these words.
The test was carried out in group session in the case of control group partici-
pants, and individually for children with dyslexia; adequate testing conditions were
assured. Children were told to write the words in the spaces indicated for this pur-
pose on a sheet of paper. Each word was pronounced twice.
RESULTS
Table 16.2 shows the mean percentage of correct responses and the standard devia-
tion in words spelling as a function of group, length and type complexity.
A 3 (group) x 2 (length) x 8 (complexity) ANOVA was performed, respectively.
The between-subjects factor was group (dyslexia, CA, RL), and length (dysill-
abic and trisyllabic) and complexity (simple, consonant cluster, digraph, contex-
tual effect, position effect, inconsistency, letter H + vowel, and stress mark) were
within-subjects factors.
The analysis showed a main effect of group F(2, 90) = 31.38, p < .001, d
= .41; complexity F(7,630) = 232.96, p < .001, d = .92, and length F(1,90) =
24.73, p < .001, d = .22. Overall, performance was lower for trisyllabic than
disyllabic words.
The pairwise comparison (Tukey-HSD) regarding group showed signifi-
cant differences between the dyslexia group and the CA group (p < .001),
showing that children with dyslexia had a lower spelling performance than the
children of the same chronological age. There were no differences between
the dyslexia and RL group. RL group had a lower performance than CA group
(p < .001).
The interactions group x complexity, F(14,630) = 10.85, p < .001, d = .22, and
complexity x length F(7,630) = 6.23, p < .01, d = .07, were also significant.
For the purposes of this chapter, we will focus on the detailed analysis of the
significant interaction group x complexity, which will show how the complexities
affect group differences and thus characterize children with dyslexia spelling per-
formance compared to those of the control groups.
The posthoc analysis (Tukey-HSD) in simple graphoneme category showed
significant differences between the dyslexia group and the CA group (p < .01),
showing that participants with dyslexia had a lower spelling performance than
the children of the same chronological age but similar performance to RL
group.
More interestingly, the posthoc analysis of group (Tukey-HSD) in consonant
cluster (CC) and digraph showed significant differences between the dyslexia group
and both CA group (p < .001) and RL group (p < .05 in CC and p < .02 in digraph).

Table 16.2 AVERAGED PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT WORD SPELLING
(AND STANDARD DEVIATION) AS A FUNCTION OF GROUP, LENGTH,
AND COMPLEXITY
Dyslexia CA RL
Simple Di 96.13 99.35 96.77

(8.03) (3.59) (10.45)
Tri 90.78 98.62 90.78
(11.98) (4.29) (11.4)
Consonant cluster Di 85.48 97.18 90.73
(19.66) (11.51) (14.42)
Tri 82.8 97.85 90.86
(20.41) (9.37) (12.05)
Digraph Di 76.77 95.48 85.16
(19.39) (8.5) (19.98)
Tri 70.32 89.68 81.94
(20.57) (14.49) (20.24)
Contextual effect Di 85.48 95.97 91.94
(27.97) (13.07) (17.54)
Tri 83.87 88.71 79.03
(29.96) (24.87) (33.6)
Position effect Di 89.68 93.55 87.74
(17.03) (11.99) (14.31)
Tri 83.87 95.48 87.74
(14.07) (8.5) (15.21)
Inconsistency Di 55.3 83.18 53.23
(21.19) (16.24) (20.11)
Tri 47.98 77.62 52.22
(18.36) (17.81) (19.4)
Letter h + vowel Di 43.23 75.48 41.29
(28.8) (31.71) (31.38)
Tri 23.23 60.65 27.74
(23.72) (28.51) (26.17)
Stress Mark Di 13.55 66.45 23.23
(23.32) (31.15) (26.88)
Tri 14.19 69.03 28.39
(22.03) (37.54) (29.56)
Thus, participants with dyslexia had a lower spelling performance than both the chil-
dren of the same chronological age and the same reading level, and thereby younger,
in these two categories.
Regarding the categories position influence, inconsistency, letter h and stress
mark, the posthoc analysis (Tukey-HSD) showed significant differences between
the dyslexia group and the CA group (p < .01), showing that children with dys-
lexia had a lower spelling performance than the children of the same chronological
age. There were no differences between the dyslexia and RL group. RL group had
a lower performance than CA group (p < .01). Finally, in contextual influence the
effect of group was not found. Therefore, no differences can be reported among
groups in this type of complexity.
DISCUSSION
This chapter examined spelling difficulties in Spanish-speaking children with dys-

lexia, mainly focusing on how Spanish writing code complexities influence literacy
abilities in children with dyslexia. Results evidenced children with dyslexia pres-
ent low performance in simple and complex word spelling, and they show that the
development of the spelling procedures is affected by the orthographic consistency
and the language’s features of the written system in which children are learning
(Defior et al., 2009).
Overall, children with dyslexia have lower performance than their peers
matched on age and academic experience, as expected by the definition of dyslexia
itself. This effect is consistently observed in both simple and complex items; this
result matches previous findings in typically developing children (Defior et al.,
2009).
The comparison between dyslexia and the reading level-matched control group
is more interesting because the effect of reading skill is controlled. We found
that children with dyslexia have a lower spelling performance than the typically
developing younger children when they have to write words with consonant clus-
ter and digraphs. Moreover, the spelling problems appear to be persistent. At the
same time, the deficit is found to have a phonological nature as it is evidenced in
a phonological-processing demanding structure like the consonant cluster and
digraph.
Children with dyslexia have difficulties with consonant clusters, even though
the syllabic structure is orthographically consistent—both consonants inside the
cluster are pronounced. This result is related to the idea that consonant-cluster
spelling could be difficult at the beginning of literacy acquisition (Defior, et al.,
2003; Treiman, 1993). At that point, children have not mastered phonological
abilities enough, and students may have difficulties segmenting the cluster into its
components. Nevertheless, the phonological deficit keeps children with dyslexia in
this early phase of spelling development (Serrano & Defior, 2012).
Previous studies (Defior, Cantos, Jimenez Fernandez, & Serrano, 2007) showed
that spelling of words with digraphs is normally achieved at the end of second grade;
that is, 2 years of formal instruction in spelling is enough for typically developing
children for learning it. However, children with dyslexia persist having difficulties
with it along their academic life.

Therefore, both consonant cluster and digraph difficulties can be interpreted as
a marker of the phonological deficit and poor phonological skills in children with
dyslexia. Certainly, many theorists consider phonological processing difficulties to
be the core deficit in dyslexia (Ramus, 2003; also see Snowling, 2000 for a review).
These difficulties can be related to children with dyslexia having problems in pho-
nemic segmentation abilities, which are especially relevant in spelling acquisition
and development in alphabetic systems (Ball & Blachman, 1988).
Also related to the phonological deficit is the finding of a general lower perfor-
mance in contextual and position-influence categories, although these results do
not reach statistical significance. Maybe this result is due to the items selected in
these categories or the wide age range of participants.
Moreover, the lowest spelling performance in children with dyslexia is found
in other complex categories such as stress mark as well as inconsistency and letter-
h complexities, but only in comparison with children of the same chronological
age. As noted by Defior et al. (2009), types of knowledge other than phonological
knowledge are needed for spelling words with inconsistency (word-specific knowl-
edge) and stress mark (prosodic knowledge). These types of knowledge are nor-
mally acquired later than second grade of primary school; as some of the RL group
children in this study were in second grade (RL group age range from 7.7 to 10.4
years old), this could be the reason for the unexpected lack of differences regard-
ing RL group control. It may be that RL children have not mastered the needed
skills for their age and school level, and thus, the children with dyslexia, despite
their advanced age and school experience, remain in early phases of literacy devel-
opment. This may account for the absence of dyslexia and RL groups’ differences
in these complexities.
To conclude, the findings add evidence of the phonological processing deficits
in Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia that result in their persistent difficulty in
writing words with consonant clusters and digraphs. This happens despite Spanish
orthography’s shallowness as well as children´s previous treatment based on pho-
nological abilities. Because of these difficulties, children with dyslexia might remain
blocked in spelling development that indirectly affects the development of ortho-
graphic word-specific knowledge.
Some important implications for dyslexia assessment and intervention in
Spanish can be derived from these results. For example, the use of more com-
plex written materials (more phonologically demanding words like those with
consonant cluster and digraphs) could reduce orthographic consistency facilita-
tion, as well as children with dyslexia’s compensatory strategies, especially in a
transparent written system like Spanish. Thus, using assessment materials that
include consonant cluster, or complex graphonemes, could help to detect diffi-
culties more easily. This, in turn, might help intervention planning, and children
could benefit from special intervention measures designed as a function of their
specific difficulties in spelling. Therefore, to use more phonologically demand-
ing material in assessment and later in intervention actions may add efficiency
to treatments for children with dyslexia, which is finally a significant goal of our
daily professional activity.
AUTHOR NOTES
The research reported in this chapter is funded by the MICIN Project

PSI2010-21983-C02-01, FEDER funding and the Junta de Andalucía research
group HUM 820.
NOTES
1. In the biunivocal rules, there is one-to-one grapheme-to-phoneme and phoneme-to-

grapheme correspondence (1 letter: 1 sound; 1 sound: 1 letter).
2. The term graphoneme refers to the relationship between phoneme and grapheme.
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CHAPTER 17
The Writing Development of Brazilian

An Evidence-Based Clinical Approach
JANE CORRE A
T he degree of regularity of different orthographies influences the develop-

ment of children’s writing skills. Languages vary in their degree of regular-
ity from shallow or transparent (a high consistency of letter-sound mapping) to
opaque or deep (a high degree of inconsistency of the letter-sound mapping).
In this continuum, Portuguese can be classified as a translucent language as it
is more regular than English (deep orthography) but is not as transparent as
Italian, Spanish, or German, which are considered to be shallow orthographies
(Borgwaldt, Hellwig, & De Groot, 2005). Despite its relatively transparent
orthography Brazilian Portuguese has a complex morphological structure that
children need to master. Therefore, this chapter starts by examining the distinc-
tive features of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) to better understand the difficulties
that Brazilian children with dyslexia have in learning to read and write. In addi-
tion, the cognitive skills that underpin this development are considered. A review
of the literature on Brazilian children with dyslexia writing difficulties is pre-
sented. Finally, a profile of the writing difficulties of dyslexic children who attend
the social clinic for literacy learning difficulties at the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro is provided, describing the intervention program designed to develop
their writing skills.
LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE
One of 10 most widely spoken languages in the world, Portuguese is the official
language in eight countries: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Ginea-Bissau,
Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor (Azevedo, 2005). With more
than eight million square kilometers and over 190 million inhabitants, Brazil is the
biggest lusophone country (Teyssier, 2007).
Brazilian Portuguese (BP) was influenced by Indian and African languages
(Azevedo, 2005). The BP alphabet has 26 letters and its phonological system com-
prises 7 vowels, 2 glides, 19 consonants and 3 archiphonemes (Silva, 1999). All con-
sonants are allowed in word-medial and in word-final onsets (Matzenauer, 2004).
However, three consonants cannot appear in the word-initial onset /ɾ/, /ʎ/ e /ɲ/,
except in very few foreign words. In onset consonant clusters, the first element can
be either a plosive or a labiodental fricative, the second has to be a liquid /l/ or
/ɾ/. Only four consonants can be placed as coda /R/, /l/, /S/ e /N/ (Matzenauer,
2004). Postvocalic /N/ (spelled m, n) placed as coda is not pronounced, indicating
that the preceding vowel is nasal.
In BP, unstressed vowels are generally pronounced rather clearly (Azevedo,
2005; Matzenauer, 2004; Silva, 1999). However, in unstressed final position, the
phonological contrasts /e/: /i/ and /o/: /u/ are neutralized. Words spelled with
e or o in unstressed final position tend to be pronounced, respectively, with /i/ or
/u/ (nove /ńɔvi/ ńine´; gato /gatu/ ćat´). Although beginners tend to spell the
reduced vowels /e/ and /o/ as i or u, typically children start spelling these endings
conventionally very soon. Children are sensitive to the fact that in BP letters i or u
rarely occur in final position in a word (Cardoso-Martins, 2006).
As for consonants, a unique mapping between letters and phonemes in writ-
ing occurs in only six cases (Lemle, 1987). The phonemes /p/, /b/, /f/, /v/, /t/,
/d/ are represented, respectively, by letters p, b, f, b, t, d. However, there are many
cases in which spelling can be predicted by the position of the letter or the sound
in the words (conditional rules). In other cases, morphological knowledge can be
used to spell (morphological rules). The irregularities are restricted to the written
representation of phonemes /z/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ in some orthographic contexts.
In most cases, spelling in BP can be predicted from orthographic rules, there are
few instances where retrieving spelling of known words from memory is necessary
(Faraco, 1992).
In BP, letter-sound correspondences in reading are very regular and pronuncia-
tion can often be predicted from the graphemes. For lexical knowledge is only nec-
essary to decode the pronunciation of the letter x (Mousinho & Correa, 2009).
Syllables are prominent sublexical units in BP (Correa, Maclean, Meireles,
Lopes, & Glockling, 2007). The maximal syllable in BP is CCVVCC (Silva, 1999).
The most frequent orthographic syllabic patterns are: CV, CVC, V, CCV, and VC.
The sum of frequencies of these syllabic patterns in the language is estimated to be
93%. The pattern CV alone accounts for 60.6% (Viário & Guimarães-Filho, 2007).
Writing Development of Br a zilian Children with Dysle xia [ 2 2 9 ]

This is also the most frequent syllabic pattern in all positions in a word. Open syl-
lables are also preponderant in BP.
Languages can also be distinguished in terms of the type of timing that pre-
dominates (Roach, 1982). In stress-timed languages, syllables vary considerably
in length and complexity, whereas syllable-timed languages tend to have relatively
simpler syllable structure (Ramus, Nespor, & Mehler, 1999). Brazilian Portuguese
exhibits mixed rhythmic properties with a relatively high degree of syllable-timing
(Barbosa, 2000; Bisol, 2000). Words with stress on the penultimate syllable (par-
oxytones) are predominant in BP (Viário & Guimarães-Filho, 2007).
Because of the graphophonemic mapping reliability, relative transparent
orthographies create fewer difficulties for children´s learning than deep written
systems (Caravolas & Volin, 2001; Wimmer & Landerl, 1997). Linguistic features
of Brazilian Portuguese enable children to be taught about letter–sound corre-
spondences using consonant-vowel (CV) syllables combined into simple familiar
words. Instructional method such as this can be very effective because it gives chil-
dren the opportunity of (a) becoming aware of phonemic components of words
more easily, which fosters the development of phonemic awareness; (b) develop-
ing competent decoding skills, which leads to independent reading; (c) becoming
more easily aware of spelling regularities and (d) quickly writing words and simple
sentences of their own.
THE WRITING DIFFICULTIES OF BRAZILIAN CHILDREN

WITH DYSLEXIA
Brazilian children with dyslexia experience great difficulty in phonological process-

ing and representation (Cardoso-Martins, Correa, & Magalhães, 2010; Mousinho
& Correa, 2009). Their performance is lower than that of their typically developing
peers and their reading-age controls in tasks of phonological awareness (Capellini,
Germano, & Cardoso, 2008; Capellini, Padula et al., 2007), of working memory
(Capellini, Padula et al., 2007) and of rapid automatized naming (Capellini,
Ferreira, et al., 2007). Their difficulties in phonological processing affect their
ability to acquire an accurate and automatic phoneme-grapheme correspondence
(Cardoso-Martins, & Triginelli, 2010). Inevitably, these children experience liter-
acy problems. The more severe their phonological impairment, the more difficult it
is for the children to develop reading and writing skills (Cardoso-Martins, Correa,
& Magalhães, 2010; Mousinho & Correa, 2009). The prevalence of developmental
dyslexia in Brazil has been estimated at 2% to 8% (Ciasca, 2003).
Despite the improvement in reading abilities that can occur overtime, Brazilian
children with dyslexia experience more difficulties in reading than children with
dyslexia learning in more transparent orthographies (Wimmer, 1993;1996).
Improvements in accuracy are not mirrored by equivalent improvements in fluency
in text reading. Brazilian children with dyslexia make longer and more frequent

pauses than their controls in text reading, as well as spending more time decoding
words (Alves, Pinheiro, Reis, & Capellini, 2009).
The spelling difficulties experienced by Brazilian children with dyslexia are often
more severe than their reading problems (Cardoso-Martins, Correa, & Magalhães,
2010; Mousinho, Correa, & Mesquita, 2010). Learning to read and learning to spell
are not the same processes, despite the strong and positive correlation between
them (Ehri, 1997). Reading can be done without the simultaneous act of writ-
ing, but reading is embedded in the act of writing. In reading, the reader does not
have to deal with transcription or other demands of text generation. Because of the
nature of BP orthography, Brazilian children have one more factor that enhances
the development of their reading skills. In BP, grapheme-to-phoneme correspon-
dences are more regular than phoneme-to-grapheme mapping.
Difficulties in spelling inconsistent conventions of the writing systems are
common in children with dyslexia (Alegria & Mousty, 1996; Caravolas & Volin,
2001; Thomson, 1990) across languages, including European (Sucena, Castro, &
Seymour, 2009) and Brazilian Portuguese (Zorzi & Ciasca, 2009). As the writing
of typically developing children becomes more conventional, children with dys-
lexia still experience great difficulty in learning the inconsistencies of BP orthogra-
phy and this impacts on their spelling development.
Frequently, orthographic errors reflect misspellings that arise from the correct
pronunciation of the target word, despite the use of some unconventional graph-
emes (Mousinho et al., 2010; Zorzi & Ciasca, 2009). These errors are phonologi-
cally plausible errors and their most frequent instances are confusing consonant
graphemes that are representations for the same phoneme in BP or omission of
silent vowels or consonants. These misspellings reveal dyslexics’ reliance on infor-
mation about their oral language (spelling as it sounds out) as well as their limited
knowledge of the more complex spelling rules (conditional or morphological rules)
in BP.
The plausible phonological errors described earlier are not produced exclusively
by dyslexic children. Typically developing Brazilian children also produce this type
of misspelling in the first years of their formal instruction in reading and writing
(Mousinho & Correa, 2009; Zorzi & Ciasca, 2009). Children with dyslexia, pro-
duce significantly more errors than their typically developing peers. Although typi-
cally developing children learn conventional orthography, dyslexics spelling errors
tend to persist over time, typically taking the form of a one-letter-to-one-sound
type of spelling (writing as it sounds).
Brazilian children with dyslexia also produce phonologically implausible
spellings, that is, the misspelled word does not sound like the target word. The
most common phonologically based errors among the children with dyslexia
are associated with grapheme omissions and voiced/voiceless substitutions
(Mousinho et al., 2010; Zorzi & Ciasca, 2009). The majority of cases of graph-
eme omissions comprise a reduction of complex syllabic patterns of CCV or CVC
to the simpler CV structure. This process includes consonant cluster reduction

(pato /patu/ ´duck´ instead of prato /pɾatu/ ´plate´), omission of nasal marks
(mudo /mudu/ ´deaf´ as for mundo /mũdu/ ´world´) or of a medial coda (cata/
kata/´pick´ as for carta /kaRta/ ´mail´; pata /pata/ ´paw´ or ´female duck´
instead of pasta /paSta/ ´bag`).
Due to their difficulties in phonological processing (Capelline, Ferreira, Salgado,
& Ciasca, 2007; Cardoso-Martins, & Triginelli, 2010), accurate spelling of conso-
nants differing in voicing (voiced/voiceless substitutions), that is failing to dis-
criminate between minimal pairs of phonemes, is a particular problem for Brazilian
children with dyslexia. This is so even in the cases of unique mapping between let-
ter and phonemes (/b/ versus /p/, /t/ versus /d/, /v/ versus /f/) or of regular
dissyllabic words of the type CV, the prototypical syllabic pattern for BP speaking
children. Errors of substitution of voiced for voiceless consonant occur more fre-
quently than the reverse.
Typically developing Brazilian children can also produce phonologically based
errors in their early spellings when their phonological skills are less well-developed
and their knowledge of orthography limited (Correa & Dockrell, 2007; Morais,
2005). In their early stages of learning to read and write, Brazilian children have
difficulties with complex syllabic onset (CCV syllables) and with closed syllables
(CVC, CCVC patterns), reducing complex syllabic patterns to a canonical CV
structure.
Although phonologically inaccurate errors are not exclusively made by children
with dyslexia, their extended nature rather than their occurrence in the early stages
of children’s writing alerts teachers and parents to an underlying learning disorder.
Those errors tend to decrease (even disappear) due to remediation programs that
emphasize phonological awareness and grapheme-phoneme correspondence.
The spelling difficulties experienced by Brazilian children with dyslexia inevi-
tably lead to problems with text generation. The children’s texts have significantly
fewer words than those of their typically developing peers (Mousinho et al.,
2010). Children with dyslexia also experience problems producing coherent texts.
However a more thorough description of the text generation processes in Brazilian
children with dyslexia is still lacking. Over the past years there has been more focus
on the children’s spelling than on the expression of ideas at the level of written texts
(Affonso, Piza, Barbosa, & Macedo, 2010; Zorzi & Ciasca, 2009).
ONCE UPON A TIME.. . . THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER,

LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE
An evidence-based intervention program for children’s literacy difficulties is held

at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. The guidelines adopted as a gen-
eral framework for intervention conducted by the social clinic for literacy learning
addressed four main aspects: (1) motivation to learn, (2) development of executive

functions, (3) explicit instruction based on the linguistic features of Brazilian
Portuguese and (4) integration of reading and writing.
An important part of the intervention program is related to the development of
children’s writing (Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008). Texts
produced by children with dyslexia are filled with errors that reveal to everyone
their lack of skills. Our experience of Brazilian children with dyslexia also indicates
that they develop a strong negative feeling toward writing, expressing an intense
dislike of writing-related activities.
The children often develop low self-esteem and tend to think about themselves
only in terms of their deficits (Correa & MacLean, 1999). They also develop low
expectations and motivation, which are often characterized by apathy, by disinter-
est and, to a lesser extent, by aggressive and oppositional behavior. Thus, the inter-
vention was also designed to address the children’s confidence, motivation, and
engagement levels (Bruning & Horn, 2000). The aim was to provide dyslexics with
a supportive intervention program by means of a positive emotional environment
in which they developed their cognitive and linguistic skills.
Given the history of frustrations and failures in becoming literate for pupils with
dyslexia, incorporating motivation to learn is essential to an effective intervention
program. Motivating dyslexic children to learn in the current program comprised to
providing a supportive emotional environment to promote their self-confidence in
addition to engagement in reading and writing activities (Bruning & Horn, 2000).
In our intervention program, the following guidelines aimed to improve children´s
motivation to learn by (a) giving children choices about what to read and to write;
(b) organizing enjoyable reading and writing activities and putting at children’s dis-
posal a variety of books, comic books, and other printed material; (c) helping chil-
dren to address their anxiety and frustration with reading and writing.
In developing children´s motivation, it is important to build their confidence in
their potential and general ability. Children need also to know how good they are
at a specific task. Therefore, in addition to recognizing their strengths and weak-
ness, children´s must perform a realistic evaluation of task difficulties. This knowl-
edge is defined as metacognition (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983;
Flavell, 1979). The ability to be aware of their own thinking and learning under-
pins children´s use of executive function processes, that is, the abilities of planning,
organizing and self-monitoring (Meltzer & Krishnan, 2007).
Executive function processes are related to school achievement, and particularly
to the development of writing (Berninger et al., 2002; Berninger & Graham, 1998).
Children with weaknesses in executive function often struggle in getting started
on their assignments or in finishing their tasks (Meltzer & Krishnan, 2007). They
present difficulties in (a) organizing and monitoring their activities, (b) perform-
ing a realistic task evaluation and (c) selecting relevant information. For children
with dyslexia, the development of effective strategies will help them to deal with the
gap between their language skills and the task difficulties. In order to systematically
address executive-function processes, our guidelines were (a) developing children’s

awareness of their competences and their capability of learning at their own pace;
(b) connecting their effort and skills with their accomplishments; (c) developing
self-regulatory strategies that allow children to gain control over their reading and
writing processes; (d) developing metalinguistic skills (Gombert, 1992) that allow
children to acquire knowledge representations and strategies at various linguistic
levels (phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, orthographic, pragmatic).
There are reciprocal relationships between children´s academic achievement,
motivation and cognitive process (Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Grassmann, 1998;
Metzer et al., 2004). Self-confidence in their potential as learners leads children to
(a) persist and put effort into reading and writing, and (b) developing interest in
exploring new challenges and in using effective strategies to compensate for their
difficulties. Reciprocally, their success on academic tasks improves their self-esteem
in a cyclical relationship (Metzer et al. 2004). Thus, the nature of the task is an
important factor in promoting children´s knowledge and in motivating them to
gain control over their leaning process. In this sense, the tasks presented to children
must be very carefully planned.
The underpinning rationale for our program was to find a balance between the
challenges presented by the task and children’s ability to carry out the task. The
challenges presented by the task can be seen as an opportunity to develop new skills
and knowledge with the children’s current reading and writing abilities as a starting
point. Considering that reading and spelling development are influenced by dif-
ferences among orthographic systems (Caravolas, 2004), the tasks are planned in
accordance with the relative difficulty in the phonological and grammatical features
of Brazilian Portuguese.
Taking into account the reading and writing bidirectional relationship
(Berninger, Lee, Abbott & Breznitz, 2011; Ehri,1997), another important guide-
line to the task planning is the integration of reading and writing experiences. The
regularity of the graphophonemic correspondence in Brazilian Portuguese reading
is used to support spelling development and text composition. Finally, as reading
and spelling with a reasonable accuracy is achieved more than with fluency in trans-
parent orthographies (Serrano & Defior, 2008; Wimmer, 1993; 1996), our inter-
vention program focuses in promoting the development of fluency as well as of
accuracy in reading and in writing.
The intervention was carried out weekly on an individual basis to address each
child’s specific needs and interests. Thus, it was essential that the intervention be
based on both the pattern of specific linguistic and cognitive difficulties underpin-
ning the child’s reading and writing problems in Brazilian Portuguese as well as the
pattern of the child’s strengths, which could be used as resources for remediating
the difficulties in learning Brazilian Portuguese. Children´s cognitive abilities in
terms of nonverbal and verbal abilities, phonological awareness, working memory,
vocabulary, and executive functions (planning and execution and flexibility) were
also assessed. A series of observations aiming at determining children´s interest and
motivation as well as their strength and weakness in different aspects of literacy

were also conducted. In addition we conducted interviews with children´s parents
and an analysis of school reports and work sheets.
In order to help identify the children’s specific needs and to define aims for the
intervention, descriptive profiles focusing on the children’s writing ability were cre-
ated. The writing samples were obtained by asking the children to write down five
words they regarded as easy and five other words they considered difficult for writ-
ing, justifying their choices afterwards. They were then invited to read the words
they wrote. The children were also asked to write an original story and to read their
text shortly afterwards. In addition, the children are given a single word reading and
spelling test standardized for Brazilian children of school age (Stein, 1994).
The qualitative analysis of the writing samples of the children who attended
the social clinic over the past years enabled us to construct three distinctive pro-
files complemented by a description of children’s reading abilities. These profiles
allowed a comprehensive assessment of newcomers’ written expression as well as
accounting for the development of writing of the children who had already been
attending the intervention program.
Profile I: Prealphabetic Writing
Despite the knowledge that the children had about the way writing was spatially
and visually organized, they showed difficulties in understanding the founda-
tion of writing in an alphabetic orthography: that words could be read or written
from the knowledge of the correspondences between letters and sound units (see
Figure 17.1). The children could write only the few regular words they learned by
heart. In their spontaneous writing, the children wrote a series of letters that did
not represent a recognizable word in Portuguese. They used the repetition of let-
ters whose design or name was familiar to them, particularly the letters of their
names. However, they were not able to establish any conventional correspondence
between letters and sounds. The children’s reading ability was also reduced to a few
simple words they knew by heart. The children had little skill in phonological analy-
sis of speech, which was expressed, for example, by difficulties in enjoying rhymes,
in identifying words that had similar initial syllables or in segmenting words into
syllables.
Skills for developing syllabic phonological awareness played a major role in
learning to write in BP. Our intervention program initially aimed to develop the
children’s phonological awareness: identification of both initial and final syllables as
well as the segmentation of words into syllables. Once the children obtained a good
performance in phonological tasks, new games including written syllables (CV pat-
tern) were introduced. Words formed with these syllables were then presented to
the children. The children were invited to discover which words could be formed
by the re-combination of the constituent syllables. Syllabic families were generated
for each of the syllables worked with, and children were encouraged to discover

Figure 17.1.
Prealphabetic writing.
words that could be written combining the different syllabic families. Once all the
linguistic games and puzzles that could be derived from these key words were fully
explored, new words were chosen until the main aspects of the Brazilian Portuguese
orthography were presented. The children also had a great variety of books at their
disposal. Poems and stories had a controlled vocabulary formed mainly by regular
CV words.
Profile II: Knowledge of a Few Regular Syllabic Patterns
The children had knowledge of some systematic correspondences between let-

ters and sounds. Their writings included mainly regular CV words. Written texts
were composed of few sentences with no punctuation. In sentences, words were
often segmented in an unconventional way. Those unconventional word segmenta-
tions take the form of hyposegmentation (words were written with no blank spaces
between them) or hypersegmentation (words were divided into two or more
parts). Their stories’ plots were limited to the presentation of the main characters
and settings (see Figure 17.2).
The most frequent spelling errors found in the children’s writings consisted of
(a) letter omissions; (b) regularization of complex syllables through simplification
of the spelling of words with consonant clusters, diphthong or digraph to a simpler
syllabic structure (CV pattern); (c) difficulty in spelling accurately consonants dif-
fering in voicing (voiced/voiceless substitutions).
The children’s reading was not fluent. In reading aloud, they slowly stressed each
syllable of the words (syllabic reading). In spite of their problems with fluency in
reading, Brazilian children with dyslexia were able to read with precision words
with simpler syllabic-orthographic pattern (CV or V) or phrases formed by words

Figure 17.2.
Written text including regular CV words, misspellings and unconventional word segmentations.
with that pattern. With help, the children could read more complex syllabic patterns
(CCV).
With instruction, the children made more progress in reading than in writ-
ing because they had to put a larger amount of cognitive and physical effort into
writing. First of all, in BP, children have to deal with more inconsistencies in
phoneme-grapheme mapping to write than in grapheme-phoneme correspondence
to read. In fact, the correspondence grapheme-phoneme is very consistent in BP.
Moreover, in the writing process, children also have to coordinate thoughts with
the act of writing on paper, which imposes additional demands on novice learners
in text generation. For young children, their less-developed fine motor skills also
limit their ability to write fluently.
Because of the progress they made in reading, Brazilian children with dys-
lexia were then more willing to participate in reading than in writing activities.
Besides the fewer cognitive demands they found in reading, being able to read
(even without much fluency) testified to the children’s progress. Dyslexic chil-
dren’s levels of engagement increased at this point because they were aware of their
accomplishments.
Reading was also used as a way to improve the children’s knowledge of several
syllabic-orthographic patterns in BP and of letter-sound correspondences. Reading
and writing games and activities were specially designed to include the several syl-
labic patterns of BP.
Profile III: Unconventional Spelling: Difficulties with Irregularities

and More Complex Orthographic Rules
The children mastered all regular mapping between phonemes and letters. They
showed some knowledge of a few complex syllabic patterns including consonantal
clusters and digraphs. However, they experienced great difficulty learning spelling
inconsistencies as well as more complex orthographic rules such as (a) conditional

or context-dependent rules in which certain phonemes are spelled in certain ways,
depending on their position in the word; (b) morphological rules in which spelling
is determined by morphology.
It is worth mentioning that the obstacles faced by dyslexic children spelling in
BP were the same ones that were experienced by typically developing children.
Also the spelling errors made by children with dyslexia were very similar to those
committed by typically developing children. However, children with dyslexia took
more time to overcome the obstacles posed by BP orthography. Also, their spell-
ing errors remained pervasive, which impaired the fluency of their writing and the
coherence of their texts.
Frequently, dyslexic writings resembled a phonetic transcription of speech, as
children indiscriminately produced a regular one-letter-to-one-phoneme type of
spelling (see Figure 17.3). Other types of spelling errors produced by Brazilian
children with dyslexia were (a) representation of a phoneme by a corresponding
plausible similar sounding letter in BP; (b) omission of letters; and (c) hypercor-
rection—an unconventional usage of an orthographic rule as a result of a conscious
and intense effort the children made to avoid a spelling error.
Figure 17.3.
Unconventional spelling.

In their written texts, dyslexics rarely used the conventions of writing related
to punctuation or to the arrangements of sentences into paragraphs. In dyslexic
children’s written texts, unconventional word segmentations occurrences (hypo-
segmentation and hypersegmentation) decreased but did not disappear. The chil-
dren’s story plots went far beyond the presentation of main characters and settings.
The plots included events that were experienced by the characters. However, the
children ended their stories abruptly. The children considered the addition of the
expression “the end” enough to finish the story. Children with dyslexia tried to
compensate for their difficulties with spelling by choosing to write words with
simpler syllabic patterns. These word choices impaired the quality of dyslexic chil-
dren’s texts.
At this stage, the reading of children with dyslexia were more accurate and fluent,
although it still lacked appropriate intonation and expression. In their oral reading,
children generally did not respect punctuation marks. The improvement of fluency
was at this point a major aim in developing dyslexic children’s reading abilities. As
reading and writing share linguistic and cognitive processes, reading texts were also
used in our intervention program as models for compositions as well as a tool for
spelling (Berninger et al., 2002; Graham, 2000).
FINAL REMARKS
An intervention program for literacy difficulties has a double meaning for children
with dyslexia/specific learning difficulty. On the one hand, attending a remedial
program is regarded by children as an opportunity to receive specific additional
support to improve their reading and writing skills. On the other hand, in order to
develop their literacy abilities, children have to struggle with their cognitive and lin-
guistic difficulties. This process brings with it anxiety and arouses children’s feelings
of inadequacy and self-blame. Thus, it is necessary to assist children with dyslexia to
overcome their reading and writing difficulties by providing them with meaningful
learning contexts taking into account their knowledge and abilities as well as their
feelings and self-concept.
Dyslexic children become more and more confident in their writing skills as
their spelling errors decrease. Improving spelling and focusing on both accuracy
and fluency also provide dyslexic children with an essential skill for text generation
(Berninger et al., 2008; Gregg & Mather, 2002).
The development of children’s metacognitive abilities allows them to gain con-
trol over their reading and writing processes, self-regulating their learning (Graham
& Harris, 2000). Finally, the awareness of dyslexic children’s accomplishments is
an important factor to change their negative academic self-concept as well as their
low self-esteem.

AUTHOR NOTES
Support for this study was provided by FAPERJ, MCT/CNPq. We are grateful
to Julie Dockrell and Pamela Mills for the careful reading and comments on this
chapter.
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CHAPTER 18
Expressive Writing in Swedish

15-Year-Olds with Reading and
Writing Difficulties
Å SA WENGELIN, ROGER JOH ANSSON,
AND VICTORI A JOH ANSSON
I n our present information age, full participation in democratic society requires

good written-language skills. Writing is, therefore, a key skill in the school cur-
ricula of most, if not all, Western countries. Moreover, in Sweden, just as in many
other countries, schooling beyond the first few years incorporates aspects of writing
in almost every activity. In 2010, about 8% of 15-year-olds with Swedish as their
first language did not reach the targets for writing in the national assessment tests
for Swedish. When the results of children with Swedish as a second language are
included, the corresponding number was above 20%.
Writing difficulties can be identified in a wide range of children and adults. In
this chapter we have limited our study to writers with both reading and spelling
problems. Those writers may be dyslexic, but since there are several ways of diag-
nosing dyslexia and diagnostic groups reflect a heterogeneous group of difficulties
(Dockrell, 2009), we have chosen to use the term reading and writing difficulties
rather than dyslexia.
As pointed out by Berninger, Nielsen, and Abbott (2008) writing difficul-
ties are both under-recognized and undertreated. In addition they are also
under-researched. In the Swedish context, research on writing difficulties in ado-
lescents and adults is close to nonexistent. Wengelin (2002; 2007) investigated the
text-production processes of Swedish adults with reading and writing difficulties
and found that they were dysfluent linear writers who were very preoccupied with
spelling. They made many intraword pauses and many spelling-related editings.
One notable finding was that they made about the same number of revisions as
their peers without reading and writing difficulties, but whereas the members of
that group edited to improve the content of their texts, the writers with reading and
writing difficulties used almost all their editings to change spellings—both from
incorrect to correct and the other way round.
Dockrell (2009) suggests that addressing writing problems requires more than
simply establishing children’s level of performance in comparison with peers.
Careful analysis of the writing process and its product as well as an assessment of
transcription skills are required to provide a basis for choosing an appropriate inter-
vention. In this chapter, we explore the writing skills and writing difficulties of a
group of Swedish 15-year-olds with reading and writing difficulties. We assess their
reading and writing skills by means of standardized decoding and spelling tests,
relating the standardized scores of the participants to various characteristics of both
their writing processes and their final edited texts. Our research questions are:
• What are the writing characteristics of Swedish 15-year-olds with reading and
writing difficulties?
• What are the relations between word-level difficulties as measured by standard-
ized tests, objective quantitative text measures, subjective text-quality judge-
ments, and writing-process characteristics for this group?
Because of our limited knowledge of the writing of this group, our study is largely
exploratory and descriptive. According to Dockrell (2009) we need to start with a
theoretical model of the development of writing skills in order to be able to offer
appropriate interventions and to understand the nature of the difficulties that chil-
dren experience. We will discuss our findings in terms of the simple view of writ-
ing (Berninger et al., 2002), which, in the opinion of Dockrell (2009), provides a
framework allowing us to investigate the various challenges of writing encountered
by children with different types of writing difficulties. In the simple view of writing,
developing writing can be represented as a triangle in a working memory environ-
ment. In this triangle, transcription skills (handwriting, keyboarding, and spelling)
and executive functions (conscious attention, planning, reviewing, revising, and
self-regulation strategies) are the vertices at the base that enable text generation—
which is the goal at the apex of the triangle—to proceed efficiently.
METHOD
Participants
The data used in this chapter represent a subset of a larger dataset collected in the
framework of a larger project called The Dynamics of Perception and Production
during Text Writing1 in which 79 writers participated. That project included
both university students and 15-year-olds with and without reading and writing
Writing in Swedish 15-Year-Olds with Reading & Writing Difficulties [245]

difficulties, all of whom wrote both expository texts and picture descriptions and
completed a reading task, in which they read a text on the same topic as that of the
expository-writing task, but produced by someone else. They were all used to typ-
ing and used computers daily. For a more detailed description of the dataset, see
Johansson, Johansson, and Wengelin (2009). The subset used here consists of the
expository texts produced by twenty-six 15-year-olds—13 of whom had reading
and writing difficulties and 13 of whom (a randomly selected subset) did not have
such difficulties—and corresponding data from the reading tasks. The children
were recruited from schools in southern Sweden. All participants were chosen after
a careful screening process consisting of the DJUR word-decoding test (Herrström,
1998) and a spelling test ( Johansson, 1992), both of which are standardized for
Swedish.
The inclusion criterion for the group with reading and writing difficulties was
a screening-test score equal to or below stanine 3 for both decoding and spell-
ing. Stanine (STAndard NINE-grade scale) is a method of scaling test scores on a
nine-point standard scale. To obtain stanine scores, a normal distribution is divided
into nine intervals with the mean located at the center of the fifth interval.
The mean stanine scores of the participants with reading and writing difficulties
were 2.54 (SD = 0.66) for the word-decoding test and 2.23 (SD = 0.75) for the
spelling test. Because dyslexia can be diagnosed in many different ways in Sweden,
we did not require a dyslexia diagnosis. However, none of the children had any
other known disability that could have caused the reading and writing difficulties,
such as deafness, blindness, language disorder, speech impairment, mental retarda-
tion, autism-spectrum disorder or other developmental disorders. All participants
who were identified as having reading and writing difficulties were later contacted
by a specially trained speech therapist who made sure that they received further
professional help for their difficulties (if no such help was being provided already).
The inclusion criterion for the group without reading and writing difficulties was
a score of at least stanine 5 on both screening tests and no history of language
disorders. Their mean stanine scores for the tests were 6.38 (SD = 1.04) for word
decoding and 6.62 (SD = 2.23) for spelling. All participants in both groups were in
mainstream classes at school. Some of those with reading and writing difficulties
had already received individual interventions from the special-education teacher at
their school, but others had not.
Materials and Procedure
The text-production task was performed on a PC computer with the keystroke-

logging software ScriptLog (Strömqvist & Karlsson, 2002). A keystroke-logging
program records all mouse and keyboard events, that is all instances of a key being
pressed or the cursor being moved, the position (in the text) of those events and
their temporal distribution—similarly to how a tape recorder or digital recording

program records spoken language. This makes it possible to play back the writing
session to the writer or the analyst. The program also outputs log files which describe
what happened during a writing session. In addition, eye-tracking (ET) equipment
in the form of an SMI iView X (HED + HT 50 Hz) was used and synchronized with
the ScriptLog recording. An eye-tracker records the eye movements of the writer, that
is, where he or she is looking (and presumably what he or she is attending to) while
writing. This makes it possible to identify, for instance, occasions when the writer is
reading his or her text and exactly what he or she is reading at a specific time. Eye-
tracking was used both for the reading task and the text production task.
The elicitation instrument used for the expository text was a short film (Berman
& Verhoeven, 2002) showing various problems from a school day, such as cheating,
stealing, and bullying. The participants were informed that they were to write two
texts and read one text on the computer. They were also informed that we would
be recording their eye movements while they were performing the tasks. For the
text-production task of relevance to this chapter, they watched the film and were
then asked to write an essay in which they discussed possible reasons for and solu-
tions to the problems featured in the film. They were told to write for 30 minutes
and were informed when 5 minutes remained. However, no participant who needed
more time to finish his or her text was ever prevented from doing so.
We measured both process and product variables for each text. The
text-production processes were analyzed for productivity in terms of total time on
task (from the start of the task to the final keystroke, that is, a key pressed to pro-
duce a letter), words in the final text per minute, typing fluency, pauses longer than
two seconds between language bursts (Kaufer, Hayes & Flower, 1986), number of
revisions, total time spent reading, and fixation durations. Words per minute and
typing fluency may at first sight appear to be the same measure. However, two writ-
ers could actually produce the same number of final-text words per minute with
very different typing speeds. One may type slowly but make very few revisions,
whereas the other may make many revisions but still produce the same number of
words in the same time by typing faster, that is by being a more fluent typist. Thus,
words in the final text could be described as a kind of productivity measure. Typing
fluency, on the other hand, measures how fast the writer presses the keys on the
keyboard during text production. Because typing fluency is influenced by linguis-
tic variables such as letter and word frequency, morphological structure and syl-
lable structure, it is not a purely motoric measure. The final texts were analysed for
number of spelling mistakes, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity (words per t-unit)
and text quality. Lexical diversity measures the vocabulary variation of a text. For
a text to be highly lexically diverse, the speaker or writer has to use many different
words, with little repetition of words already used. There are a number of differ-
ent measures of lexical diversity (see McKee, Malvern & Richards, 2000). We used
VocD, which is not sensitive to text length. For text quality, the standards used in the
Swedish national assessment tests of Swedish were used. The measures included
in this assessment were a holistic measure of overall text quality, reader awareness,

genre awareness, coherence, linguistic quality and orthography. Of the last two
components, “linguistic quality” includes different aspects of vocabulary and syn-
tax, whereas “orthography” includes spelling and punctuation.
RESULTS
Because the groups were very small (for each group n = 13), the individual variation
was large (see the standard deviations in Tables 1–5) and the quality judgements
consisted of ordinal data, nonparametric statistics were used. For the group com-
parisons we used the Mann-Whitney U test and for the correlations Spearman’s
Rank Correlation test. The significance level used was .05.
First we report results for the transcription skills (the first vertex of the simple
view of writing triangle). As mentioned earlier, the participants were chosen based
on their scores on standardized word-level tests, so we already knew that the writ-
ers with reading and writing difficulties were poor spellers and decoders compared
with those without such difficulties. Table 18.1 shows descriptive statistics in the
form of raw scores on the screening tests. The highest possible score on the decod-
ing test was 115. The mean score of –1.77 for the group with reading and writing
difficulties is explained by the fact that it was possible to score negative points. The
highest possible score on the spelling test was 50 and the lowest possible score was
0. There were no ceiling or floor effects.
In Table 18.2 we turn to the process variables, which, to a certain extent, reflect
the second vertex of triangle of the simple view of writing: executive functions. There
was no difference between the groups for either total time spent on the writing task,
proportion of deleted characters or proportion of total time spent reading. The writ-
ers with reading and writing difficulties did, however, have a significantly larger pro-
portion of pause time than their peers without such difficulties. This finding raises the
question of whether they devoted more time to planning or used their pause time for
other purposes, for instance to think about spelling. They also had longer transition
times between keystrokes, that is, they were less fluent typists, and they produced
fewer words per minute than the writers without reading and writing difficulties.
Given the great differences between the groups in word-decoding skills, the fact
that we did not find any difference between them in how large a proportion of the
total time they spent reading their texts made us curious about their reading during
Table 18.1 RAW SCORES ON THE SCREENING TESTS
Raw test With R & W difficulties Without R & W difficulties

scores
n M SD n M SD p
Decoding 13 –1.77 31.60 13 69.08 13.03 <.001

Spelling 13 22.62 5.33 13 43.23 2.86 <.001

Table 18.2 WRITING-PROCESS MEASURES
Process With R & W difficulties Without R & W difficulties

characteristics
n M SD n M SD p
Words/min 13 11.06 8.12 13 20.3 6.87 .001

Time on task (min) 13 23:42 7:45 13 26:11 6:37 >.05
Mean transition (s) 13 .35 .17 13 .23 0.07 .012
% pause time 13 49.16 18.29 13 33.92 8.36 .006
% deletions 13 16.45 12.06 13 9.38 5.47 >.05
% reading time 13 4.77 4.09 13 7.08 4.92 >.05
Table 18.3 FIXATION DURATIONS DURING THE READING TASK

AND THE WRITING TASK
Mean fixation With R & W difficulties Without R & W difficulties

duration (ms)
n M SD n M SD p
Reading task 13 278.00 44.41 13 238.60 27.17 .020

Writing task 13 275.14 31.96 13 240.43 28.08 .020
writing behaviour. Our failure to find a significant difference between the groups
could be an artefact of the small groups and the large individual variation; in other
words, we may obtain different results when we analyse a larger data set. However,
another possibility could be that there was in fact a difference between the groups,
but not so much in how much time they spent on reading as in how they read.
Therefore, we investigated the duration of their fixations not only while they were
reading during the writing task, but also during the reading task. Table 18.3 shows
mean fixation durations for the two groups. Neither group showed any differences
between the two tasks, but the participants with reading and writing difficulties
made significantly longer fixations than the participants without such difficulties.
In other words, as could be expected, they read considerably more slowly than the
participants without difficulties during both tasks.
Having thus covered the base of the triangle, we now turn to its apex: text char-
acteristics. Table 18.4 shows the objective, quantitative measures. As expected, the
writers with reading and writing difficulties produced significantly shorter texts,
with lower lexical diversity and more misspelled words, than the writers without
such difficulties. With regard to syntactic complexity, however, we did not find any
difference between the groups.
The more subjective text-quality measures are shown in Table 18.5. On all these
measures, the writers with reading and writing difficulties obtained significantly

Table 18.4 TEXT CHARACTERISTICS: OBJECTIVE MEASURES
Text With R & W difficulties Without R & W difficulties

characteristics
n M SD n M SD p
Number of words 13 225.46 105.19 13 498.31 88.23 <.001

Lex. diversity 13 61.03 12.61 13 89.25 17.46 <.001
Synt. complex. 13 12.45 2.29 13 12.96 2.96 >.05
% misspellings 13 8.1 5.2 13 1.9 1.3 <.001
Table 18.5 TEXT-QUALITY MEASURES
Text quality With R & W difficulties Without R & W difficulties
n M SD n M SD p
Holistic qual. 13 1.90 0.47 13 3.42 0.75 <.001

Reader aware. 13 2.13 0.59 13 3.62 0.74 <.001
Genre aware. 13 2.13 0.51 13 3.51 0.72 <.001
Coherence 13 1.91 0.60 13 3.34 0.82 <.001
Linguistic qual. 13 1.75 0.35 13 3.21 0.69 <.001
Orthography 13 1.60 0.37 13 2.99 0.77 <.001
lower scores than those without such difficulties. It is worth noting that the raters
generally appear to have rated the writers’ reader awareness and genre awareness
higher than the linguistic and orthographic aspects of the texts. However, there
were strong correlations between the various quality measures, which is why in this
chapter we will only use the holistic measure from now on.
So far, we have seen few surprises. The writers with reading and writing difficul-
ties are, predictably, less fluent writers, taking more pauses, who produce shorter
texts with more spelling mistakes, lower lexical diversity, and lower text quality than
the writers without such difficulties. It is, therefore, interesting to study how these
characteristics relate to each other: Do spelling skills as measured by a standard-
ized test correlate more strongly with the characteristics of the text-production pro-
cess or the characteristics of the final text, and do the process data correlate with
the final-text characteristics? Tables 18.6 and 18.7 show all statistically significant
inter-measure correlations for the groups with and without reading and writing
difficulties, respectively. To make these correlation tables easier to read, we have
divided them into squares in different shades of grey.
In both Table 18.6 and Table 18.7 the uppermost rectangle shows all corre-
lations with (holistic) text quality and the right-most rectangle shows all cor-
relations with spelling-test scores. Only spelling measures correlated with text

Table 18.6 SIGNIFICANT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SPELLING-TEST SCORES,
PROCESS VARIABLES AND TEXT CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE WRITERS WITH
READING AND WRITING DIFFICULTIES
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 Text quality 1 .56

2 Words 1 .88** –.60* –.90**
3 Lex div 1 –.70**
4 Synt compl 1
5 Misspellings 1 –.64*
6 Tot time 1 –.67*
7 Words/min 1 –.68* –.84**
8 Trans times 1
9 % pause time 1
10 % deletions 1
11 % read time 1
12 Fix durations 1
13 Spelling test 1
Note: *p < .05, **p < .01.
Table 18.7 SIGNIFICANT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SPELLING-TEST SCORES,

PROCESS VARIABLES AND TEXT CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE WRITERS WITH-
OUT READING AND WRITING DIFFICULTIES
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 Text quality 1 –.57

2 Words 1 .69** .60* –.59*
3 Lex div 1 –.62* .60* –.61*
4 Synt compl 1 .63* –.74**
5 Misspellings 1
6 Tot time 1 –.80* .74** .60* .63*
7 Words/min 1 –.74**
8 Trans times 1
9 % pause time 1 .58
10 % deletions 1 .62* .64*
11 % read 1 .70*
12 Fix durations 1
13 Spelling test 1
Note: *p < .05, **p < .01.

quality (see Tables 18.6 and 18.7), interestingly, however, with different ones.
For the group with reading and writing difficulties, it is the level of spelling ability
whereas for the groups without difficulties it is the number of spelling mistakes
in the text. For this group, however, spelling-test score correlated with lexical
diversity.
Overall, correlations are more numerous for the group without difficulties than
for their peers with reading and writing difficulties. The light grey squares near the
top-left corner of each table show correlations between various text measures of a
quantitative and objective nature. For the group with reading and writing difficul-
ties, we found no such correlations. For the group without such difficulties, it seems
that those who wrote the longest texts also produced more complex clauses. For
this group syntactic complexity also correlated negatively with lexical diversity.
The larger light grey square near the bottom-right corner of the tables shows
correlations between various process characteristics. For the writers with reading
and writing difficulties, total time correlated negatively with words per minute; that
is the more productive they were, the less time they spent on the task. Not surpris-
ingly, words per minute also correlated negatively with transition times between
keystrokes and with the proportion of pause time for this group. Put differently, the
more fluent they were and the fewer pauses they made, the more words they had in
their final texts. For the writers without reading and writing difficulties, total time
correlated negatively with words per minute and positively with the proportion of
pause time, the proportion of deleted characters and the proportion of time spent
reading. In other words the more they paused, deleted, and read, the longer they
spent on the task and the fewer words per minutes they produced. In addition the
proportions of both pause time and deletions correlated with the proportion of
reading time.
Turning finally to the dark grey square near the top-right corner, we find cor-
relations between process and product variables. Not surprisingly, the number of
words correlated with both words per minute and proportion of pause time for
both groups. For the group with reading and writing difficulties, it also correlated
negatively with keystroke transition time, that is, the faster or more fluent a typist a
writer was, the more words he or she produced. Mean transition time between key-
strokes correlated (negatively) with the number of words only for the writers with
reading and writing difficulties. This means that writing fluency was associated with
the length of the text produced only for this group. Further (negative) correlations
for the group with reading and writing difficulties were found between the propor-
tion of pause time and lexical diversity and between the proportion of misspelled
words and the proportion of time spent reading. For the group without difficul-
ties, the fluency measure transition times correlated positively with lexical diversity,
whereas it correlated negatively with syntactic complexity. In other words, fluency
appears to be more associated with syntactic complexity than lexical diversity for
this group, but that will not be further pursued in this chapter (remember that the
faster the typist is the shorter the transitions times are).

DISCUSSION
We now return to our research questions. The first was a general question about
the characteristics of the writing of 15-year-olds with reading and writing difficul-
ties. That they were poor spellers was apparent not only from the screening test but
also from the proportion of misspelled words in their texts. However, interestingly,
these two variables did not correlate with each other. Those with the lowest scores
on the spelling test were not necessarily the ones with the most spelling mistakes
in their texts. Moreover, for the group with reading and writing difficulties, the pro-
portion of misspelled words did not correlate with any characteristic of the final
text, whereas the spelling-test score did. These findings raise important questions
about what spelling skills really are and how they can be measured. It seems that
spelling assessment in both school and research settings needs to take both spelling
of isolated words and spelling in textual contexts into account. In other words, to
obtain a full picture of a person’s spelling ability we need to use both well-designed
standardized spelling tests and analyses of spelling mistakes made in texts. A pos-
sible reason for the mismatch between the test scores and the proportion of mis-
spelled words in the texts is that during their eight or nine years of schooling, the
writers concerned may have developed strategies of various kinds to avoid spelling
mistakes. Wengelin (2007) showed that adults with reading and writing difficul-
ties make a great deal of pauses inside words and many editing operations related
to spelling; these aspects of the process were found to explain about 55% of the
variation in lexical diversity. For the group of adolescents with similar problems
discussed in this paper, we have not yet analyzed pause locations and revision types
in detail, but we do know that they have a larger proportion of pausing time and
lower lexical diversity than the group without reading and writing difficulties. This
could indicate similar behavior. Moreover, since our fluency measure relates to
transition times between keystrokes within words, lower fluency also indicates a
higher proportion of pausing within words. To a certain extent, lower fluency could
be explained by poorer typing skills in general, but we have no reason to believe that
the writers with reading and writing difficulties are much poorer typists than the
writers without such difficulties. Compare Berninger et al. (2008).
Our second question concerned the relations between word-level difficulties as
measured by standardized tests, text characteristics of an objective and quantita-
tive nature, subjective text-quality judgments, and process variables. A couple of
findings stood out as more interesting than the others. First, for both groups, only
spelling correlated with text quality. Second, whereas it was the proportion of mis-
spelled words in the texts for the group without difficulties, it was the spelling-test
score—and not the proportion of misspelled words in the texts—that correlated
with text quality for the writers with reading and writing difficulties. This indicates
that there may be different explanations for these correlations between “spelling”
and text quality. A possible explanation is that the writers with reading and writing
difficulties are well aware of their spelling difficulties and thus very preoccupied

with avoiding spelling difficulties throughout their writing process. Even if they
have not been formally diagnosed as dyslexic, their main problems are most likely
difficulties in learning to read and spell words. See also Berninger et al. (2008).
This focus on spelling could also explain their low lexical diversity. As a result of
their attempts to avoid difficult words, they end up using a more limited vocabulary.
This interpretation is supported by the negative correlation between pausing and
lexical diversity. Further, avoiding spelling difficulties is an effortful process that
most likely uses a great deal of cognitive capacity (McCutchen, Covill, & Hoyne,
1994; McCutchen, 2006), and this could explain the correlation between spelling-
test scores and text quality. If spelling strategies use most of the cognitive capacity,
there may not be enough capacity left for creating a coherent text. In this context, it
may also be worth noting the negative correlation between time spent reading and
spelling mistakes for the group with reading and writing difficulties. The more they
read, the fewer spelling mistakes they had in their texts. Of course we do not know
the causal relation here—nor for any of the other correlations—but this fits into
the picture painted above of writers who try very hard to avoid spelling mistakes.
Preliminary analyses of what and where they read confirm that they mainly read
short stretches near the insertion point, that is, at the cursor, immediately after the
text they had recently written. Another interesting finding is that the proportion of
spelling mistakes in the final text correlated with text quality for the writers without
reading and writing difficulties. Could it be that mistakes are more noticeable or
influence the judges more when there are not that many of them?
We would like to conclude this chapter by discussing our findings from the per-
spective of the simple view of writing (Berninger et al., 2002). As expected, spell-
ing is a major problem of the writers with reading and writing difficulties. Spelling
problems relate to the transcription part of the model and manifest themselves both
in the spelling test, in the spelling mistakes made in the texts and—it would seem—
in the production process. However, a more detailed analysis of pause locations
and revision types is needed to confirm the final claim. Assuming that we are right,
this raises questions about the other vertex on the base of the triangle, namely the
executive functions.
As suggested earlier in the text, a possible explanation for the finding that the
number of spelling mistakes in the spelling test did not correlate with the propor-
tion of spelling mistakes in the final edited texts could be that the writers with read-
ing and writing difficulties have developed strategies to avoid difficult words. With
difficult is here meant words that the writers know or believe that they cannot spell.
If their use of such avoidance strategies entails that they use most of their paus-
ing time and revisions for purposes related to spelling, they will have correspond-
ingly less time and cognitive capacity for planning and other higher-level processes.
Taken together, these findings indicate that an important aim of writing instruction
for students with reading and writing difficulties must be to find ways to lower the
cognitive load produced by spelling difficulties. In a perfect world, this could be

achieved by early instruction designed to prevent the emergence of spelling difficul-
ties in the first place.
However, even with very good instruction, in real life some children will
probably always develop spelling difficulties, at least in the sense of worrying
about spelling and developing strategies to avoid difficult words. This is not to
say that we should abandon the idea of teaching children how to spell at an early
age, but rather that we need other tools as well. An obvious such tool is a (good)
spell-checker that, with adequate use, could assist in lowering the cognitive load
of spelling. However, to be really helpful the spell-checker should probably be
integrated in writing instruction at an early stage. If it is introduced too late,
it may just facilitate the already-established effortful spelling strategies—which
may indeed help a little—rather than become an integral part of the overall writ-
ing process. Furthermore, if children are allowed to devote, as our 15-year-old
participants may have done, all their cognitive capacity to spelling during their
nine years of schooling, they will not have had any cognitive capacity left for
the development of higher-level writing strategies, and at that point it will thus
not be enough to just lower the cognitive demands of spelling. Such children
will also need to be taught how to produce a text, because they have not had
the opportunity to learn that before. This means that they will need not only
spelling intervention but also explicit, self-regulated strategy intervention in
order to reach a level of efficient text production that results in high-quality
texts. See for example Harris, Graham, Mason, and Saddler (2002). To avoid
such a situation, it could perhaps be a good idea to separate spelling instruction
from text-production instruction at an early stage of writing development but
include instruction on how to handle possible spelling difficulties during the
text-production process.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was funded by the Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2004–
2687 and grant no. 2009–2004) and has been supported by the Linnaeus cen-
ter for Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning (CCL)
at Lund University, which is funded by the Swedish Research Council (grant
no. 349-2007-8695). Thanks to Bodil Andersson, Jana Holsanova, Sofia Söderberg,
and Sylvia Tufvesson for help with the data collection; to Johan Dahl and Henrik
Karlsson for programming help; to Johan Segerbäck for proofreading the text and
improving our English; and to Sven Strömqvist for being the driving force behind
the technology development that made the data collection possible. Finally thanks
to Barbara Arfé and Virginia Berninger whose constructive comments helped to
improve the chapter.

NOTE
1. Funded by the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR)
Grant no F0832/2000.
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CHAPTER 19
Improving Expressive Writing in

Children with Learning Disabilities
The Effects of a Training Focused on Revision
M ARTINA PEDRON, ANNA M ARI A RE, CHI AR A MIR AND OL A ,
AND CESARE CORNOLDI
T he ability to produce a written text (i.e., expressive writing) is an important

ability essential in school contexts as well as in everyday life. Being able to write
does not only imply grammatical, syntactic, and orthographic accuracy, but also
higher cognitive and metacognitive processes, such as generation of ideas and revi-
sion of what already produced in the form of a text. Given the importance of writing,
it is relatively surprising that there is a paucity of research investigating its impli-
cations for learning, in both children with typical development and children with
developmental disabilities, such as learning disabilities (LD) (Graham & Harris,
2003). Nonetheless, teachers complain about their students’ difficulties in writing
(Rogers & Graham, 2008), in particular for what concerns expressive writing.
Expressive writing has been explained through a few models, which take into
consideration general abilities as well as particular components that better qual-
ify the ability to write. For example, Hayes and Flower’s model (1980) considers
expressive writing as a problem-solving task, going from retrieving knowledge from
long-term memory, planning what to write and translating one own’ s ideas into
written format to revise the final version of the text produced.
From a different perspective, Berninger’ s model (1999) highlights the role of
working memory (WM) in affecting a child’s written production; in particular,
insufficient mastery of rapid processes involved in transcription may be detrimen-
tal for the child’s WM capacity. In a study, Berninger and colleagues (Berninger,
Abbott, Abbott, Graham, & Richards, 2002) considered the case of learning dis-
abilities in reading and writing; 23 psychometric measures were collected from
a group of learning disabled children and their relatives. The authors found that,
for the children, only the orthographic and phonological factors had a direct influ-
ence on reading accuracy, spelling and composition factors, whereas, in the case of
affected adults, only the orthographic factor and IQ directly influenced reading and
writing outcomes.
When we started to treat children with LD for text production, at our unit
(LIRIPAC, University of Padova), we had to face the difficulty represented by the
lack of assessment and intervention procedures adapted for the Italian context.
Procedures were, therefore, developed with reference to a basic model inspired
by the previous models in the area. Expressive writing is considered by this model
(Cornoldi, Del Prete, Gallani, Sella, & Re, 2010) as the result of general compo-
nents (e.g., working memory, metacognitive abilities, stored knowledge, linguistic
aspects) intertwined with specific processes required in writing. Such specific pro-
cesses are grouped in three main areas: (1) cognitive processes (e.g., idea genera-
tion, sketchy planning), (2) transposition, and (3) revision. Idea generation and
text planning are assumed to be active during the whole writing process (Van den
Bergh & Rijlaarsdam, 2007) and to be affected by the actual information retrieved
from long-term-memory and contextual cues. Transposition is assumed to be more
affected than the other components by pure linguistic abilities (e.g., lexical, syntac-
tic and paragraph-related abilities). Revision is a process that requires the ability
to check the linguistic aspects and adequacy of the written text as well as compre-
hension abilities (which, in turn, involve working-memory capacity) (Hayes &
Chenoweth, 2007).
LEARNING DISABILITIES AND EXPRESSIVE WRITING
Difficulties met by children with LD in text production may occur at any of

the levels identified by the model (Cornoldi et al., 2010), depending on a del-
uge of variables, and are associated both with reading and spelling difficulties.
However, the expressive writing disability can be considered as a category with
its own specificity as suggested by ICD-10 (OMS, 1992). For example, Gregg
and colleagues (Gregg, Coleman, Stennett, & Davis, 2002) investigated expres-
sive writing ability in groups of students with LD, attention deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD), and control students with typical development, finding, in
general, a poorer performance in the clinical groups. However, as in the case of
other difficulties, identification of an expressive writing disability depends on
the tasks used during assessment. Further, depicting subtle differences in the
difficulties depends on whether the expressive writing disability is considered
per se, in a holistic manner, or with emphasis on its specific aspects (revealing
thus a spectrum of possible subtypes of disability). An important study was

carried out to investigate whether different subtypes of expressive writing dif-
ficulties could be depicted (Wakely, Hooper, de Kruif, & Swartz, 2006). This
study found that five main aspects could explain specific writing difficulties in
children: (1) understandability, (2) grammar, (3) semantics, (4) spelling, and
(5) reading. For example, children who were poor in semantic comprehension
made a high number of errors such as missing words, words put in the wrong
order in a sentence, and so forth, when required to write two stories cued by an
initial sentence (Wakely et al., 2006).
To confirm the importance of considering specific aspects when dealing with
writing difficulties, the model described in Cornoldi et al. (2010) shows how dif-
ferent specific components may affect expressive writing performance in both chil-
dren with typical development and with difficulties. Being able to detect subtypes
of writing difficulties and thus to differentiate between children’s different kinds of
writing difficulties implies the possibility to focus on interventions on any of the
specific components that affect performance.
The Revision Process
It is generally acknowledged that three major aspects need to be treated and

enhanced in students with LD as well as in students with specific writing prob-
lems: planning, writing a first version of text, and revision. Revision is crucial, but
some children tend to omit this phase. Revision implies checking the written text,
or going through it while still writing, in order to verify whether it corresponds to
the content that the writer is willing to communicate and in order to eventually cor-
rect parts of it. The revision process implies two main operations:
1. Re-reading the entire text (or part of it).

2. Correcting one or more parts of the written text (or correcting the structure
of the initial planning phase).
Rereading (1) is a highly demanding process, given that it requires the writer to
critically judge his/her own text, taking the role of attentive reader while looking
for errors, unclear passages, or paragraphs with missing information. Expert writers
reread and revise the text several times before considering it complete, because they
are aware that it is difficult to put down into words their thoughts through the only
mean of a rapid transcription (Cisotto, 1998). Correcting (2) the text may involve
linguistic aspects (orthography, grammar, word choice, punctuation) and the plan-
ning of the text (consistency and organization of ideas with the original plan). This
second aspect is more difficult to accomplish because it requires higher processes
(i.e., metacognitive abilities) rather than surface changes in the written text as in
the first case (Graham & Perin, 2007). Good writers are particularly interested in
revising the global structure of the text and try to put themselves into their audience
Improving E xpressive Writing in Children with LD [ 2 5 9 ]

in order to see whether the composition is understandable and coherent (Hayes,
Flowers, Schriver, Stratman, & Carey, 1987).
Students with LD encounter greater difficulty than their peers in revising the
text. They often do not spontaneously engage in revision and, if they do, their
approach is usually ineffective, such as correcting mechanically some mistakes
(even without succeeding in it) or switching a word with another (MacArthur,
Schwartz, & Graham, 1991).
In the cases we report here, we were particularly interested in investigating
the effect of intervention on linguistic revision. Few studies have investigated the
effects of a treatment on expressive writing performance and in particular on revi-
sion. Thus, there is a need for increasing the number of high quality interventions,
that could improve children’s expressive writing performance both in classroom
and in everyday life. Hooper and colleagues (Hooper, Wakely, de Kruif, & Swartz,
2006) treated a large sample of children and found positive effects, in particular
when considering metacognitive aspects and neuropsychological abilities with
respect to the specific subtypes of writing difficulties. In Italy, Re, Caeran, and
Cornoldi (2008) also showed positive effects of a treatment on the general quality
of written texts in a group of children with ADHD.
Thus, a program for Italian children has been developed aimed at increasing
expressive writing competence in children with learning difficulties (“Io scrivo” -
I write- Re, Cazzaniga, Pedron, & Cornoldi, 2009). This program has been used in
the present research, as explained in the following sections.
Structure of the Intervention Program “Io scrivo”
The activities of the intervention program followed in the present research are
divided in different areas, based on the model of expressive writing (Cornoldi et al.,
2010). According to this model—as briefly introduced earlier—the writing pro-
cess can be divided in three major phases: (1) idea generation, (2) planning and
transcription, (3) revision. These phases are not to be considered to occur in a strict
order, but they may alternate during the process of writing. However, for those chil-
dren who have specific difficulties in expressive writing, we thought it was better
to adequately follow this order and subdivide the intervention program in distinct
phases to allow the children to better understand each process and practice with it.
For all the activities in each unit, the child receives initial help, which gradually is
taken away so that, at the end of the particular task, the child masters the ability on
his/her own. The program includes scaffolding and procedural facilitation techniques
and focuses on the strategies that can be used to reduce the cognitive load (Bereiter
& Scardamalia,1995; Graham, MacArthur, Schwartz, 1995; Graham & Perin, 2007;
Bliss, Askew, & Macrae, 1996; Bodrova & Leong, 1998; Palincsar, 1998).
In the intervention study here described, we focused on the process of revision,
choosing different types of tasks according to the most frequent types of error.

The activities concerning the revision process proposed by the program “Io Scrivo”
involve the following aspects:
• Orthographic errors.
• How to avoid repetitions.
• How to make nouns and adjectives agree with gender and number.
• Importance of the subject in a sentence.
• Coherent use of verbs and subordinate clauses.
• Use of punctuation.
The present intervention Study involved 8 individual sessions, which lasted

approximately 90 minutes each. In the first session, the general scope of the pro-
gram was explained to the child. In order not to influence the child’s performance
at the posttraining session, the objective of the training (improvement of revision
of a written text) was not clearly enounced; instead, the children were told that
they would learn strategies useful to improve their writing abilities. The first activity
concerned orthographic revision: The child was asked to find and correct mistakes
in a few clauses.
In the second session, the child was asked to read short texts in which the errors
were underlined. Subsequently these cues were gradually taken away, such that the
child was required to identify the errors on his own. The clinician suggested to read
the text from the end to the beginning, in order to correct the orthographic errors
more easily.
In the third session, after going through what was already learned in the preced-
ing sessions, the training focused on how to avoid repetitions, in order to make the
written text less redundant.
In the fourth session, the concepts of gender and number were introduced and
the importance of the subject in a sentence was discussed. Children had to correct
sentences in which there was no concordance of gender and/or number between
a noun and an adjective or sentences in which the subject was missing and the sen-
tence resulted incomprehensible.
In the fifth session, verbal mood and tense were introduced. Children were
helped to write and comprehend a text, focusing on revision. First, the child was
required to introduce a verb in a sentence (the verb was put into parentheses at
the end of each sentence). Then, during the sixth session, the coherent use of verb
tenses and moods within a complex paragraph (consecutio temporum) was explained
to the child.
In the seventh session, intervention focused on punctuation. As in the previous
sessions, children were progressively helped to appropriately revise a text, but in this
case they had to consider the punctuation, an aspect that was particularly difficult
for three of the four children. In the eighth and last session, the subordinate clauses
were discussed, as well as all the possible strategies and techniques that could be

used for a good revision. For example, children were shown how to turn two coor-
dinate sentences into a unique sentence linked by a relation of subordination.
During each session, procedural facilitations were adopted according to every
child’s particular difficulties and needs.
Cases Report
Four children with diagnosis of a specific learning disability (LD) were selected for
an individual intervention program for expressive writing focused on revision (see
Table 19.1 for the children’s scores at standardized tasks). All children had severe
difficulty in writing. Marco, Tommaso, and Elena also had a severe reading decod-
ing problem, Tommaso had a severe problem in reading comprehension and Elena
a severe difficulty in arithmetic. However, all children had an IQ within the average
values or even higher (Filippo).
Measures Collected Before and After the Intervention
Children underwent pre- and posttraining assessments on a series of expressive

writing tasks. The materials used for both assessment sessions were the following:
• Expressive Writing: Descriptive and narrative writing (derived from Batteria per

la valutazione della scrittura e della competenza ortografica nella scuola dell’obbligo
-BVSCO, Battery for the assessment of writing skills of children from 7 to
Table 19.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOUR CHILDREN AND SCORES

OBTAINED AT A BATTERY OF LEARNING TASKS
Marco Tommaso Filippo Elena
Age 9.1 8.1 11.1 10.2

Grade 3 3 5 4
IQ total 98 93 118 102
Reading decoding (sill/sec) 1.2*** 1.4*** 3.5* 3.02***
Reading accuracy (errors) 18*** 4* 0* 4*
Text comprehension 5** 4*** 6** 7*
Writing speed < 2 SD average average average
Spelling errors 1.5 SD > 2 SD > 2 SD > 2 SD
Mental calculation average average average < 2 SD
Written calculation average average average < 2 SD
Note: ***≤ 2 SD; **≤ 1 SD; * = average or above average.

13 years old; Tressoldi, Cornoldi, Re 2012). Written texts were scored for (see
also Re, Pedron, Cornoldi, 2007):
• Total words, calculated as total number of words.
• Total sentences: calculated as total number of sentences.
• Percentage of orthographic errors, that is, words incorrectly written divided
by the number of text words.
• Percentage of repetitions, that is, number of words repeated in the text
divided by the number of text words.
• Percentage of adjectives, that is, number of qualitative adjectives divided by
the number of text words.
• Percentage of subordinates, that is, number of subordinate sentences divided
by the number of sentences of the text.
• Revision tasks (Novello, & Poli, unpublished):
• Orthographic revision.
• Morpho-syntactic revision.
• Punctuation revision.
In Table 19.2 the revision tasks are reported.

In particular, the task used for orthographic revision consists of a brief text that
contains 4 phonological errors, 4 nonphonological errors, 4 errors relative to stress
and double consonants (total of 12 errors). The child is required to read the text
carefully and discover and correct the errors, without time limits. Scoring is made
by two parameters: the errors correctly changed and incorrect corrections (i.e., if
the child corrects something that is not inadequate, then one point is taken out of
the final score for each of these variations).
Morpho-syntactic revision consists of a brief text that contains errors relative
to how nouns agree with gender (4), and number (4), and errors relative to verbal
Table 19.2 EXAMPLES OF THE THREE REVISION TASKS
Ortographic revision
Giovedì scorso era il mio compleanno e cosi Cosi → così: this word requires the accent
sabato ho fatto una vesta. . . Vesta→ festa: this word requires “f ” instead of “v”
Morpho-syntactic revision
Un giorno trovò sotterrata nel sua campo una Sua campo has to be corrected in suo campo
pentola pieno di monete d’oro e tutto contento (concordance of gender) as well as pentola pieno →
se la porta a casa. pentola piena
Porta →portò: the time of the verb must be the past as
in the case of the previous verb
Puntuaction revision
Giovanni e Luigi sono due amici compagni di Correct puntuacion:
classe stanchi. di stare in città decidono di.. . . Giovanni e Luigi sono due amici, compagni di classe.
Stanchi di stare in città, decidono di andare in campagna.. . .

tenses (4) and consecutio temporum (4). The scoring is the same as for the previous
task.
The task for punctuation revision consists of a text in which there are some
punctuation errors (9) and some missing punctuation marks (11). Scoring is made
through three parameters: number of incorrect punctuation marks, number of
omissions (i.e., ad hoc errors that the child does not individuate and number of
punctuation marks that the child does not insert when necessary).
RESULTS
The raw scores both at pretest and posttest were compared to the normative data
available for the different age ranges. The overall pattern of performance at posttest
in all the writing variables can be seen in the right part of Tables 19.3 and 19.4. To
test the efficacy of the training, we identified a criterion for a clinical improvement,
based on the guidelines produced by the National Consensus Conference (2010).
An increase of at least 1 SD was defined as a significant clinical improvement.
Revision Tasks
With respect to the three tasks of revision (morpho -syntactic, orthographic and
punctuation) we found a general reduction in the number of errors, in particular
relative to orthographic and morphologic revision (Table 19.3).
Inspection of raw scores in Table 19.3 shows that orthographic revision improved
in all children, with a change of 1 SD in the performance of Marco and Filippo, with
a smaller number of omissions in finding errors in the text. Filippo and Elena were
more accurate at individuating and correcting errors without erroneously high-
lighting words that did not contain errors. Concerning morpho-syntactic revision,
Table 19.3 SCORES OBTAINED BY THE FOUR CHILDREN AT THE THREE

REVISION TASKS BEFORE AND AFTER THE TRAINING
Pre- test Post- test
Marco Tommaso Filippo Elena Marco Tommaso Filippo Elena
Orthographic revision 10*** 12*** 8** 8** 6** 10*** 3* 5**

(errors and omissions)
Morpho-syntactic revision 10*** 14*** 7** 9** 6** 10*** 6** 4*
(errors)
Punctuation revision 19*** 24*** 18*** 19*** 12** 19*** 12** 14**
(errors and omissions)

both Marco and Elena substantially improved (fewer omissions). Punctuation revi-
sion improved in Marco, Filippo, and Elena, with a change of 1SD in their scores.
However, this improvement was more related to the identification of inadequate
punctuation than to the ability to correctly add omitted punctuations marks.
Overall, the most problematic areas were those relative to the correction of the
ad hoc errors in the text (see Table 19.2) as well as omissions relative to correct
punctuation marks.
Expressive Writing Tasks
Table 19.4 presents the expressive writing tasks results at the pre- and posttrain-
ing assessment. We report all the measures that were taken into consideration. If
we look at the scores obtained in the first assessment we can see that they are, in
general, very low. Three children made a high number of orthographic errors and
produced a poor text in both conditions (descriptive and narrative). All children
were particularly poor in the revision tasks.
As can be seen from Table 19.4, percentages of orthographic errors decreased
substantially for all children and in both narrative and descriptive texts. In particu-
lar, in the narrative text, two children (Marco and Elena) changed their performance
from –2 SD to average. In the descriptive text, all children improved, with a change
of 1 SD, and two children (Filippo and Elena) were on average in the posttest. We
can see an improvement also for the percentage of repetitions and for percentage
of subordinates, that were objects of the revision training. In particular we can see
that Marco and Elena did not have repetitions in the narrative posttest and that all
children’s performances were on average in the descriptive postest. For what con-
cerns subordinates, children seem to have learned to use them during the training;
indeed, in the case of the descriptive text, none of the children used subordinates in
the pretest, whereas all four children used subordinates in the posttest. An improve-
ment in the use of subordinates can also be seen in the narrative text. Finally we can-
not see a great improvement in the percentage of used adjectives, which remained
very low, probably because it was not the object of the training.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The need of improving writing skills in children with LD is evident as a great num-
ber of children with LD manifest problems at this level. However, there is still a pau-
city of research on the effects of treatments of children with LD in writing. In this
clinical study we examined the effects of the part of the program Io scrivo (Re et al.,
2009) concerning revision. Focus on this aspect was due to two main reasons: first,
in a limited number of sessions it was impossible to use the whole program; second,
the four to-be-treated children with LD were poor in revision skills.

Table 19.4 SCORES OBTAINED BY THE FOUR CHILDREN AT A EXPRESSIVE WRITING TASK BEFORE AND AFTER THE TRAINING
Pre-test Post-test
Marco Tommaso Filippo Elena Marco Tommaso Filippo Elena
Narrative % orthographic errors 12.57*** 25.17*** 4.36* 13.04*** 5.85* 15.51*** 1.46* 3.98*
Total words 40** 28*** 69* 46** 41** 32*** 71* 50**
Total sentences 6** 3*** 5*** 4*** 8** 4*** 9** 7***
% repetitions 17.38*** 28.9*** 18.85*** 4.81* 0* 15.73*** 2.68* 0*
% adjectives 0*** 0*** 1.4* 0*** 2.4* 0*** 2.8* 0***
% subordinate clauses 16.6** 0*** 0*** 0*** 25* 0*** 22.2** 28.6*
Descriptive % orthographic errors 17.04*** 19.99*** 4.44** 7.51** 10.42** 8.21** .83* 1.96*
Total words 35*** 30*** 87* 40*** 39** 36** 100* 48***
Total sentences 4*** 3*** 6** 3*** 6** 5** 9** 4***
% repetitions 17.21*** 23.39*** 16.1** 10.25* 7.63* 13.81* 11.04* 4.2*
% abjectives 0*** 3.3* 16.1* 2.5** 0*** 2.7* 11* 6.2*
% subordinate clauses 0*** 0*** 0*** 0*** 16.6* 20* 11.1** 50*

The training yielded positive results; indeed, all children improved their
general ability of revising a text. For what concerns the specific revision
tasks (morpho-syntactic, orthographic, and punctuation) better results were
obtained for the punctuation errors than for morpho-syntactic revision.
For orthographic revision, only two children showed a clinical significant
improvement.
For what concerns the children’s performance of the expressive writing tasks,
overall children made fewer orthographic errors at posttreatment assessment.
However, for Tommaso, the improvements were not very high, and most of his
scores remained below 2 SDs; however, Tommaso presented other learning prob-
lems (i.e., poor text comprehension), which, perhaps, affected his ability to autono-
mously use and generalize the trained strategies. Indeed, our program was aimed
at giving children special techniques that may help them engage in a good ortho-
graphic revision. The training seemed to work well also at other levels: The number
of repetitions decreased, and the number of subordinate clauses increased, show-
ing that our training probably affected children’s vocabulary choices in writing and
their use of subordinate structures, that is, their ability to connect pieces of infor-
mation in an expressive writing task.
In conclusion, our research highlights the importance and the positive effects of
focusing on specific writing difficulties and helping children with LD to deal with
higher processes involved in expressive writing, in order to improve their cognitive
and metacognitive abilities. This conclusion is in agreement with the work of Baker
and colleagues (Baker, Gersten, & Graham, 2003) that emphasizes the importance
of higher level techniques, such as procedural facilitation, aimed at improving chil-
dren’s ability at writing. However, the present study has a series of limitations. In
particular further research is needed in order to support the intervention strategies
adopted in this study with larger groups, to show their comparatively greater effi-
cacy with respect to other intervention programs and to better devise rehabilitative
programs specifically aimed at improving expressive writing abilities in children
with learning disabilities.
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PART THREE
Linking Research to Practice in Oral

and Written Language Assessment
and Intervention
CHAPTER 20
Integrating Language Assessment,

Instruction, and Intervention in an
Inclusive Writing Lab Approach
NICKOL A WOLF NELSON
T his chapter describes a curriculum- and classroom-based writing lab approach

to language instruction and intervention; the use of written story probes to
establish baseline profiles, guide intervention, and measure progress; and dynamic
assessment and individual scaffolding as tools for promoting language and literacy
development of students with special needs. Data are reported for reliability of the
story-probe assessment technique and for changes in language performance for 29
students with special needs (SN) and 123 classmates with typical language (TL),
who participated in writing lab instructional and intervention activities for at least
half a school year at grades 2, 3, and 4.
THE WRITING LAB APPROACH
The writing lab approach provides a context for integrating language interven-
tion into curriculum-based, general education instruction of written expression. It
was developed by the author and colleagues, who have described the approach in
other sources (e.g., Nelson, Bahr, & Van Meter, 2004; Nelson & Van Meter, 2006).
Using a writing lab approach, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), special edu-
cation teachers, and general education teachers collaborate in analyzing baseline
story probes, fine-tuning students’ individualized intervention objectives, and
co-planning and teaching curricular units, while also targeting students’ individual-
ized objectives.
SLPs schedule time to work in general education classrooms collaborating with
teachers during writing- lab sessions (generally held for one hour each, two days
per week) to provide intervention targeting the individualized goals of students
with SN (i.e., identified disabilities and other language/literacy learning risks).
Students with disabilities are included in their general education classrooms during
all writing lab activities even if they receive some special education services outside
the classroom at other times. Special education teachers are involved in planning
and supporting writing lab projects for students on their caseloads, but scheduling
challenges often make it difficult for them to be in the classroom during writing lab
sessions.
Theoretical Model, Principles, and Components of the Writing Lab

Approach
The writing lab approach comprises three primary components—writing-process

instruction, computer-software supports, and inclusive instructional practices. The
writing lab approach is not a highly programmed sequence of planned steps or les-
sons, but rather a dynamic and flexible model grounded in a set of theoretically
driven principles about how children learn. It can be implemented in any part of
the curriculum that involves writing, and it can address intervention goals targeting
spoken as well as written language.
BACKDROP principles. The acronym, BACKDROP, stands for the guiding
principles: Balance (between wholes and parts; teacher-driven and child-centred),
Authentic audience (encouraging students to communicate their ideas in writing
for an appreciate audience of adults and peers), Constructive learning (with extra
scaffolding for students with SN), Dynamic (with flexible response to emergent
learning needs), Research-based (with periodic meetings to reflect on what is
working and what is not), Ownership (for goals and progress on the part of stu-
dents), and Patience (as adults collaborate and students are allowed ownership for
their choices).
These principles are derived from social interactionist and cognitive construc-
tivist theories of language acquisition and intervention (Nelson, 2010a). They
draw on Vygotsky’s (1934/1962; 1978) explanation of learning as a process in
which a person knowledgeable in a domain (teacher or clinician) works with a less
knowledgeable person (learner) to understand the learner’s current level of func-
tioning and gauge how much assistance the learner requires to learn new things
(called the “zone of proximal development”), then mediates the experience so the
learner can construct more elaborate cognitive connections and deeper knowl-
edge. Feuerstein (1979) introduced the term, dynamic assessment, for the sequence
involving assessment, intervention, and then reassessment, which is used in this
approach. Bruner (1975; 1986) suggested the metaphor of scaffolding to represent
[ 2 7 4 ] Part III: Linking Research to Practice

the use of temporary cognitive-linguistic supports by adults as they mediate chil-
dren’s learning. Methods of dynamic assessment and scaffolding are described later
in this chapter.
Writing-process instruction. Writing-process instruction draws on the classic
description by Flower and Hayes (1981) of the recursive cognitive processes mature
authors use as they write. In a writing lab approach, students work through various
phases of the writing process, including planning and organizing, drafting, reread-
ing and revising, editing, and publishing and presenting their work. Writing-process
instruction can be situated within any curricular area, making it an ideal context for
scheduling collaborative service delivery. Units in a designated curricular area are
taught over multiple sessions, working toward end products that can be shared with
a broader audience through oral or print media. Examples of curriculum-based proj-
ects in Grades 1 through 5 include stories and poetry (during language arts), animal
reports and PowerPoint presentations on weather (during science), and business
plans and essays about core democratic values (during social studies).
Writing-process instruction provides a context that is familiar to most general
education classroom teachers and addresses general education goals, so teachers
do not see it as another add-on that they are required to implement (Nelson et al.,
2004). Writers’ workshop approaches have been described for students of elemen-
tary school age (e.g., Calkins, 1994; Graves, 1994), middle school age (e.g., Atwell,
1987), and high school age (e.g., Swoger, 1989), and for students with disabilities
(e.g., Graham, Harris, & Troia, 2000; Harris, Graham, Mason, & Friedlander, 2008;
Singer & Bashir, 2004; Swoger, 1989; Zaragoza & Vaughn, 1992). Teachers also
may have heightened interest in working on writing because written expression is
included as a core area in many high-stakes tests that are used to evaluate how well
students are learning the curriculum.
Within the activities of writing lab sessions, teachers and SLPs use a variety of
instructional techniques. As outlined and illustrated in Table 20.1, these instruc-
tional techniques include minilessons to introduce new processes and skills to be
used over subsequent sessions. Dynamic assessment, scaffolding, and personal
minilessons are used by adult mediators as they interact with individual students
to foster their language/literacy learning. Peer and teacher conferencing and
Author’s Chair activities are used to bring audience response alive and meet gen-
eral education curricular goals. Author Notebooks are designed to help students
gain executive skills to organize their work and to access to print supports when
working independently.
Computer software supports. Computer software features are used to support
all phases of the writing process, not just publishing. An example illustrating use of
the planning software program, Inspiration®, appears in Figure 20.1. The example
shows an earlier and later draft of a personal timeline produced by a child named
April who was in grade 2 at the time and had been identified by her teacher as a
student who was struggling and at risk for language/literacy learning difficulties.
Integr ating L anguage A ssessment, Instruction, and Intervention [275]

Table 20.1 INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES USED IN A WRITING
LAB APPROACH
Technique Description Example
Minilesson A minilesson (approximately 10 minutes) 1. Introduce a minilesson on story planning

is used to introduce the topic of the day by saying, “Today we’re going to talk about
and to provide practice on group goals, planning a story so that it will have all the
with the steps: important parts and be interesting for others
1. Introduce the topic (e.g., generating to read.”
story ideas, peer conferencing, or 2. Provide a counterexample by saying: “Here’s
author’s chair). my story—Someone had an accident. The end.”
2. Model the technique or skill and/or 3. Ask students to brainstorm what more they
provide counter-examples. would want to know and to give advice to
3. Facilitate student brainstorming to the teacher on how to make the story more
generate personal examples interesting.
4. Provide a handout and model use of 4. Provide a graphic organizer and model
a graphic organizer or other type of use of the story grammar template to fill in
guide (e.g., list of steps) to support the information about the characters, setting,
process. cause and type of accident, what the characters
5. Provide time for students to practice thought and did about it, and how the story
the process or skill taught in the turned out.
minilesson for the next 20–30 minutes, 5. Ask the students to think of a story idea in
with individualized scaffolding for which characters face a problem or challenge
students with SN. and have them work individually using their
story planners to make notes about parts of
their stories.
Dynamic Test-teach-retest sequences are used in 1. Assess: If a student has trouble generating a
Assessment one-on-one mediational interactions to story idea, ask, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
gauge students’ learning potential, with 2. Scaffold: If nothing is forthcoming, support
the steps: the student’s personal brainstorming about
1. Assess a student’s independent use of a problems he or she or a friend might have had;
targeted skill. once an idea is generated, ask questions and
2. Scaffold the student to use the new frame cues to support the student’s ability to
skill. think about the parts of the story represented
3. Reassess the student’s ability to in the story planner.
demonstrate the targeted skill 3. Reassess: Say, “I’m going to help some of the
independently. other students with their plans. How many
parts of the story do you think you can plan
while I’m gone?” (Then be sure to come back
and assess and celebrate independent work.)
Scaffolding The acronym SCAFFOLD represents
Start by commenting on the student’s good
the steps:
ideas and asking about ideas for a problem that
1. S tart with something the learner
might make a good story. This involves framing
knows.
cues, focusing on options, and providing
2. C
omment on cues that could help.
feedback to help the student evaluate story ideas.
3. A
sk questions that serve as guides,
It also involves encouraging ownership
not tests.

Table 20.1 CONTINUED
4. F
rame cues and focus the learner on for original ideas by listening attentively and
them. patiently, conveying confidence that the ideas will
5. F
eedback information to help the come. Follow the principle, “Don’t forget to take
learner. the scaffold down” step by leaving to help other
6. O
wnership is granted for original students before returning to assess the student’s
ideas. productivity.
7. L
isten and respond to the learner’s
message.
8. D
on’t forget to take the scaffold down.
Personal Personal minilessons provide explicit 1. A student’s work might reveal evidence of a
Minilesson instruction in areas of difficulty, with the gap in linguistic knowledge, such as limited
steps: awareness of the -ed pattern in regular
1. Identify areas of student need that are past-tense verbs (e.g. pickt for picked, scard for
ripe for intervention (based on story scared).
probes or ongoing observation). 2. Frame cues for the pattern, for example, by
2. Use a blank page in the author writing “past-tense -ed” at the top of a page (see
notebook to provide information, Figure 20.2) and creating two columns, with
demonstrate patterns, and frame cues one for simple present tense forms (e.g., Today
about the linguistic feature being I am walking) and past-tense inflections with
targeted. the -ed ending on the right (e.g., Yesterday I
3. Help the student construct additional walked).
examples to fit the pattern. 3. Model 2–3 items and scaffold the student to fill
4. Place minilesson page in the author in others, with increasing independence.
notebook for later reference and model 4. Watch for occasions to remind the student to
how to return to it when opportunities use the -ed ending; comment on spontaneous
arise to use the new skill in context. use and celebrate the new learning when it
becomes evident.
Peer Peer conferencing is used to teach active After modeling the process and selecting
Conferencing listening, critique of written products, peer conferencing pairs, adults stay in the
and skills for communicating in socially background as much as possible. As needed,
appropriate ways, using the steps: adults may prepare a more capable student to
1. Arrange the class to work in pairs. accept the role of peer partner for a student
2. One child in each pair reads from with SN by indicating that the student is being
a work in progress while the other selected for this role because of his or her
listens. skills in helping others. As needed, scaffold
3. The listener makes at least one the peer interaction by referring the pair to
comment about something he or she the minilesson handout on peer conferencing.
particularly likes and asks questions As needed, say, for example, “You made a nice
or makes suggestions about adding comment about what you liked about the story.
information or making other changes. Is there something else you would like to know
4. The roles of reader peer and listener about the main character? How could you ask
peer are reversed. about that?”
5. If time permits, authors make revisions
inspired by the peer conference.
Integr ating L anguage Assessment, Instruction, and Intervention [277]


Teacher Teacher conferencing includes the The teacher holds individual 5-minute
Conferencing following steps: conferences with students, scaffolding them to
1. Review curricular standards for the check off story structure components represented
targeted written product. in their stories and to proofread for punctuation.
2. Prepare a checklist of desired traits. When punctuation and capitalization are missing,
3. Schedule a session in which students the teacher frames cues to help students set goals
can take turns sitting for 5 minutes with to proofread more carefully to make sure their
the teacher and discussing which items sentences begin with a capital letter and end with
can be checked off. a period or question mark.
4. Scaffold the student to set personal
goals about what to do next based on
the teacher’s input.
Author’s Chair The author’s chair is used to heighten The teacher draws names of students from a can
students’ abilities to consider audience with popsicle sticks to pick students randomly for
needs, listen attentively, reflect critically, turns in the author’s chair. After several students
and share opinions appropriately. The ask about characters’ names and what they
steps include: look like, the teacher comments, “It seems like
1. Teach a minilesson in which the everyone wants to know characters’ names and
teacher models a counterexample, how they look; let’s think about other questions
hiding behind the paper, mumbling, we might ask that will help authors. For example,
and not looking at the audience. I like the word, terrified. It is an interesting word
2. Students brainstorm better ways to that tells how the boy felt when he crept into the
share their work, including the need for spooky basement.” Following this modeling by
a public voice (i.e., projecting so others the teacher, comment on the students’ comments
can hear). and questions that are more varied and helpful.
3. Students take turns sitting in the
author’s chair and reading portions of
their works-in-progress.
4. After reading, student authors select a
peer with hand raised to share a question
or comment about the selection.
5. Teachers and SLPs scaffold students to
make substantive comments that can
help authors improve their writing.
6. Other children are selected to take
turns in the author’s chair.
Author Each student receives a loose-leaf 3-ring In a computer lab minilesson on how to change
Notebook binder, with goals to foster organizational font options and sizes, students create original
skills and executive functions. Author cover sheets for their notebooks. As the semester
notebooks include sections such as: progresses, students add minilessons handouts
1. Writing lab schedule and new words and spellings to their personal
2. Personal goals dictionaries. All students have personal goals
3. Minilesson handouts written in “Kid Language” in a section of their
4. Personal minilessons pages notebooks. The SLP scaffolds students with SN to
5. Personal dictionary incorporate goals related to their Individualized
6. Works in progress Education Plans on their goal page. Periodically the
class is asked to open their notebooks and decide
what goal they can work on in a particular lesson.
Figure 20.1.
Materials Produced by April in the Personal Timeline Unit from the Social Studies Curriculum when
she was in grade 2. Top left is the information sheet sent home to be completed with parents. Top
right is the planning sheet April completed. Bottom left is an early draft of the timeline complete in a
computer lab session using Inspiration® software, with handwritten notes made during the following
session. Bottom right is the nearly finished product, produced by continuing to use the Inspiration®
software. Reprinted with permission from the child and parent (April is a pseudonym).
Other software features that can support phases of the writing process include
drawing tools, voice output for a digitized rereading of the student’s writing, and
spell-checkers, as well as editing features for cutting and pasting and moving text.
The writing lab approach includes minilessons and practice in how to use these
computer software features, with parallel attention to their cognitive-linguistic
demands and learning opportunities. For example, to use a spell checker effec-
tively, students must come close enough to the target word’s spelling that it will

appear in the list offered by the spell checker. Students also must be able to read
spelling alternatives and be able to recognize and select the correct choice when
it appears in the list. Additionally, they must have strategies for generating alterna-
tive spellings when the intended word is not in the list. Learning these processes
may require extended instruction and additional support for students with disabili-
ties. In another example, a speech-generating feature can be used to help a student
become aware of sentence boundaries. When a missing period causes the software
to “read” past a sentence boundary without pausing, for example, a student might
use that feedback to recognize the need for a period (full stop), first with scaffold-
ing, then without.
Inclusive instructional practices. The third major component of the writing
lab approach is the use of inclusive, individualized, collaborative practices. This
involves SLPs working closely with teachers to assess students’ strengths and needs,
establish individualized goals and objectives, and measure change. Both dynamic
assessment and written story probes are used to assist some of these functions, as
described later in this chapter.
Organization of Sessions within Units and Intervention

within Sessions
An example of the schedule for a typical hour-long writing lab session can
be drawn from a unit on how to write stories. Such a session begins with a
10-minute minilesson that demonstrates how to use a story grammar template
for planning a story. During the next 30 minutes, the students work individu-
ally on their story plans while teachers and SLPs move among them to support
their achievement of the session’s main goal (planning a story) while working
toward their individualized objectives (e.g., “will work independently for 5
minutes before seeking help”). The following 15 minutes of the session are
devoted to Author’s Chair activities in which students take turns sharing their
story plans and calling on classmates to ask questions and make comments
or suggestions. The last 5 minutes are used to print, hole-punch, and add the
new materials to the students’ Author Notebooks so they are available in the
following session.
Later in this unit, another class session is devoted to revising and editing. This
includes modeling how to reread one’s work and reflect on whether the story and
the individual sentences and word choices are communicating the way the author
intended. During the individual work time, intervention for a student with special
needs targets linguistic structure knowledge. Figure 20.2 provides an example of a
personal minilesson on the past tense -ed ending constructed to help April recog-
nize the pattern for this inflectional morpheme.

Figure 20.2.
Example of a personal minilesson support used while teaching the past-tense –ed. Reprinted with
permission from Shannon Emmons.
USING WRITTEN STORY PROBES TO ESTABLISH BASELINES, PLAN

INTERVENTION, AND MEASURE PROGRESS
Gathering Written Language Sample Probes
In the writing lab approach, plans are made and progress is monitored based on peri-
odic probes of students’ independent writing ability. Baseline probes are gathered in
the first writing lab session; the procedure is repeated midway through the school
year and at the end of the year. The instructions for this procedure are as follows:
Your job is to plan and write a story. Stories tell about a problem and what happens. The
problem doesn’t have to be something bad that someone did, but a problem they have to solve.
Your story can be real or imaginary.
After allowing about 5 minutes for planning on a piece of unlined paper, lined paper
is distributed and students have about 45 minutes to write their stories. As students
finish, adults (the teacher and clinician) move around the room to listen to students
Integr ating L anguage A ssessment, Instruction, and Intervention [281]

read their stories aloud, express interest, and add words that might be difficult to
discern from the child’s spelling. Adults do not correct students’ work, but students
may make changes that occur to them spontaneously (adults write notes to capture
these processes). When time is up, incomplete stories are marked “to be continued.”
Analyzing Written Story Probes
Story-probe analysis is a form of individualized, nonstandardized assessment that

is used to establish baseline levels of a student’s written language abilities and to
identify areas in need of instruction (for all students) and intervention (to address
an aspect of SN). When additional probes are gathered after intervention using the
same procedures, they can be used for progress monitoring. Analysis of periodic
story probes is guided by completing first a worksheet (Figure 20.3) and then a
summary and goal sheet (Figure 20.4).1 These tools serve as a guide for organizing
clinical and educational observations of writing processes and products, summariz-
ing the findings, and prioritizing areas for improvement (see Nelson & Van Meter,
2002).
The Writing Process and Product Worksheet and Writing

Assessment Summary and Goals
The Writing Process and Product Worksheet (Figure 20.3) is structured as a check-

list with room for making notes. It includes three major sections for recording
assessment data and examiner judgments of positive (+), negative (-), or emerging
(~) evidence of particular abilities. The top section is used for documenting the stu-
dent’s use of writing processes; the middle section for recording data from written
products at the discourse, sentence, and word levels, and for writing conventions;
and the bottom section for recording observations of spoken communication (con-
ducted within writing lab activities but outside of the story probe writing session).
The companion Writing Assessment Summary and Goals sheet (Figure 20.4) is
used to summarize the key strengths and needs from the checklist and to draft goals
to take advantage of the strengths and to address the needs.
Writing processes analysis. Direct observation of what a student does while
writing is necessary for a full representation of the student’s writing processes, but
constant observation of a particular student is difficult when the probe is gathered
in a whole classroom of 20–30 students. Some data about writing processes can
be gleaned from the written products—for example, a student might write a list,
begin a first draft on the planning paper, draw a picture, or use a graphic organizer.
Evidence of editing also can be observed on the student’s written product.
Discourse level analysis. Assessment at the discourse level includes scoring the
level of narrative maturity and observing use of cohesive devices (e.g., pronouns, verb

WRITING PROCESS AND PRODUCT WORKSHEET
Student Name April Teacher Ms. N School Grade 3
Birthdate _______ Age 8;10
Date of Sample January Sampling Activity Mid-year Story Writing Probe Observer
ASSESSING WRITING PROCESSES

Planning and Organizing Drafting Revising and Editing
Approaches writing tasks willingly - Refers to planning – Rereads work – Corrects
Arrives at topic independently - Proceeds quickly from start to finish grammar
Picture + Pauses periodically + Adds information ~ Corrects
_ Graphic organizer Type: ~ Revises along the way spelling
Dictation - Dependent on others for spelling – Rewords ideas – Corrects
+ Notes Wrote a list of ideas punctuation
– Clarifies references 5 # edits
– Reorganizes content
ASSESSING WRITTEN PRODUCTS
Figure 20.3.
Writing Process and Product Worksheet completed for April’s midyear grade-3 probe.
Discourse Level Sentence Level Word Level Conventions
Fluency T-units Word Choice Capitalization
95 Total # words (with title & 15 Total # T-units ~ Mature and interesting choices ~ Initial letter of sentence
“the end”) 6.33 # words/T-unit favorite, snack, scared ~ Titles ~ Proper nouns
6.33 # words/t-unit 3–12 range of T-unit length – Over-reliance on particular words
+ Usage errors End punctuation
Structural Organization Types of Sentences ~ Periods ___ Question marks
+ True to genre: narrative 0 # Simple incorrect Spelling Accuracy Puts period in middle of sentences.
Maturity level: 2, temporal (0%) 17 Incorrect/95 wds = 18% incorr Commas
sequence 8 # Simple correct (82% correct) ___ Divide series ___ Divide
(62%) clauses
Cohesion 1 # Complex incorrect Spelling developmental Stage
+ Clarity within sentences (7%) ___ Pre-phonetic b/d reversals Apostrophes
+ Clarity across text—links 4 # Complex correct Semi-phonetic (not all phonemes ___ Contractions ___ Possessives
ideas temporally; introduced (31%) represented)
Halloween candy early; brought 0 # run-on clauses (after 2 + Phonetic Quotation marks
it back in the last t-unit coor. conj.) ~ Transitional ___ Direct quotes
+ Pronoun reference cohesion ___ Conventional
First person; Refers to “snack” Variability Holaween/Halloween/holiween Formatting
then “it” + Varied sentence types scard/scared Paragraphs
+ Verb tense cohesion Over-reliance on a peaces/pieces ___
Consistent past tense particular construction learnd/learned (2Xs) Poetry/other__________________
pickt/picked Compared to last probe, now is
Sense of Audience Omitted past-tense–ed 4Xs thou/though clearly separating words.
– Title ~ End Brought the (spelled phonetically as “d” snak/snack
candy back. 3Xs and as “t” 1X) scool/school (3Xs)
~ Creative and original favrot/favorite
+ Relevant information kandy/candy (3Xs)
+ Adequate information
– Dialogue/Other literary
devices
ASSESSING SPOKEN LANGUAGE IN WRITING PROCESS CONTEXTS
Figure 20.3. Continued
Listening and Comprehension Manner Topic Maintenance Linguistic Skill
+ Situationally appropriate
+ Makes eye contact with + Articulates clearly ~ Organizes ideas adequately
~ Provides adequate information
speaker + Speaks fluently + Completes utterances
+ Asks relevant questions
+ Listens without interrupting + Uses natural prosody ~ Uses specific vocabulary
+ Shares opinions
~ Seeks clarification when + Appropriate eye gaze
needed (1:1) + ~ Reflects on own work and others’
Appropriate loudness
+ Engages in conversational turn-
+ Follows directions
taking
Key: + = clearly evident; independent ~ = partially evident; still needs scaffolding – = not yet emerging
Figure 20.3. Continued
WRITING ASSESSMENT SUMMARY AND GOALS
Student April Grade 3 Teacher Ms. N
OBSERVATIONS AND IMPRESSIONS GOALS AND BENCHMARKS

Writing Processes
Planning and organizing
Used a list to plan. Selected from April will use a graphic organizer for planning
among several story ideas. and will show her awareness of discourse
structure by incorporating a problem and at least
Drafting 2 other story components in her plan.
Paused along the way while drafting.
Revising and editing

Added information and made 5 word-level
edits, including some for spelling.
Written Products
Discourse level When drafting and revising, April will add
Told an action sequence story from going out components of causality and planning by her
on Halloween to the next day at school. She characters (to raise her story score from the
brought the topic back to Halloween at the end baseline action sequence to abbreviated episode).
when she mentioned having a snack of
April will increase the proportion of complex
Halloween candy after school.
correct sentences in her writing (from 30% to
Sentence level 50% or more) by incorporating more elements of
causality and complex description in her
Majority of sentences were [sc]. Also used 1 sentences.
[ci] and 4 [cc]. Used subordination (When I got
home I got to eat 5 pieces of candy) and relative April will show increased evidence of morpheme
clause embedding (My favorite thing I learned awareness by using derivational and inflectional
was math). morphemes in her spelling (used 0/4 occasions as
Word level baseline):
a. rereading and adding –ed with scaffolding
Spelled 82% of words correctly. Some b. adding–ed during revising with minimal
evidence of emerging orthographic awareness scaffolding
(e.g., peaces/pieces) but spelled –ed ending c. using –ed automatically while drafting
consistently phonetically (scard, learnd, pickt).
Conventions April will end 90% of declarative sentences with
Inconsistent use of capitalization and a period and begin the following sentences with a
punctuation. capital letter.
Oral Language
Writing process oral contexts
April will maintain organization of materials in
April is a cheerful child who communicates her Author Notebook.
actively with peers. She listens well and takes
turns in social groups. Doesn’t always express April will follow the structure of peer
herself in a well-organized manner. Has conferencing, taking turns, and making at least
difficulty organizing her materials one comment and asking one question about the
Genre specific work of a peer when conferencing or using the
Author Chair.
Follows directions well.
Figure 20.4.
Writing Assessment Summary and Goals sheet based on worksheet for April’s mid-year grade 3
probe shown in Figure 3.

Table 20.2 STORY PROBE SCORING CRITERIA FOR SELECTED FEATURES AT
THE DISCOURSE, SENTENCE, AND WORD LEVELS
Language Feature Code and Coding Criteria

Level: Ability Label
Discourse level: One or more pieces of information without connection or

Story Maturitya 1. Isolated description plot, also called “heaps.”
A “what next” story with actions or events linked temporally
2. Action sequence but without causality or planning on the part of characters.
May be called a “temporal sequence.”
Causal relationships are represented, but more as
3. Reactive sequence action-reaction than as a response to planning by the main
character(s) to deal with a problem.
A problem is clearly stated and planning to deal with the
4. Abbreviated episode
problem is implied but not explicit.
Story includes a clear beginning, with explicit statement of
a problem, planning and attempt to address the problem,
5. Complete episode
internal response to the outcome, some type of problem
resolution, and a clear ending.
6. Multiple complex or More than one complete episode is incorporated into the
embedded episodes story.
Sentence level: Sentence (T-unit) with a single verb phrase that includes a
[si] simple incorrect
Sentence Types morphosyntactic error (e.g., The boy putted the hat on [si].)
Sentence (T-unit) with a single verb phrase that includes no
[sc] simple correct
errors (e.g., The dog and cat got in a fight[sp]{fit} [sc].)
Sentence with more than one verb phrase and/or two T-units
combined with a coordinated conjunction (and, but, or, so),
[ci] complex incorrect
which includes at least one morphosyntactic error (e.g., He
start/*ed to find it, but he could [ci].).
Sentence with more than one verb phrase and/or two T-units
combined with a coordinated conjunction (and, but, or, so),
that includes no morphosyntactic errors (e.g., My favorite[sp]
[cc] complex correct {favrot} thing I learn/ed[sp] {learnd} was math [cc].). Note
that spelling errors are not considered in judging sentence
types, but that inflections must be represented at least
phonetically.
Run-on sentences are coded at every third T-unit in a string
when a child coordinates more than two T-units (e.g., He ran
and jumped, but he didn’t fall [cc], so [ro] he got up and he
[ro] run on
tried again [cc], but [ro] this time he made it [sc].) Note that
the presence of run-on codes does not influence judgments of
syntactic correctness.

Language Feature Code and Coding Criteria

Level: Ability Label
Word Level: /s Plural (e.g., piece/s)
Morpheme Codesb /z Possessive (e.g., kid/z)
/3s Third person singular (e.g., push/3s)
/ing Present progressive (e.g., push/ing)
/ed Regular past tense (e.g., push/ed)
Morpheme obligated by context, but missing. Morphemes
/*s, /*z, /*ed, /*ing are coded as present if they are represented phonetically, no
matter how they are spelled or punctuated.
Word Level: Meaningless letter or letter-like sequences e.g., takyskrp for “I
Prephonetic
Spellingc am coming”
Partial phonetic representation; letter-name strategies,
Semi-Phonetic
e.g., “ne” for any
Phonetic Representing all or most phonemes
Ortho-morpho-graphic representation of regular and
irregular orthographic patterns (e.g., silent –e rule, -ought,
Transitional
-ould) and bound morphemes, inflectional or derivational
(e.g., -ed, -ing, un-, re-)
Conventional Most words spelled correctly; may still be working on some
rules and less frequent patterns.
a
Story codes are based primarily on work by Hedburg and Westby (1993).
b
Morpheme coding conventions are those recommended for SALT by Miller and Chapman (2008).
c
Spelling codes are based primarily on Gentry’s (1982) description of additive developmental abilities.
tense, transition words, and author point of view). Indicators also are noted regarding
sense of audience, such as literary phrasing and the use of dialogue. To analyze story
maturity, we use a modification of a narrative scoring scheme suggested by Hedberg
and Westby (1993) based on Applebee (1978) and Stein and Glenn (1982).
Table 20.2 shows the coding conventions for using this scheme to assign story scores.
Additionally, we count the total number of words as a measure of productivity.
Sentence level analysis. At the sentence level, it is helpful to start by marking
syntactic units for analysis. We use T-unit divisions (standing for “Terminable unit”),
which were defined by Hunt (1965) as “One main clause plus the subordinate clauses
attached to or embedded within it” (p. 49). Hunt (1970) recommended T-unit divi-
sion to provide a standard unit of syntactic analysis for school-age children to avoid
overcrediting long “run-on” sentences, which may extend indefinitely, strung together
with coordinating conjunctions—and, but, or, so, and for. We have adopted this unit to
facilitate comparison across samples within and between students.
Once T-units are divided (i.e., marked with slash marks), we code sentences as
simple or complex and correct or incorrect, allowing a maximum of two coordinated

T-units to count as a complex/compound sentence. This results in four possible
sentence codes: simple incorrect [si], simple correct [sc], complex incorrect [ci],
and complex correct [cc]. The sentence codes are applied using criteria outlined in
Table 20.2.
As children become more sophisticated in their writing, their compositions
should comprise higher proportions of complex sentences (i.e., more sentences
coded as [ci] and [cc]), with a higher mean length of T-unit (MLTU), and fewer
syntactic errors (i.e., more sentences coded as [sc] and [cc]). This, however, is not
a straightforward linear progression. The constructive theoretical underpinnings of
the writing lab approach lead us to emphasize elaboration before correctness. Many
of the students with whom we have worked use oral language features of African
American English (see Nelson, 2010b), and some are English language learners.
Regardless of socio-linguistic diversity, it is a common strategy of early writers to
generate sentences orally and then transcribe them directly into print, resulting in
features of oral dialects appearing in writing. Although our long-term goals include
helping all students develop competencies in using standard edited English in their
compositions, more pressing early goals often are to develop the ability to commu-
nicate original ideas in written language, fueled by the motivation to do so.
Higher rates of complex incorrect sentences at some points may, in fact, indicate
that students are taking risks and attempting higher level syntactic forms to convey
more complex relationships. Noting this, Weaver (1982) recommended that teach-
ers should welcome errors as signs of growth. Similarly, a return to more frequent
use of simple correct sentences later in development can represent growth for some
students in learning to communicate clearly and use a variety of sentence types.
Keeping these caveats in mind, documenting students’ sentence types in their writ-
ten story probes can contribute to a picture of their growing linguistic competence
and highlight areas that might need to be targeted in intervention.
Word level analysis. At the word level, we are interested in evidence of the stu-
dent’s knowledge of both word meaning and word structure. A good quantitative
measure of word knowledge is word diversity, measured as the number of different
words a student incorporates into a story. Because such counts are difficult to make
by hand, this measure does not appear on the worksheet. Computer programs, such
as Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT; Miller & Chapman, 2008),
make it fairly easy, however, to count numbers of different word roots. Using SALT,
we also code for spelling errors, although this could be done as easily by hand.
Entering word roots spelled correctly and with bound morphemes slashed off (e.g.,
piece/s), while retaining the student’s original spelling in brackets (as illustrated in
Figure 20.5) is important to ensure the software will not count misspelled words or
inflected words as different words.
When coding word-level features by hand, examiners look for examples of
mature and interesting word choices. During writing lab instruction and interven-
tion activities, commenting on interesting word choices is used to heighten stu-
dents’ attention to the communicative value of strong word choices, which can

Figure 20.5. TRANSCRIPT OF APRIL’S MIDYEAR GRADE-3 PROBE CODED
FOR ANALYSIS WITH THE COMPUTER SOFTWARE, SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF
LANGUAGE TRANSCRIPTS (SALT; MILLER & CHAPMAN, 2008).
$ CHILD, EXAMINER
+ Name: April
+ Gender: F
+ Probe No: 4
+ DOE: January 21
+ CA: 8;10
+ Plan: [list]
+ Edits: 5
+ Story: 2
C On Halloween[sp]{holaween} it was dark at first [sc].
C I was scare/ed[sp]{scard}.
C But I got use[sp]{usse} to it [cc].
C It was fun though[sp]{thou}[sc].
C I got a lot of candy[sp]{kandy} [sc].
C When I got home I got to eat five piece/s[sp][peaces] of candy[sp]{kandy} [cc].
C When I was done I had to go to bed.
C so I can go to school[sp]{scool} [ci].
C I learn/ed[sp]{learnd} a lot [sc].
C My favorite[sp]{favrot} thing I learn/ed[sp]{learnd} was math [cc].
C It was a lot of fun [sc].
C then school[sp]{scool} was over [sc].
C My mom pick/ed[sp][pickt] me up from school[sp][scool] [sc].
C When I got home I got a snack[sp][snak] [cc].
C It was candy[sp][kandy] from Halloween[sp][holiween] [sc].
sensitize them to attend to new vocabulary in their environment and contribute to

their overall vocabulary development.
Students’ spelling is analyzed as a window into the student’s knowledge of word
structure and spelling conventions. This analysis involves making a list of misspelled
words, along with the correctly spelled targets, on the worksheet (see Figure 20.3)
to reveal patterns that may illuminate a child’s developing word-structure knowl-
edge (Apel & Masterson, 2001; Bourassa & Treiman, 2001). However, in analyzing
the spelling of original written story probes, the examiner should remain aware that
the spelling in these texts reflects the nature of the words a student has chosen to
write. Some students limit their word choices to those they know how to spell in an
apparent effort to reduce the risk of making errors. During intervention sessions,
we encourage students not to do this, but to focus on word meaning first as they
are getting their ideas on paper (or in the computer), with the reminder that we will
help them correct their spelling as they revise and edit.

Apel and Masterson (2001) suggested a multilevel strategy for analyzing stu-
dents’ spelling patterns. This includes looking for evidence that students are using
their knowledge of phonemic awareness (representation of phonemes one perceives,
e.g., sop/stop); the alphabetic principle (that letters in English represent speech
sounds and letters have names different from their sounds); orthographic knowledge
(including phonics knowledge for converting phonemes to graphemes and vice
versa, association of letter patterns with spoken syllables, and orthotactic knowl-
edge about positional constraints, e.g., -ck at the end of words); morphemic knowl-
edge (both inflectional and derivational); and mental graphemic representations (i.e.,
the ability to retrieve holistic images of orthographic patterns).
In the early grades, we have found it helpful to observe evidence that a child
might be using a developmental strategy. Our coding scheme, which draws pri-
marily on developmental progressions suggested by Gentry (1982), is outlined in
Table 20.2. April’s spellings listed on the sample worksheet in Figure 20.3 show
her to be using phonetic strategies (e.g., scard and kandy), accompanied by emerg-
ing transitional orthographic knowledge of spelling patterns, such as “ee” (in holi-
ween) and “ea” (in peaces). She, however, was not yet demonstrating morphological
knowledge for spelling word endings, such as –ed.
Writing convention analysis. Writing conventions include capitalization, punc-
tuation, and paragraph indentation. Evidence of their use (or misuse) can convey infor-
mation about the student’s knowledge of text structure, sentence structure, and types
of nouns (e.g., proper nouns are capitalized in English, but common nouns are not).
When a student has a language disorder, we typically focus on other linguistic areas
before working on writing conventions. We have observed some interesting patterns,
however, that offer insights about a student’s conceptions about language, such as when
a student uses a period at the end of every line of text or seems to insert periods purely
at random. Such evidence suggests areas that may be ripe for personal minilessons.
Using Story Probes to Document Baselines, Plan Intervention, and

Monitor Progress
The Writing Assessment Summary and Goals sheet that appears in Figure 20.4 shows
goals written to address April’s discourse and morphosyntax needs that were evident
in her midyear grade 3 story on “Halloween” that is coded in Figure 20.5. In writing
this story, April seemed to be using a temporal strategy of asking, What’s next? This
resulted in a story lacking many of the features of a more mature narrative and led it to
be judged as a level 2, action sequence. Targeting the next higher levels on the narrative
scale (see Table 20.2), a goal was written for April to add elements of causality, which
might be scaffolded by asking, for example, “I wonder why that happened.” The goal
also incorporated the next higher level, which would require her to write about her
characters’ plans to address their problems or challenges, such as feeling scared.

On the sentence level, we noted that April was beginning to use adverbial
“When” clauses to form complex sentences with subordination, but that she could
use increased sentence-structure variety. On the word level, we noted that she was
using phonetic rather than morphemic strategies to spell regular past-tense -ed,
inflectional morphemes. This was apparent in the two times she spelled learned as
learnd, the one time she spelled scared as scard, and the one time she spelled picked
as pickt. Therefore, another goal was written for her to demonstrate morphological
awareness by rereading and adding any missing -ed endings, first during the editing
process with scaffolding, then independently, and finally, automatically while draft-
ing. This led to a personal minilesson, as illustrated in Figure 20.2.
Figure 20.6 shows the story April wrote at the end of her grade-3 year, follow-
ing these interventions, about cats babysitting. Her story was creative and included
a number of literary features (e.g., “Once upon a time”) and phrasing, such as when
the mother cat “set out to look for a job.” This story maintained some of the flavor of
the action sequence she had written in her prior probe but added causal reactivity and
implied planning on the part of the father and mother cats, when they left to look for
food and a job. Thus, the new probe met criteria for a level 4, abbreviated episode. In this
story, April also showed evidence of having integrated her morphological knowledge
of the -ed ending on the three required occasions (tucked, coocked, and called). In these
examples, she showed growing orthotactic awareness. That was evident in her consis-
tent use of the -ck spelling in loock and coock, which she appeared to have overgeneral-
ized from patterns of –ick and –ack. This could be addressed by showing the contrast
explicitly in a subsequent personal minilesson by helping her list words following the
two different patterns (e.g., pick, pack, lick compared with book, took, look).
Figure 20.6.
April’s year-end grade-3 probe. Reprinted with permission from the child and parent.

Table 20.3 THE QUANTITATIVE RESULTS FROM STORY PROBES PRODUCED
BY APRIL ACROSS GRADES 2 AND 3
Grade 2 Grade 3
Mid-Year Final Beginning Mid-Year Final

Probe Probe Probe Probe Probe
Total Words 17 23 124 95 123

Different Words 16 17 57 44 74
MLTU 4.25 7.67 10.33 6.33 8.20
Story Score 1 2 1 2 4
Spelling Errors [sp] 12 5 42 17 20
(% wds spelled correctly) (30%) (78%) (66%) (82%) (84%)
Sentence Codes (% total)
Simple Incorrect [si] 3 0 0 0 0
(75%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
Simple Correct [sc] 0 0 0 8 3
(0%) (0%) (0%) (62%) (30%)
Complex Incorrect [ci] 1 0 4 1 0
(25%) (0%) (57%) (7%) (0%)
Complex Correct [cc] 0 2 3 4 7
(0%) (100%) (43%) (31%) (70%)
Note: MLTU = Mean Length of T-Unit.
Table 20.3 summarizes the quantitative data from stories April produced across
the five probes during the two years she participated in writing lab activities. The
high productivity level and exceptional number of words in the beginning probe in
the fall of grade 3 was related to April’s listing format for careers she might pursue.
That earlier probe story included sentences with verb phrase lists, which inflated
her MLTU. An example (with spelling corrected) was “I like to give them a bath,
and I like to put on their clothes and do their hair and put them to sleep and play
with them and dance with them and read a book to them.” This sentence highlights
the need for caution when interpreting quantitative data about any one feature in
isolation of consideration of trade-offs it might represent. Qualitative assessment is
an important adjunct to quantitative counts of linguistic features in order to gain a
complete picture of an individual student’s strengths and needs.
DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT AND INDIVIDUALIZED SCAFFOLDING

Dynamic Assessment
Feuerstein (1979) introduced the concept of dynamic assessment as a

test-teach-retest sequence to be used as part of instrumental enrichment activities
to teach higher level cognitive skills to children with learning difficulties. Dynamic

assessment also has been described as an interactive approach for evaluating learn-
ing potential (Campione & Brown, 1987) and supporting learning (Lidz & Elliott,
2000). The processes of dynamic assessment involve three phases: (1) assessment
of a child’s ability to perform a particular task independently, (2) providing media-
tional scaffolds based on the observation of the student’s strengths and needs as the
student attempts similar tasks, and (3) reassessing changes in the student’s ability
to perform the task based on rates of change and maintenance of new skills when
instructional supports are removed. Dynamic assessment is used to identify a stu-
dent’s current levels of performance and to generate insights into how a student’s
mind works in order to decide how best to help that student construct new and
enriched knowledge.
Mediational Scaffolding
Bruner (1975, 1986) introduced the concept of scaffolding as a metaphor for

adult mediation of children’s learning by using strategic questions and framing
cues to help them construct more mature mental models and skills. The removal
of literal scaffolds after using them as a support to reach higher places is meta-
phoric for the systematic withdrawal of mediational supports and assessing
whether the child retains the ability to demonstrate the new knowledge or skill
independently.
As summarized in Table 20.1, intervention scaffolding involves the use of
questions as guides, not tests, and framing cues and focusing students’ atten-
tion in ways that can support constructive learning (Nelson, 2010a; Nelson
et al., 2004). In a writing lab approach, SLPs scaffold the language/literacy
learning of students with disabilities while they work on their curricular prod-
ucts. As necessary, they use personal minilessons to provide explicit instruc-
tion to meet a student’s individualized objective. This could involve explicit
instruction using a page from the student’s Author Notebook to frame cues for
a particular linguistic element or pattern, such as an orthographic pattern for
a word family (e.g., fight, might, right, light) or the -ed ending, as illustrated in
Figure 20.2.
EVIDENCE FROM STORY PROBES FOR CHANGE WITHIN A

WRITING LAB APPROACH
Story-probe data can be used to examine changes at the group level as well as
for individual students. To offer evidence of change for students in a writing lab
approach, results are reported here for 152 students in grades 2, 3, and 4 who
participated in writing lab activities for at least half a school year. Table 20.4 sum-
marizes the demographic characteristics of the students whose story probe data

were complete within a grade level. Group results were complete for original story
probes for 32 grade 2 students (6 Special Needs, SN; 26 Typically developing, TL)
at two points in the school year (midyear and year end); for 77 grade-3 students (19
SN; 58 TL) at three points (beginning, midyear, and year end); and for 43 grade-4
students (SN = 4; TL = 39) at two points (beginning year and midyear).
Test-retest reliability, calculated on stories produced one week apart by 11 stu-
dents in grade 3 showed significant correlations (p < .05) for all measures except
MLTU, as follows: story scores, r = .696 (p = .017); MLTU, r = .528 (p < .095);
number of different words, r = .892 (p < .0001); total words, r = .877 (p < .0001);
and spelling errors, r = .876 (p < .0001). These results support a conclusion of
acceptable test-retest reliability in the story probe measure.
Inter-rater agreement between two trained graduate students was high for T-unit
division (96%), number of different words (99.7%), total words (99.9%), and total
sentences (89.4%). Levels of agreement for sentence level codes were lower, how-
ever, ranging from 56% to 70%. In earlier work (e.g., Nelson & Van Meter, 2007),
we reported similar results for inter-rater reliability, with all coding above 92%
agreement except sentence-type coding, which ranged from 68% for [si] to 75%
Table 20.4 DEMOGRAPHICS OF STUDENTS IN GRADES 2, 3, AND 4 WHO

WERE PRESENT FOR ALL STORY PROBES
Sex Race/ Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4

Ethnicity
Special Typical Special Typical Special Typical
Needs Needs Needs
Female C 1 SLI 3 1 ASD 10 1 RISK 10

1 EI
1 S-LI
B 1 RISK 11 1 LLD 19 12
1 RISK
H 1 1 LLD 2 2
2 S-LI
A
Male C 1 LLD 5 1 EI 11 2

1 RISK 3 LLD
1 S-LI 1 RISK
2 S-LI
B 1 RISK 6 2 LLD 12 2 LLD 8
2 RISK 1 RISK
H 2 2
A 1
Total 6 26 19 58 4 39
Note: C = Caucasian; B = Black (African American); H = Hispanic (any race); A = Asian; ASD = Autism Spectrum
Disorder; EI = Emotional Impairment; LLD = Language-learning Disability; S-LI = Speech or Language Impaired;
RISK = struggling but not identified as having a disability.

for [cc]. These results support the inter-rater reliability for all measures except sen-
tence types, suggesting need for caution when interpreting results based on those
measures, which apparently require more training and linguistic expertise to use
reliably, although they still may have clinical utility.
Separate repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted at each grade level for
each measure, and, when change over time was signficant, post-hoc paired t-tests
were conducted separately for the SN and TL groups to examine whether the effect
sizes were comparable for the two groups. Calculation of Cohen’s d effect sizes
(Cohen, 1988) incorporated the correlation between means in the within-subjects
design (Morris & DeShon, 2002). The effect sizes, which are expressed in stan-
dard deviation units, can be interpreted using Cohen’s criteria as small (.20–.49),
medium (.50–.79), and large (>.80).
Discourse-Level Changes
The effect of change over time for story scores was significant at grade 2 (F[1, 30] =
6.847, p = .014) and grade 3 (F(2, 150) = 27.111, p = .0001). The difference between
groups (TL and SN) was significant at grade 3 (F(1, 75) = 9.334, p = .003). Larger
effect sizes were found for students with SN at grades 2 (d = 1.28) and 3 (d = 1.25)
than for students with TL (d = .80 and .65, respectively), suggesting that they
may have benefitted additionally from the individualized attention they received
from the SLPs and were catching up with their peers in the area of story grammar
maturity.
Changes over time in the total number of words produced was significant at all
grade levels: grade 2 (F(1, 30) = 6.613, p = .015); grade 3, (F(2, 150) = 4.707, p = .010);
and grade 4 (F(1, 41)= 4.095, p = .050). Grade 2 students with SN showed a large
effect for growth in total words (d = 1.01), whereas the effect for students with
TL was moderate (d = .78), again suggesting that the students with SN may have
benefitted additionally from the individualized attention and were moving closer to
their peers. Small-to-moderate but comparable effect sizes were found for students
with SN and TL at grades 3 (d = .41 and .35, respectively) and 4 (d = .57 and .60,
respectively).
Sentence-Level Changes
Analysis of sentence-type data revealed significant main effects for increases

over time for complex correct [cc] sentences at grade 2 (F(1, 30) = 4.550,
p = .041) and grade 3 (F(2, 150) = 5.862, p = .004). The effect sizes for the [cc]
sentences at grade 2 were small for students with SN (d = .44) and moderate
for students with TL (d = .66), whereas at grade 3, they were moderate for the
students with SN (d = .77) and small for students with TL (d = .37), suggesting

a lag, but progress in this developing ability for the students with SN. Change
over time for simple correct [sc] sentences was significant at grade 4 (F(1, 41) =
8.996, p = .005), with an extremely high effect size for the four students with
SN (d = 11.92), who had a mean of 2.75 [sc] sentences at time one (SD = 2.06)
and 8.0 at time two (SD = 7.79), with a correlation of .996; whereas a moderate
effect was found for the 39 students with TL (d = .57), who earned [sc] means
of 2.74 (SD = 3.19) at time one and 5.59 (SD = 4.44) at time two, with a cor-
relation of .141.
The effect for change over time for MLTU was not significant at any grade, but
the difference between groups was significant at grade 3 (F(1, 75) = 12.030, p = .001).
The lack of change in MLTU within grade levels raises questions about the useful-
ness of MLTU as a measure of progress or the ability of the writing lab approach to
influence this skill. More explicit interventions, such as personal minilessons in sen-
tence combining, might be needed to foster the development of syntactic embed-
ding and subordinating for students with SN (see Saddler & Graham, 2005). It may
also be the case that longer sentences with more embedding are not always better,
particularly when students write stories.
Word-Level Changes
Word diversity, measured as the number of different words, increased significantly

over time at all grades: grade 2 (F(1, 30) = 7.268, p = .011), grade 3 (F(2, 150) = 11.816,
p = .0001), and grade 4 (F(1, 41) = 7.346, p = .010). The difference between groups
(SN and TL) was significant at grade 3 (F(1, 75) = 4.756, p = .032). Grade 2 students
with SN and TL both showed large effects for change in the number of different
words (d = 1.20 and .88, respectively); grade 3 students in SN and TL groups both
showed moderate effects (d = .70 and .57, respectively); and grade 4 students with
SN showed a large effect (d = .89), whereas the effect for those with TL was moder-
ate (d = .69), again suggesting differential benefit from the additional scaffolding
from the SLPs for the students with SN.
Increases in the percentage of words spelled correctly over time were signifi-
cant at grade 3 (F(2, 150) = 6.428, p = .011) and grade 4 (F(1, 41) = 19.233, p = .0001).
Additionally, group differences were significant at grade 3 (F(1, 75) = 5.897,
p = .021) and grade 4 (F(1, 41) = 5.231, p = .027), and there was a significant inter-
action effect for group-by-time in grade 3 (F(2, 150) = 3.524, p = .032). It reflects
a dip in spelling correctness at mid-year for the students with SN (when they
were attempting more different words), but a steeper trajectory in the last half
of the school year, when they moved closer to their TL peers in both number
of different words and proportion of correctly spelled words. Grade 2 students
with SN showed a moderate effect for change in the proportion of words spelled
correctly (d = .56), whereas the students with TL showed no effect (d = .05);
at grade 3, the effect was small (d = .34) for students with SN, but moderate

(d = .55) for students with TL; at grade 4, the effect size was large for both stu-
dents with SN (d = 1.03) and TL (d = 1.02).
The results in the area of spelling were of particular interest because this is an
area of unusual difficulty for many students with language/literacy disabilities
(Apel & Masterson, 2001; Silliman & Berninger, 2011). At grade 2, when all chil-
dren appeared to be gaining a grasp on spelling, there were no group differences
and no significant changes over time. In both grades 3 and 4, however, group differ-
ences and changes in spelling accuracy over time were significant. The large effect
sizes at grade 4 for students with SN (d = 1.03) and TL (d = 1.02) suggested that
this age may offer a developmentally optimal point for instruction in contextualized
spelling.
Cautions Based on Study Limitations
Several caveats are in order when considering the meaning of these results as evi-
dence for best practice. The data were gathered over multiple years of implementing
the writing lab approach in different grades and classrooms, and not as part of a tightly
controlled randomized trial. Therefore, they can provide only weak evidence of the
effectiveness of the writing lab approach to promote language/literacy growth. It is
important, however, to see that gaps were not widening, and even to see evidence of
narrowing at some points, between the students with SNs and their TL peers.
Another limitation is related to the small numbers of children with special needs
in these analyses. Although many more children with special needs participated in
the writing lab classrooms than are included in these data, these analyses were per-
formed only on complete data sets. Some children with severe disabilities at grades 2
and 3 were unable to produce enough written language independently for their work
to be analyzed in the initial samples, although many were producing text indepen-
dently later in the school year. Keeping in mind such limitations, the results of these
analyses offer some support for a conclusion that students with special needs can
benefit from a writing lab approach alongside their peers with TL when they have
support from language intervention specialists targeting their individualized needs.
CONCLUSION
Comprehensive assessment and treatment of written language probes requires a

mixture of methods and a collaborative approach between general and special edu-
cators and SLPs. Original data reported in this chapter support the use of periodic
story probes and individualized dynamic assessment to guide intervention. The
writing lab approach offers a means for targeting multiple levels (sound, word, sen-
tence, discourse) of written language that can help students with SN improve their
abilities to achieve authentic academic and communicative goals.

AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND DISCLOSURE
Nelson receives royalties from the book, The Writing Lab Approach to Language
Instruction and Intervention (Nelson, Bahr, & Van Meter, 2004; Paul H. Brookes
Publishing Co., Inc.) and acknowledges the contributions of colleagues Christine
M. Bahr and Adelia M. Van Meter and numerous teachers, graduate assistants, and
students in developing the writing lab approach. That work was supported by grant
number 324R980120 from the U. S. Department of Education, Office of Special
Education Programs. During preparation of this chapter, Nelson received support
from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through
Grant R324A100354 to Western Michigan University. The opinions expressed
are those of the author, however, and do not represent views of the Institute of
Education Sciences or the U.S. Department of Education.
NOTE
1. Forms can be downloaded from http://www.wmich.edu/speech-audiology/wlop/
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CHAPTER 21
Integrating Oral and Written Language

into a New Practice Model
Perspectives of an Oral Language Researcher
EL AINE R . SILLIM AN
T his volume on writing development and instruction comes at an auspicious

time for researchers and practitioners alike. First, writing is assuming increased
prominence in students’ education in the United States. It is far from secret that,
today, most U.S. students fail to write well enough to meet grade-level require-
ments, especially in their writing of informational discourse1 (Graham, Harris, &
Hebert, 2011). Writing ability that is consistently underdeveloped has also been
found for students in elementary and middle school (Berninger & Abbott, 2010).
This state of affairs is partially attributed to the diminishing experiences that stu-
dents have with spoken and written informational discourse at school and home
during their preschool and primary grade years (Beers & Nagy, 2009; Yopp & Yopp,
2006). In fact, Graham et al. (2011) warn that, unless evidence-based transforma-
tions in instructional practices take place, continued writing inadequacies bode
negatively for the future educational and career choices of U.S. students, if not the
country’s common good.
Second, this volume is one of the first cross-linguistic compendiums dedicated
to the writing challenges of students with language learning disability (LLD),2 as
well as other student groups struggling with written expression.
The chapter focuses on the relevance of informational discourse for academic
and vocational success. From an academic perspective, informational writing serves
as a medium for developing a critical stance towards ideas in the disciplines that
students are expected to master (Graham & Perin, 2007). At the heart of academic
learning, then, is mastery of disciplinary specific discourses that are manifested in
deeper ways of evaluating and expressing ideas and opinions, processes that can
become treacherous for many students with LLD. Command of these multilayered
linguistic and discourse patterns across disciplinary domains defines academic
language proficiency (Wilkinson & Silliman, 2008) or linguistic literacy (Ravid &
Tolchinsky, 2002). At the same time, facility with academic language likely affirms
the social identity of oneself as a competent learner who has full access to the
learning communities that comprise schooling (Danzak & Silliman, this volume).
Informational writing also serves many practical vocational functions (Berninger.
Garcia, & Abbott, 2009). An example might be a speech-language pathologist’s
report that is crafted for parents and other professionals. Little is known about
whether and how skills with academic informational writing translate into voca-
tionally specific writing abilities particularly in this era of digital technologies
(Berninger et al., 2009).
The chapter’s purpose is to call for a new model of practices framed by inter-
connecting clinical and developmental patterns on informational writing with
new educational standards, accomplished through broadened understanding of
academic language or the disciplinary discourses. Addressed first are the charac-
teristics of written informational discourse, including types of text organizations,
topic development, and its lexical and syntactic density in academic language. The
rationale and components of a new practice model are then outlined.
FEATURES OF INFORMATIONAL DISCOURSE: CLINICAL AND

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Text Organization
Types of Text Organization
A major distinction between narrative and informational discourse resides in text

organization. Whereas narrative discourse structure centers on interpersonal rela-
tionships, causal event chains that emphasize action, and a consistent, time-based
order, informational discourse is concerned with facts, ideas, and opinions (Westby,
2005). Moreover, informational discourse is not time based, but structured by
the type of text organization (Berman & Nir-Sagev, 2007), such as description,
sequence/chronological, compare-contrast, problem-solution, cause-effect, and
enumeration/listing (Meyer & Poon, 2001). However, naturally constructed com-
positions in more mature writers are usually an amalgamation of two or more of
these structures, sometimes within the same paragraph (Meyer & Poon, 2001),
contributing to the greater difficulty that many students encounter in processing
informational discourse (Williams et al., 2005). What is of consequence is that pre-
school children are sensitive to some of these informational discourse structures in
the oral domain, such as rudimentary descriptions and causality, even before they

can read or write in a conventional way (Westby, 2005; Williams et al., 2005). These
basic informational discourse schemas then have to be progressively reworked in
new ways at new levels as children experience the informational discourses of the
academic register.
Informational Genre Development
To date, no informational writing studies have been conducted on how students

with LLD process the various informational genres, much less the difficulty they
may encounter in composing these genres in writing tasks. A study by Beers and
Nagy (2011) is potentially instructive in this regard. In a longitudinal study assess-
ing syntactic complexity of the descriptive, compare-contrast, and persuasive
genres from grades 1 to 7, Beers and Nagy found that, at a text level, students from
grade 3 onward had developed schemas for these genres. However, their commu-
nicative efforts in writing were compromised by limited knowledge of more literate
syntactic constructions, a finding that may reflect in part the lack of comprehen-
siveness in “the instructional approaches used to teach writing in different genres”
(Beers & Nagy, 2011, p. 199). This limitation in syntactic options that many typi-
cally developing students have available potentially affects, in a less than positive
way, how findings are interpreted from writing assessments of students with LLD.
Topic Development
Most of the research on informational writing has been concerned with patterns
of school writing and the implementation of strategy instruction to improve the
self-regulation of struggling writers, including those with learning disabilities (LD)
(for a meta-analysis of strategy instruction in LD, see Graham & Perin; 2007; also
see Graham & Harris, 2009). There is less research on the development of top-
ics and subtopics in informational writing. In a similar vein, minimal research is
available on the developmental trajectories of informational writing, including
boundaries of normal individual differences. Both aspects are surprising voids that
significantly impact on generating individual profiles of the informational writing
of students with LLD.
The chapter by Hayes and Berninger (this volume) provides a major step, as
does the work of Hayes (2011), in extending an evidence-based model of writing
processes that interconnects multiple levels of language with topic development in
informational writing (see Berninger, 2009; Berninger & Winn, 2006; Berninger
et al., 2010). The levels of language concept refers to how “complex, multidimen-
sional language is structured in the mind and in the language construction of users”
(Abbott, Berninger, & Fayol, 2010, p. 281), and the ways these levels are continu-
ously synchronized to understand and use language, both spoken and written, in
I ntegr ati ng Or al & Wr itten L a nguage i nto a Ne w Pr acti ce Model [303]

proficient ways. The three phases of knowledge-telling that Hayes and Berninger
present add to the clinical literature in an important way. The model allows new
questions to be generated at the text or macrostructure level about the domain, dis-
course, and strategy knowledge that students with LLD of various ages and abilities
may or may not apply when constructing authentic informational texts over time.
Questions might include how topic development in the discourse of science versus
language arts changes over time in students with LLD with and without explicit
instruction in: (a) understanding varying text structures and (b) strategy use when
sufficient domain knowledge is available and they are supported appropriately to
produce more topically complex schemas in their compositions (see the Hayes and
Berninger chapter 1 for a continuum of topic development in knowledge telling).
The model also offers a more integrated approach to examining where and when
breakdowns in different kinds of writing may happen (at the resource level, the
writing process level, and/or the control process level) given the social variables
that influence how, when, and what is written.
Lexical-Syntactic Density
As the Beers and Nagy (2009) study indicates, a critical feature of informational
discourse at the linguistic level is the increased interface between more complex
vocabulary and syntax. This complicated interweaving of the multiple levels of lan-
guage results in greater lexical-syntactic density, for example, as found in academic
language.
Emerging Development of Syntactic Density
In a large study of two cohorts followed from grades 1 to 7, all of whom were typi-
cally developing, Berninger, Nagy, and Beers (2011) were interested in changing
relationships among sentence writing, sentence-combining, and syntactic aware-
ness. By grade 1, the majority of children could write a complete sentence with-
out grammatical errors, suggesting that some degree of syntactic awareness had
emerged for the sentence as a unit as well as grammatical knowledge about relation-
ships among sentential parts. Grade 4 appeared transitional for informational writ-
ing tasks that involved two transcription modes (handwriting and keyboarding).
At this time point, the ability to combine at least two sentences (an independent
clause with an embedded dependent clause) became more frequent, more so by
handwriting than keyboarding. It appears, then, that the first glimmers of written
syntactic density occur when children demonstrate the ability to rework syntactic
structures to express themselves in a more succinct way through sentence com-
bining (see the cross-linguistic narrative study by Reilly et al., this volume, which

provides exploratory evidence for the effect that the native language has on prefer-
ences for generating written sentence complexity).
Knowledge about syntactic density in LLD comes from two studies of oral
informational discourse of adolescents followed since kindergarten (Nippold,
Mansfield, Billow, & Tomblin, 2008, 2009). The clause (subordination) complex-
ity of typically developing adolescents and the group with LLD did not differ; how-
ever, the two groups did differ in terms of the mean length of clause. The group
with LLD produced shorter clauses, a strategy that might reflect the need to save
face by avoiding the expression of “too much” complexity (Tuller, Henry, Sizaret,
& Barthez, 2012). Clearly, more needs to be known, including how students with
LLD manage the lexical and syntactic densities of academic language.
Syntactic Density of Academic Language
Despite marked variations in the content of the disciplinary discourses, such as

science, mathematics, history, and literature, all share the lexical, syntactic, and
discourse features that pattern information as “more technical, dense, abstract,
and complex” (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 596). Consider this grade 8 sci-
ence writing task, which requires both reading and writing as do most school tasks
(Berninger, 2009; Graham & Hebert, 2010), and is likely typical of many state test-
ing practices in the United States to evaluate writing achievement. There are but
three sentences, all complex, that formulate the task:
Hipparchus, an astronomer in ancient Greece, proposed an Earth-centered model of the

solar system. In this model, the Sun, Earth’s moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn not only traveled around earth, but also traveled in small circles called “epicycles.”
Explain how our current understanding of the solar system differs from Hipparchus’s
Earth-centered solar system. (Florida Department of Education, 2009, p. 38)
An analysis of the three sentences demonstrates how multiple levels of language

interconnect as the architecture for expressing complex scientific concepts in this
particular instance. At the text level, the passage blends text structure like many infor-
mational texts in science and other content areas. The structure is primarily descrip-
tive until the third sentence where readers must now infer that a compare-contrast
structure is being requested as the written explanatory format. Shifting to the
lexical and syntactic levels, there are domain general meanings (ancient, proposed,
system, etc.) and meanings specific to astronomy concepts (astronomer, epicycles,
earth-centered) (two derivations and a compound). However, both kinds of mean-
ings are conveyed, not by formed-based subordinated clauses, but through complex
elaborated noun phrases (NP) (Eisenberg et al., 2008; Ravid & Berman, 2010; see
also Danzak & Silliman, this volume), which emphasize content.

■ Sentence 1: This independent clause consists of a NP postmodification via
appositive (an astronomer in ancient Greece) of the subject, followed by a NP pre-
modification (an Earth-centered model) plus postmodification (of the solar sys-
tem) of the object. Furthermore, both NPs have some degree of internal depth
since each has additional nodes beyond the head nouns (Ravid & Berman,
2010) (ancient Greece, solar system).
■ Sentence 2: The second sentence, a coordinate (independent) clause, is com-
prised by a multipart (enumerative) subject NP (Sun, Earth’s moon, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn), a complex correlative conjunctive (not only. . . but also), and
a reduced passive (called epicycles).
■ Sentence 3: The question also consists of an independent clause encased
in the imperative form (explain), which must be reinterpreted as an inter-
rogative. Complexity is further evident in the use of “how,” which functions
as a stand-in (a pro-adverb) for an adverbial (dependent) clause (Quirk,
Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985), as well as an embedding of a NP pre-
modification (our current understanding) and postmodification (of the solar
system) in the subject of the nominal object clause. Finally, there is a NP
pre-modification (Hipparchus’s Earth-centered solar system) in the object of
this clause. As with the sentence 1 occurrence, these NPs have internal depth
(Ravid & Berman, 2010).
This passage represents a text pattern common to the science register whereby
long noun phrases function to present ideas introduced in one sentence, which
are then re-represented as a subject noun phrase of the next sentence (Fang,
Schleppegrell, & Moore, 2014). This emphasis on content as the syntactic vehi-
cle for constructing complexity, rather than the use of embedded subordinate
clauses, has not been well studied in the literature on LLD. Instead, the weight
of analysis has always been strongly tipped towards clausal combining through
surface measures, such as mean length T-unit or a subordination index, both of
which are global measures only (Scott, 2010). In c hapter 11, this volume, Davidi
and Berman offer a new tool, stacked constructions versus nested construc-
tions, which holds promise for going beyond the surface to examine content
versus form dependencies in the informational writing of students with LLD.
It is recognized that the authors’ definition of stacked constructions refers to a
different kind of subordination (“a subordinated unit is a coordination of two
or more clauses packaged together in a single unit of complex syntax”; Davidi &
Berman, chapter 11, this volume, p. 147), nonetheless, the dependencies of the
Hipparchus passage appear “stacked” through reliance on elaborated NPs. This
notion of content versus form preferences, also suggested by a recent study on
the oral narratives of children with LLD (Colozzo, Gillam, Wood, Schnell, &
Johnston, 2011), merits further investigation, as these preferences may signal
noteworthy information about individual differences in composing informa-
tional texts and, as a consequence, inform intervention.

Lexical Density of Academic Language
An aspect of lexical density aligned with text organization and one seldom studied
is the greater concentration of lexical signaling devices in informational text (Lorch,
Lemarie, & Grant, 2011). Lexical signals, such as adverbial conjunctives, are essen-
tial for generating textual connectivity (Berman, 2007). They function as cohesion
devices by adding semantic content to a text, as in the examples of moreover, simi-
larly, on the other hand, and in conclusion (Scott, 2009). In reading, these conjunc-
tives function as memory aids and are intended to assist readers to attend to and
retain text topics in a more cohesive manner. Writers access these linguistic devices
while composing to indicate topic shifts for the reader in order to maintain the-
matic connections across sentence boundaries. In contrast, other kinds of signaling
devices, such as titles, headings, and summaries, although relevant for emphasizing
aspects of text content and illuminating text organization, do not necessarily carry
new semantic content (Lorch, 1989).
Turning to research on lexical signaling, two studies have been conducted,
both with typically developing adolescents and young adults on their inclusion
of adverbial conjunctives in informational writing tasks (Nippold, Schwarz, &
Undlin, 1992; Nippold, Ward-Lonergan, & Fanning, 2005). Participants could
recognize adverbial conjunctives but, even by young adulthood, did not regularly
include them in informational writing tasks. Similar to others, Beers and Nagy
(2009), Nippold et al. (1992) concluded that these conjunctions were less likely
to be acquired for flexible use in informational writing during students’ educational
careers unless they experience explicit instruction combined with sufficient oppor-
tunities “to engage in lengthy purposeful writing for different audiences” (p. 114).
In view of the inadequate writing achievement of U. S. students on current state
measures (Graham et al., 2011), it seems doubtful that neither this gap in instruc-
tion nor the “syntax gap” that Beers and Nagy (2009) identified, have been effec-
tively resolved.
TOWARD A NEW MODEL OF PRACTICE

New Educational Standards in the United States
The shortage of empirically grounded clinical studies on informational writing

assumes great urgency in the United States because, as noted by Puranick and col-
leagues in their chapter, currently, 45 states are in the process of implementing
new educational standards, termed the Common Core State Standards Initiative
(National Governors Association for Best Practices and the Council of Chief
School Officers, 2010; hereafter referred to as CCSS). These standards will also
apply to special needs students, including students with LLD. These standards and
their corresponding benchmarks were developed by a consortium of states and
are now promoted by the Obama administration at the federal level as educational

policy. The aim of the standards, designed for kindergarten through high school,
is to produce students who are prepared to succeed in higher education, today’s
competitive workforce, and the global economy.
Of pertinence for practitioners concerned with LLD, the central theme of the
new educational standards is communication. Across disciplinary domains, stu-
dents will be expected to employ increasingly sophisticated critical thinking, cre-
ative and collaborative problem solving, and academic language knowledge to
communicate for a multitude of informational purposes on different topics for
diverse audiences (Staskowski, 2012). To that end, a new practice model seems
indicated whereby the multiple levels of language become fore grounded in the
writing standards across disciplines. As one way for achieving high standards of
literacy, including writing literacy, the new standards place greater emphasis on
the composition of informational genres, as well as the comprehension of informa-
tional texts. Indeed, it is hard to imagine academic achievement in today’s digital
world without proficiency in a multiplicity of informational discourses in both the
spoken and written domains (Nippold, 2010; Scott, 2010).
The new educational standards place greater emphasis on the comprehension
and composition of informational texts and are interconnected with linguistic/dis-
course proficiency. For example, all grade 5 students will be expected to:
■ Write opinion pieces that support a point of view with reasons and information;
link opinion and reasons; link ideas within and across categories of information
using adverbial conjunctives; and use precise language and domain-specific
vocabulary to inform or explain (Text Types and Purposes).
■ With support, develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing or
recreating; use technology to compose and publish in an interactive, collabora-
tive fashion; and demonstrate sufficient keyboarding skills to type two pages in
a single sitting (Production and Distribution of Writing).
■ Conduct short research projects that incorporate multiple sources and perspec-
tives (Research to Build and Present Knowledge).
■ Write routinely over extended time frames (e.g., research, reflection, and
revision) and shorter time frames (compose in a single sitting) for a range of
discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences (Range of Writing).
Moving Ahead: Final Words
Speech-language pathologists, at least in the United States, have become increas-

ingly familiar over the past few years with their varied roles in supporting the
oral language underpinnings of beginning reading, and, in some cases, reading
comprehension. However, less attention has been directed to writing. This is not
to say that writing has been ignored in the clinical literature (e.g., see the seminal

study of Scott and Windsor (2000) on morphosyntactic comparisons of oral and
written narrative and informational texts of students with LLD), but attention
to this critical form of communication has not been consistent. More research is
necessary to determine whether performance by students with LLD on different
genres of informational discourse, both spoken and written, may be more diag-
nostically sensitive than are narrative or conversational discourse tasks due to
the increased linguistic density of informational discourse (Nippold et al., 2008;
Scott, 2010).
Moreover, Ehren, Muraza, and Malani (2012) build a case for speech-language
pathologists’ full participation in the new educational standards. These authors
distinguish between students who have an insufficient oral language foundation to
achieve with academic language (the students with LLD) and those who have inad-
equate complex knowledge about or experience with academic language, which
also can be manifested in writing (and spelling) activities (those students strug-
gling with aspects of more complex instructional language, including the languages
of reading and writing). Currently, it is difficult to diagnostically distinguish these
two groups or even consider language-learning profiles within each because of the
range of individual differences. To move ahead in understanding individual differ-
ences variation, which can then lead to the development of more reliable language
learning profiles, requires the development of new clinical tools that (a) allow mul-
tilevel and formative assessments of oral and written language system interactions
at the word, sentence, and discourse levels; (b) are sufficiently utilitarian so that
they can be used within actual disciplinary realms in the school setting; and (c) are
based on authentic writing tasks; and d) will inform instruction and intervention.
Finally, an effective clinical/educational framework must be interconnected with
developmental knowledge about written informational discourse.
NOTES
1. For the purposes of this chapter, informational and expository writing (discourse) are
used interchangeably.
2. The LLD acronym is preferred over other designators, such as LI or SLI. The latter do not
take literacy issues into account while LLD better captures the oral and written aspects of
learning to use language in new ways.
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CHAPTER 22
Integrating Writing and Oral

Language Disorders
Perspectives of a Writing Researcher
VINCENT CONNELLY
T his is an exciting time to be a writing researcher. The field is alive with more
activity than ever before, and this book is a clear example of the maturity of
the research that is now linking writing and developmental disability. A search on
the “web of knowledge” citation database shows that in 2011 there were over 50
journal articles published with the topic of “writing and disability.” Although this
is still relatively small compared to “reading and disability” which had 230 journal
articles published in 2011, it is a great deal more than ever before. The understand-
ing of children with developmental disability and their reading problems led to
major advances in both the understanding of developmental disability and in the
understanding of reading for all readers. It can be hoped that similar impacts can
begin to be made in the years to come from research such as reported in these pages.
This book has about 50 contributors from 9 countries and 3 continents across
the world detailing work on children with hearing impairment, language difficul-
ties and dyslexia. The majority of the researchers are from the United States and
Western Europe, but it is to be hoped that many more countries and languages will
be inspired by the work reported here to begin to investigate language and writing
in their own languages.
As the many chapters in this book demonstrate, children with developmental
disabilities such as language problems, dyslexia, and hearing impairment find it very
difficult to learn to write. This is a real challenge for society, given the prevalence
of these developmental disabilities and the key role that writing has to play in our
world. Most research on writing, however, has been on typically developing adults
and children and has looked primarily at writing and direct writing processes. Most
work on oral language has been in terms of oral language acquisition in childhood.
Therefore, there has not been a great deal of integration between research on writ-
ing and oral language. One of the many fascinating aspects of studying children with
developmental disabilities is the potential to integrate areas of overlapping research
and bring both closer together so as to lead to a greater mutual understanding. In
the case of this volume, the focus on oral language developmental difficulties means
the studies reported here raise many pertinent questions about the development
of writing, the development of oral language and how writing and oral language
impact on each other. The purpose of this commentary is to emphasize how greater
integration between writing research and research into oral language disorders can
make progress and the challenges such integration faces when carrying out research
on the writing of children with developmental disabilities.
The term oral language disorder is used in the broadest sense and also encom-
passes dyslexia as it is commonly accepted that most children with dyslexia have
problems with the subtler aspects of phonology (Connelly, Dockrell, & Barnett,
2011; Hulme & Snowling, 2009). This commentary is constructed by someone
whose research tradition is clearly in the cognitive arena, but many of the points
to be made about integration could also apply across more socio-culturally based
research on writing as well.
INTEGRATION REQUIRES CLEAR DEFINITIONS, COMMON

MEASUREMENT AND TERMINOLOGY
All disciplines develop a commonly held set of definitions, measurement tools, and
assumptions, and they all begin to use a common terminology over time. Those
researchers carrying out work on writing difficulties in special populations, how-
ever, need to be familiar with all the nuances definition and measurement in both
writing research and developmental difficulty research. The issue for integration
is that many of the clinical labels and measurement assumptions behind “oral lan-
guage and writing difficulties” are still vague or being debated.
Definitions relating to diagnosis of a developmental disability have always
been a thorny issue and continue to resonate through the relevant literatures (For
example, see Bishop & Snowling (2004) for debate on the similarities between
dyslexia and SLI.) Clinical and research definitions of developmental disability can
vary substantially and can be driven by very different agendas (see Rice, 2004 for
a review of dyslexia clinical and research definitions and the ideas behind them).
There are debates and (usually) some consensus over most of these examples from
the relevant developmental disability literature but these are not necessarily well
known in writing research. Examples of potentially overlapping definitions relating
to clinical diagnosis from this volume include: hearing impairment versus deafness

versus hearing loss; language learning disability versus specific language impair-
ment versus language learning impairment; and dyslexia versus reading and writ-
ing difficulties versus learning disabled. These overlapping but different definitions
can lead to differential samples that then demonstrate different patterns of behav-
ior for what may appear to be identical populations for many writing researchers.
(See Irannejad & Savage, 2009 for an example of how the debate around the cer-
ebellar deficit theory of dyslexia has been shaped by different criteria for sampling
children with dyslexia.) Researchers need to ensure they use samples from special
populations that are clearly defined and reflect the most current consensus about
the developmental disability in the literature and they should also be very aware
of the reported large amounts of co-morbidity of disabilities commonly reported
within the literature (Hulme & Snowling, 2009). The definitions used by research-
ers become even more varied when they vary by language, country, and culture.
Commonality of measurement is a key factor in comparing samples with devel-
opmental disability and making connections and predictions about behavior.
Writing, like many other areas of psychological research, suffers from a lack of com-
monality in measurement both in the tools used and the terms used to describe
assessments. Expressive writing is a term widely used but measured in many dif-
ferent ways using many different tasks. In this volume there are 18 different tasks
to measure expressive writing. When so many different tasks are being used in
the literature, this can lead to issues of comparability and difficulties integrating
research findings. Many writing researchers claim to measure writing fluency in the
writing literature, but is rarely defined in the same way and so is measured in many
different ways that are not necessarily comparable. For example, in some studies a
child who writes 30 high-frequency easy-to-spell short words in a timed writing
task could score more highly than a child who wrote 20 lower-frequency but longer
and more- difficult-to-spell words. Wengelin, Johansson, & Johansson (chapter 18,
this volume) in fact posit that individuals with dyslexia could be actively using this
“easy to spell” approach.
When trying to link oral language and writing research, the researcher must be
aware of the methodological debates going on in the related fields such as language
measurement. For example, there is much debate over the measurement of lexical
diversity in language studies. Some researchers do not think language transcripts
of less than 50 words are long enough to give a reliable measure of lexical diversity
(Yu, 2010). This poses a potential problem for the analysis of the written transcripts
of younger children with developmental disability who will often struggle to pro-
duce scripts of 50 words or more. Careful thought has to be given to how to over-
come these methodological issues. Therefore, researchers integrating oral language
and writing difficulties have to be aware of wider debates surrounding other related
areas and have to become cognizant of the methods used in those fields as well as
those in writing research.
From this volume, we can see that there is more commonality of approach in
single word spelling research where the error classes and kinds of approaches used
I n t e g r at i n g W r i t i n g a n d O r al L a n g ua g e D i s o r d e r s [ 3 1 5 ]
to design spelling stimuli are more uniform. However, this has taken many more
studies than have been published on expressive writing to reach such a consensus,
and even then there is considerable latitude in the spelling classifications used in
research and still debate around what is suitable to use (Masterson & Apel, 2010).
Writing research (beyond single-word spelling, that is) is very young, in publica-
tion terms, by comparison.
Researchers trying to integrate oral language and writing difficulties also face
the problem that many of the areas of difficulty in writing that children with oral
language problems face such as spelling, handwriting and text generation have
not been studied extensively in typically developing children. Thus, many of the
standardized measures common in other fields such as reading, memory and cog-
nitive development are simply not available. There are some very good standard-
ized tests of text writing available but these tend to be age limited (typically aged
8 to 16), with limited genres and standardized primarily in the English speaking
countries. There are some standardized measures of spelling allied to reading tests
also available but very few measures of handwriting such as the DASH (Detailed
Assessment of the Speed of Handwriting; Barnett, Henderson, Scheib, & Schultz,
2009) and again standardization samples tend to be from English speaking coun-
tries. One issue arising from having limited data about typical development is that it
is then difficult to agree on what profile of writing behavior constitutes a child with
a “writing difficulty” (See Wagner et al., 2011 for a recent attempt to model written
language in a large sample of typically developing children). However, many of the
studies reported in this volume use comparison samples of children who are typi-
cally developing and so will directly contribute to the growing knowledge base of
what a typical writer is and is not. Integration of oral language and writing difficulty
will best be served by comparison and consideration of typical and atypical sam-
ples of children undertaking the same sets of tasks whenever possible. The typical
samples should also be more than just matched for chronological age. Wider com-
parison samples matched for particular areas of interest could and should also be
used. This has been very successful in the reading and dyslexia literature where both
a chronological control group and a reading-age match control group of typically
developing children have often been used to good comparative effect (See Dockrell,
Lindsay, & Connelly, 2009 for a writing research example).
NEW AND EMERGING TOOLS TO INVESTIGATE WRITING

PROCESSES. CAN GREATER POWER AND PRECISION IN
ANALYSIS HELP DELIVER GREATER INTEGRATION?
Our understanding of the cognitive processes underpinning writing development

in populations who struggle with writing is not very detailed. One reason for this
lack of depth has been the difficulty mentioned earlier in measuring what aspects
of writing children are actually struggling with. Research on text production in

children with writing difficulties has usually been limited to a focus on products at
single points in time (see special edition Reading & Writing 2008 Vol. 1/2) not the
process. Children with writing difficulties tend to produce writing products that are
poor across the board and can seem very similar to younger children in their writ-
ing profiles. However, it is difficult to investigate issues of difference or delay from
studying products alone. Simply studying the product of writing does not always
inform us how the writing process may have come under strain in children with oral
language problems.
The last few years have seen a proliferation of hardware and software items that
can be used to measure the online writing processes of young writers in a relatively
natural and easy to use manner. For example, the development of graphics tablets
linked to PCs with software tailored to analyse writing process potentially provides
for a significant leap forward in our understanding of children’s writing processes.
Writing tablets with appropriate software allow the child to write on a piece of
paper resting on the tablet, using an inking pen as normal. The PC makes a record,
through the tablet, of the position of the pen in relation to the tablet, and so a vir-
tual trace of the writing on the tablet is captured together with a timed analysis
of the writing process. The portability of powerful laptop PCs and graphics tab-
lets allows researchers to use these tools in a school environment. Keystroke log-
ging can be used in most classrooms and while eye tracking usually requires more
of a lab-based approach some portable equipment has been tried out in schools
(Lambert, Alamargot, Laroque, & Capporossi, 2011).
The power of these tools is that they can be integrated with the tools writing
researchers use at the moment to investigate product and process. These tools are
especially useful for identifying subtle differences in process. Therefore, they can be
very useful to identify key differences in process between children with develop-
mental disability. For example, we may know that children with dyslexia produce
more spelling errors in a single word spelling task than controls but do they also
struggle and take longer over the words they score correctly? Does a key log show
de-selection of more complex but poorly spelled written vocabulary to be replaced
by simpler vocabulary?
The new tools in writing research are being developed as new tools are also
been pioneered in oral language research. For example, the use of large linguistic
computerized databases to investigate oral language now being used to also investi-
gate writing such as the CHILDES (See Berman, chapter 2, this volume) opens up
writing samples to be much more comparable. Maggio, Lete, Chenu, Jisa, & Fayol
(2011) recently demonstrated that most typically developing French speaking chil-
dren from age 10 to 15 years could concurrently process spelling and composition.
Strong effects were shown between pausing duration, writing rate, word frequency
and grapheme to phoneme consistency in this study. Maggio et al. (2011) used
both digital writing tablets and automated word frequency databases in this infor-
mative study. Therefore, although a lot of research on writing and oral language
problems has to date been necessarily descriptive, perhaps these new measurement
tools can illuminate previously unknown links between writing process and oral
language? However, as with a lot of new tools in research, these can often lead to
more complex questions rather than simple answers or questions driven more by
the capacity of the technological tool rather than theory. We may know that chil-
dren with oral language problems pause more when writing (Connelly, Dockrell,
Walter, & Critten, 2012) but this does not tell us why. Nor would we know if the
pauses had been caused by the same problem. Further detailed analysis of pause
locations, latencies, comparisons and clever task and experimental design will start
to give us more questions before we have answers.
CROSS LINGUISTIC RESEARCH INTEGRATION
Another key way to appreciate the interaction between oral and written language is
through studying the many different oral and written languages around the world.
Oral languages can differ from each other and more or less from their own writ-
ten forms. These differences can be used to test theory and investigate how oral
language and writing may interact. For example, great progress was made in under-
standing reading development in the English language, but this research has made
much more of an impact and become much more nuanced through demonstrating
how the key principles derived from that research (e.g., the role of the phonology
in making explicit links for the child between oral language and what they read
on the page) are similar in many different languages (Seymour, 2005). This can
be seen in research on spelling in this volume and also in other published studies.
For example, recent spelling research on bilingual children demonstrates how the
form of a primary language can have an effect on learning to spell in the secondary
language (Pasquarella, Chen, Lam, Luo, & Ramirez, 2011). Collaboration between
researchers across the globe is the key to success here and this volume represents
the cutting edge of research on writing difficulties in special populations of children
across borders with the nine different languages reported on here.
Another recent example of very successful cross-border research was the
European Research Network on Learning to Write Effectively (Alamargot, 2012).
This was a set of meetings and workshops organized across Europe to bring
together research on writing. It had four key complementary areas: (1) early acqui-
sition of writing skills; (2) improvements in written communication; (3) design of
written documents; (4) Technological advances in writing tools. These areas were
indeed complementary. For example, “Early acquisition of writing skills” includ-
ing researchers studying spelling acquisition and difficulties in writing and their
impact on composition but researchers in the Technological advances in writing
tools area provided software to investigate children’s writing difficulties (Torrance
et al., 2012). Thus, some of the difficulties of integration identified earlier were tack-
led in this forum. The cross language work also helped identify common ways that
spelling difficulties impacted on writing across different languages and that many of

these differences are predicted by the orthography of the oral language in question
(Tolchinsky et al., 2012). This led to a set of definitions of spelling errors with exam-
ples from several languages that could be useful for both practitioners and research-
ers. It is pleasing that this volume and the many contributors from across the globe
provides a similar fusion of research for the reader interested in the development of
writing applied to children with hearing, speech, and language difficulties.
CHALLENGING THEORY BY EXAMINING WRITING AND ORAL

LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES
Cross-language integration, the development of new measurement tools to inves-

tigate writing and oral language, the investigation of developmental disability, and
the integration of writing with other areas of cognitive research such as language
and reading opens up the possibility of developing challenges to current theory. A
similar integration of the investigation of the reading skills of children and adults
with dyslexia pushed forward work on reading (for example, the development
of the dual route model of reading followed on from research on dyslexia; see
Jackson & Coltheart, 2001) and allowed models of reading development to be
tested to see if they could predict reading behaviour when things go wrong (e.g.,
Zeigler & Goswami, 2005), leading to much research pushing forward theory.
The simple view of reading (Hoover & Gough, 1990), derived from the debates
around the dual route model and research on dyslexia, has been very influential in
practice and in developing assessment tools and intervention practices in schools.
(See Rose, 2009 for how this model influenced UK government literacy policy.)
Much writing research theory still relies heavily on work carried out on skilled
adult writers and some typically developing children. Although much progress has
been made in recent years in detailing models of the development of writing (and
see Hayes and Berninger, chapter 1, this volume, for a clear example) there is no
single model of writing development that provides a comprehensive analysis of all
the barriers that may be experienced by children with writing difficulties. Much
emphasis in recent years has been on examining the component skills of writing
that develop in children and how quickly they develop. This has been very success-
ful in identifying and clarifying the important role of spelling and handwriting, for
example, in constraining text generation. This work is now being extended into
research on children with developmental disabilities and provides clearer predic-
tions about where to intervene in the classroom.
However, there is less clarity about how the component processes interact dur-
ing writing and very little work on integrating other areas of knowledge such as the
different aspects of language into the component models. This means it is difficult
for researchers to indicate to practitioners how to best intervene when children
have specific difficulties as there is little consensus on what aspects of oral language
impact on the component processes of writing. (See Shanahan, 2006 for some
attempts to make some explicit predictions of which many are yet to be tested.)
As suggested earlier, the new tools to investigate writing may help writing
researchers move forward this area and challenge theory and help us understand
how components of the writing process interact. For example, recent work by
Kandel and colleagues in France and Portugal (Kandel, Alvarez, & Vallee, 2006;
Kandel Peerman, Grosjacques, & Fayol, 2011), using real time data from writ-
ing tablets, demonstrated that children’s spelling and handwriting processes are
intimately linked to language. Kandel demonstrated that in typically developing
children the spelling of a word in French and Portuguese is produced syllable by
syllable and that children prepare the handwriting movement to produce the first
syllable before starting to write. They then program in parallel the movement to
produce the second syllable on-line, while still writing the first few letters of the
first syllable.
This microstudy of writing could have important implications for the study
of children with oral language difficulties. For example, it may be that to write a
word efficiently in French and Portuguese the child requires the ability to chunk
that word into syllables. It is known the children with oral language difficulties
have difficulty with the segmentation of spoken words. Thus, it is important to
demonstrate how and at what level children with oral language difficulties are
similar to the typically developing children sampled in Kandel’s work. French is a
more syllabically based written language than English, and so one may make dif-
ferent predictions about the level of chunking required to write English spellings
efficiently—as Zeigler & Goswami (2005) do for reading. Thus, a breakdown in
spelling could take place at different linguistic levels (e.g., morpheme, syllable,
grapheme, etc.) when children struggle with writing in different languages. Kandel
makes the point that theories of spelling development need to integrate with theo-
ries of motor control and handwriting (Van Galen, 1991) to truly model the writ-
ing of words.
This new work shows how spelling and handwriting interact in ways that are
determined by complex aspects of language at the word, subword and even letter
level. This work can challenge current component based theory, lead us to ques-
tion assumptions about the writing process and make predictions about the role
that language plays in writing development. With integration, the links between
oral language and writing will become more explicit and move beyond the simple
box and arrow marked “language” on the fringes of writing-development models,
but at same time they will become more complex and so probably more perplexing.
INTEGRATION WITH THE “TASK ENVIRONMENT”
One of the major criticisms of the cognitive approach to studying developmen-

tal disability is the apparent disregard for the environmental influences going on

around the child. Although there may be a genetic basis for many aspects of oral
language difficulties, language and, in particular, written language has to be learned.
Writing is taught, typically in classrooms and takes many years to be mastered even
into and beyond college level. Therefore, writing researchers have to grapple with
instruction and the “task environment” (Hayes & Berninger, c hapter 1, this vol-
ume). We will not understand how writing develops or how it can be improved
unless we understand how instruction interacts with writing development, espe-
cially for those challenged by writing. This is not just about informing education
about what works but integrating and theorizing how instruction works to actually
develop writing (see Thompson, Connelly, Fletcher-Flinn, & Hodson, 2009 for an
example from reading).
The work of Graham, Berninger, and colleagues in the United States has been
instrumental in this regard in leading work to integrate writing instruction and
writing development. This has included work on children with writing difficulties
(Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008a, Berninger et al., 2008b;
Harris, Graham, Mason, & Friedlander, 2008; Graham & Harris 2005, 2009).
Further work to specify the explicit connection from instruction to writing needs
to be undertaken in other languages than English with a closer integration of lan-
guage and disability-specific predictions in order to integrate oral language research
and writing difficulties. Recent work by Puranik, Lombardino, & Altmann (2007)
provides a good model to take forward this area. This research makes comparisons
across language and writing measures of samples of children with dyslexia, children
with SLI and typically developing children and uses theories about development
disability to make predictions about writing profile differences. The children with
dyslexia did not differ significantly from age matched typically developing children
in the amount of ideas produced in a text but were less skilled at producing complex
sentences. Puranik et al. (2007) linked their results with some recent studies look-
ing at language skills, showing differences in grammatical skills related to morphol-
ogy in dyslexia populations.
This integration of writing research with oral language disorder research
could have some important impacts on the teaching of writing for these chil-
dren. This research though should not be done in a vacuum. The close involve-
ment of education professionals who are in the front line of dealing with oral
language and writing problems should be a priority for researchers. Listening
and working with education professionals, such as classroom teachers, can pro-
vide a strong test of theory and contribute to theory building that can impact on
both practice and research. We have been able to do just this in the UK recently
running a series of workshops on writing with classroom teachers based on a
developmental model of writing (Connelly & Dockrell, 2011). These have been
successful in identifying many areas of concern raised by teachers for research-
ers about the links between oral language problems and writing while also being
successful in integrating and discussing problems and difficulties with writing
measurement tools.
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT INTEGRATION
In order to succeed in integrating research on writing and oral language disability,

we need to ensure international co-operation through comparative cross language
studies. These studies need to be done on the basis of shared conceptions of writing
development, language, and disability. Measurement needs to be well designed and
reasonably common wherever possible, so comparisons can be made. Recognition
of current methods and debates in both writing research and developmental dis-
ability need to be regarded and considered when designing research. The repertoire
of new tools to measure writing process, as well as product, along with new tools in
language research will allow us to ask more complex questions and challenge cur-
rent theory. Current theory is good at identifying components of the writing pro-
cess but not so strong on how these components interact. The new tools can help
unpick these interactions and allow us to question current theory. Over and above
this, the study of writing instruction will both develop effective methods of help for
children with problems when writing, but it can also inform theory development.
Cross-linguistic, theory-driven, classroom-based interventions using modern mea-
surement tools sampling many aspects of writing and oral language could provide
much needed information on where children are struggling with learning to write
and what succeeds best with them in the classroom.
Therefore, we can conclude with some very positive thoughts. The research
reported in this volume makes a very strong contribution to understanding the dif-
ficulties those children with oral language problems face when learning to write.
The volume provides clear examples of the integration that is already taking place
between writing and oral language research.
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CHAPTER 23
The Role of Oral Language in

Developing Written Language Skills
Questions for European Pedagogy?
JULIE E. DOCKRELL AND BARBAR A ARFÉ
UNDERSTANDING WRITING PROBLEMS
“Writing today is not a frill for the privileged few, but an essential skill for the many.” (National
Commission on Writing, 2003)
Understanding the development of writing and the problems in producing writ-

ten text requires an awareness of the task demands involved in writing but it also
requires consideration of the characteristics of the learner and the environment in
which they write and learn to write. Exploring the diversity of learning environ-
ments should support the development of a flexible framework for understand-
ing writing which can inform pedagogy and assessment in different languages and
educational settings. Models of writing must address these dimensions (see Hayes
& Berninger, c hapter 1, this volume) and draw on an understanding of develop-
ment and the developmental challenges experienced by learners. In this book we
have highlighted the importance of oral language. Oral language influences writing
development in two ways: (1) as characteristics of the learner, because language
knowledge and language skills are important resources that the learner brings to
the task, and (2) as characteristics of the environment, as learners grow in different
linguistic contexts and are exposed to different uses of language in informal and
academic settings (see Danzak & Silliman, c hapter 12, and Silliman, c hapter 21,
this volume).
Learning to write is a language learning task, and as such it involves both struc-
tural and pragmatic dimensions of language. Understanding the structure of words
supports, for example, the development of spelling skills (see Hayes et al., chapter
4; Levie et al., c hapter 6; and Sénéchal, chapter10, this volume) while writing in
different genres requires an understanding of the reasons for producing the spe-
cific text and the different perspectives of the writer and the reader (see Berman,
chapter 2; and Silliman, chapter 21, this volume). From this point of view, oral
and written language learning are related developmentally as difficulties in acquisi-
tion of oral language affect the acquisition of and manipulation of the processes
involved in writing and concurrently, as the production and comprehension of oral
and written language share important components (Shanahan, 2006). The chapters
in this book explore the ways in which oral and written language influence each
across development. A better understanding of this relationship has the potential
to inform assessment, teaching and targeted interventions. This, however, can only
occur if we consider the ways in which the contexts in which children learn to write
impact on the development of their writing skills.
THE WRITING ENVIRONMENT
A substantial part of writing research has focused on the learner and the writing
skills they are trying to master (see Boscolo, chapter 3, this volume). It is important
to broaden our focus beyond the learner and the task and address the ways in which
different aspects of the environment impact on writing. Implicit within some of the
chapters in the book has been the key role of the environment. Nelson (chapter 20,
this volume), for example, systematically explains how structuring the input that
struggling writers receive can enhance their writing skills and Correa (chapter 17,
this volume) shows how engaging with student’s learning environments can serve
to support the production of written text.
The environment consists of the external physical and social world of the
child and for children growing up in Europe the contexts in which the teaching
and learning of writing occur varies substantially. Across Europe the organiza-
tion of compulsory education differs markedly (Eurydice, 2005). The majority of
National educational programmes state precisely what subjects should be taught
or which activities should be carried out, while also specifying desirable educa-
tional approaches and methods of assessment (Eurydice). Although no compara-
tive study on the teaching of writing has yet been done across European countries
the mastery of writing is seen as a key competency (Eurydice Key Competencies,
2002). Moreover, writing is typically a core component of the final examinations
taken at the end of formal education. Countries (and regions) differ in how they
approach this objective and countries (and regions) differ in the ways in which
they identify and manage the learning difficulties experienced by the pupils in their
schools (COST sociolinguistic report, ERN-LWE).

There are different levels at which the environment can be examined and devel-
opmental psychologists have gone someway in mapping these levels (see for exam-
ple the work of Bronfenbrenner, 1979). For children who experience difficulties
with writing, their immediate environment will differ in terms of the language(s)
they are learning, their learning opportunities and the ways in which teachers are
prepared to support their learning. Teachers will also vary in their knowledge of lan-
guage learning problems and what they believe can be done to effectively enhance
writing performance (Cutler & Graham, 2008; Dockrell & Lindsay, 2001; Graham,
Harris, et al., 2008; Graham, Morphy, et al., 2008). Teachers play a key role in sup-
porting language and the relevant learning activities in the classroom. Teacher-
based approaches to assessment and intervention are, thus, important and should
be integrated with both an analysis of the learner’s needs and clear understanding
of the task parameters (see Boscolo, 2011 and Boscolo, chapter 3, this volume). As
Boscolo argues (2011) a teacher-based approach is one in which the focus is on
writing as an instructional problem rather than a linguistic or a cognitive task. As
such, what matters most is finding effective ways to teach writing, engage pupils in
varying writing tasks and to motivate pupils to write. A teacher-based approach also
considers the writing task as a classroom activity. Language learning difficulties and
individual differences in the writing outcomes are considered the natural expres-
sion of a challenging task. Writing is, therefore, conceived as a learning space for all
writers, even though the ways in which learners are challenged will vary.
The Complexity of the Language-Learning Environment
The heterogeneity of the population, that is the numbers of children who are not
native language speakers, children who are multilingual or children who come from
disadvantaged backgrounds, raises considerable challenges for researchers and
practitioners alike. This variability in language experiences and opportunities also
increases the complexity of understanding children’s writing difficulties. Empirical
research examining educational performance and social disadvantage has consis-
tently demonstrated how factors such as child poverty, parental education and
income, parental attitudes, and neighborhood factors impact educational achieve-
ment. These factors play a significant role in students’ test scores in lower secondary
education (Machin, 2006). Disadvantage may differentially affect the predictors of
pupils’ understanding of the writing process (Korat & Schiff, 2005) and the iden-
tification of their language learning needs (Dockrell, Ricketts, & Lindsay, 2012).
Together these factors will affect the ways pupils engage in the writing process but
also the ways they learn and the ways in which their learning needs are conceptual-
ized, assessed, and supported.
All these elements contribute to the complexity of the language-learning envi-
ronment in Europe. As the COST action on learning to write effectively has indi-
cated, understanding the differences across European contexts will provide a range
T h e R o l e o f O r al L a n g ua g e i n D e v e l o p i n g W r i t i n g S k i ll s [ 3 2 7 ]
BOX 23.1 COST SOCIOLINGUISTIC REPORT
Provide the background information necessary for psycholinguistic studies.

Given the diversity and complexity of sociolinguistic configuration, it is not
sufficient to characterize populations as monolingual or bilingual; it is neces-
sary to gain precision in the description of the linguistic environment of the
subjects of psycholinguistic studies.
Identify possible intervening variables when evaluating writing interven-
tions. Factors such as the presence of multiple languages at school or the cen-
tral control of the writing curriculum may impose different constraints and
may interfere with or hinder the applicability and development of writing
interventions.
Design comparative studies with a specific purpose. Current diversity can
be exploited as a natural laboratory for proving the effects of multilingualism,
unique curriculums, precocious teaching of writing, lack of guidelines for
teaching writing, and so forth. Each of these naturally occurring differentiating
features may be turned into the independent variable of a diversity of studies.
of data to enhance our understanding of the writing process. Box 23.1 lists the ben-
efits that the COST action Working Group 1 indicated would result from such a
knowledge base.
In this chapter, we identify a series of questions about the learning environment
that are relevant to the understanding of research in writing and to the implementa-
tion of writing interventions for pupils who are experiencing difficulties. Questions
that should help develop effective pedagogy and raise questions for future research
on instruction and intervention. For each question, we explain the potential impact
on the teaching of writing and pupils learning to write, and where possible we indi-
cate specific chapters in the book that consider these issues.
1. What Is the Relationship Between Oral and Written Language?
As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, language systems vary in terms of their
structural aspects and the differences in these parameters impact on the way chil-
dren learn to write, the speed with which they master the mechanics of writing,
and the specific linguistic problems they face with the orthography and linguistic
relations within the texts. Orthographic systems can vary in their transparency. This
distinction reflects the ways in which oral language is represented in writing and the
levels of correspondence between speech sounds and orthographic forms: English
and French are considered to be deep orthographies (see for example, Hayes,
Treiman, and Geers, c hapter 4, this volume, and Casalis, c hapter 15, this volume),

whereas Italian and Spanish are considered to be shallow orthographies (see Arfé,
De Bernardi, Pasini, & Poeta, 2012; Arfé et al., chapter 7, this volume, and Serrano
& Defior, chapter 16, this volume). This variation in transparency is reflected in
the manner in which writing difficulties manifest themselves across languages and
the conceptions that teachers and clinicians hold. Thresholds for what is consid-
ered “average” levels of achievement will also differ. For example, in languages that
have a deep orthography, but not a shallow orthography, spelling errors are com-
mon for extended periods of time. Different language systems will also show dif-
ferent markers of writing difficulties such that morphological spelling errors are
evident in English, French, and Hebrew, which have a silent (but spelt) morphol-
ogy (Levie, Ravid, Freud, and Most, c hapter 6, this volume; Nagy, Berninger, &
Abbott, 2006; Nunes, Bryant, & Bindman, 1997; Pacton, & Fayol, 2003), but not in
Italian (the only exception could to be the case of spelling errors produced by chil-
dren with hearing loss, see Arfé et al. chapter 7, this volume). Finally, the extended
mastery of transcription skills will influence the development of text production
skills (Berninger & Swanson, 1994; Berninger, Yates, Cartwright, Rutberg, Remy,
& Abbott, 1992), and these problems may be more evident in students with lan-
guage learning difficulties (Dockrell, Lindsay, & Connelly, 2009). For languages
with more transparent orthographies grammar may be a more powerful influence
on early difficulties (Arfé, Dockrell, & De Bernardi, submitted). Thus research-
ers and practitioners alike need to move beyond a focus on the orthography and
consider morphology, the lexicon and syntax. These dimensions of the language
system should be examined both on their own and in interaction with the ortho-
graphic representations that are generated (see for example, Levie et al., Chapter 6
and Richards et al., 2006). Systematic examination of these factors will inform both
theory and intervention (Arfé, 2012; Dockrell, 2009).
2. Preparing Teachers to Teach Writing?
Teachers play a key role in supporting pupils writing skills and teacher training in
writing and language will be contributing factors in the frequency of strategies used
by teachers (Kjellin & Wennerström, 2006). In deciding how to prepare teachers
to support writing instruction, we need to ask questions about which approaches
to writing instruction are most effective and whether they are effective for all pupils
(Graham & Perin, 2007).
Over recent years Graham and his colleagues have completed a range of meta
analyses examining the ways in which writing can be supported in schools (Graham,
Harris, & Hebert, 2011; Graham & Hebert, 2010; Graham & Perin, 2007; Morphy
& Graham, 2012; Rogers & Graham, 2008). Many of these interventions will
offer effective approaches to teaching pupils with language learning difficulties.
Three general recommendations for the teaching of writing can be derived from
this research: (1) interventions focused on spelling alone are less effectives than
interventions integrating spelling and compositional skills instruction (Berninger
et al., 2002); (2) integration of different linguistic representations that underpin
the development of spelling skills and instruction focused on morphology can posi-
tively affect the spelling skills (Richards et al., 2006); (3) interventions integrating
explicit strategies instruction with self-regulated strategy development is particu-
larly effective with students showing learning disabilities (Bassett Berry & Mason,
2012; Taft & Mason, 2011). In sum, interventions stimulating the integration of
language skills used in spelling and those integrating the different components
of the writing process, including text generation, in a systematic fashion are most
effective. Promoting the development of executive functions linked to planning and
revising is also important as pupils develop their transcription skills. Planning and
revising enable writers to organize text production and regulate the execution of
the language processes through monitoring and self-evaluation strategies (Bassett
Berry & Mason, 2012). Providing additional scaffolding opportunities may be
required because it may be difficult for pupils with language learning difficulties
to generalize the knowledge taught in one context to another situation (Fuchs &
Fuchs, 1998).
Translating these recommendations into effective instructional practices requires
the involvement of teachers and policymakers. This process is neither quick nor
easy. For example differentiated teaching strategies for writing were investigated as
part of a longitudinal study in Australia (Moni et al., 2007; Van Kraayenoord, Moni,
Jobling, Koppenhaver, & Elkins, 2004). Using a mixture of qualitative and quantita-
tive methods the study examined teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and implementa-
tion of practices around the teaching of writing to students with developmental and
learning disabilities in inclusive middle-years mainstream classroom (equivalent of
ages 11 to 14 years). Students’ writing skills and teacher’s attitudes were assessed
through questionnaires. Teachers participated in workshops to develop their teach-
ing of writing which were then integrated into classroom practice and monitored
over a 10-week period by the teachers themselves. They were also observed in their
classrooms. Data were systematically collected in the workshops and during lesson
observations. Results showed that varying teaching strategies to suit the needs of all
children is a complex, time consuming process. The teachers were all positive about
the new ideas and valued the opportunity to expand their knowledge. However,
the transfer of ideas from workshops into classrooms was limited. Observations
showed varied levels of intensity of applications and several teachers felt uncertain
about trialing new strategies. Many felt unsupported in their classrooms or found
that there was not enough time to choose teaching strategies to fit a purpose. Others
found themselves lacking the necessary skills to vary their teaching in line with the
needs of their pupils.
Implementing effective writing strategies for pupils with language learning dif-
ficulties is challenging. Teachers require a sound knowledge of the processes that
underpin writing development and an understanding of the specific difficulties
which will challenge pupils. Teachers need also to develop skills that allow them

to flexibly respond to pupils needs in an evidence informed manner and develop
an awareness of how to monitor progress which may be slow and halting (see
Correa, chapter 17, this volume and Nelson, chapter 20, this volume). Flexibility in
approach and monitoring progress should be considered essential components of
writing instruction (Graham, Harris, & Hebert, 2011).
3. The Nature of the Curriculum and Assessing Writing
Curriculums vary between countries (Eurydice) and change overtime within coun-
tries, often as a result of political ideology. For example, developing spelling skills is
firmly embedded in the English national curriculum, whereas spelling is not taught
systematically in Israel (Levie et al., chapter 6, this volume). Currently, the UK gov-
ernment is significantly revising the way in which writing is assessed (Department
of Education, 2012). Inevitably these differences among countries and changes
over time within countries will affect the ways in which pupils progress, what teach-
ers prioritize in their teaching objectives, and the writing skills that are monitored.
Timely sensitive assessment of pupils’ writing competencies is a key step to pro-
gression. Pupils need to be assessed on reliable and valid measures and frequently
high stakes national tests do not provide this information (Graham et al., 2011).
Thus, it becomes important to examine the ways in which formative assessment can
drive writing development for children, and monitoring change is a key component
in that activity (see Enhancing Writing Skill in Children, 2012).
4. Identifing Struggling Writers?
When children have developmental difficulties or academic problems, their needs

can be assessed and understood in a number of different ways. One approach is to
search for a diagnostic label such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, specific language impair-
ment, autistic spectrum difficulties, or ADHD. These labels may provide indica-
tive information about the difficulties pupils have with producing written text
(Berninger & O’Malley, 2011). However, such approaches fail to address the con-
siderable overlap in difficulties with text production pupils might have (Dockrell,
2009). When specific instructional choices have to be made, teachers will need to
move beyond diagnostic labels and identify the areas in the writing process that are
challenging the pupil, the strategies that are used and the demands of the language
and instructional environment (Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, this volume, and
Nelson, c hapter 20, this volume).
Accurate targeting of interventions requires that the pupil’s difficulties can
be reliably ascertained, and that these differ from what would be expected by
children developing typically in that educational and social context. It is also
implicit that children have been exposed to appropriate instruction, that is, they
have failed to learn despite being taught consistently in an evidence-informed
fashion. Yet many teachers may not provide sufficient time for writing instruc-
tion, and slow and inconsistent progress may reflect the quality and quantity of
the teaching provided (Cutler & Graham, 2008). Writing instruction will also
vary across language systems, instructional contexts, and for children with dif-
ferent initial language skills. Some children may be vulnerable because of their
socioeconomic status or as a result of not being first-language speakers of the
majority language. As Danzak and Silliman show in c hapter 12 of this volume,
distinguishing between pupil-based and context-based factors in the assess-
ment of learning difficulties under these conditions is not always an easy task
and may lead to erroneous conclusions. Oral language is not only a cognitive
tool, but also an important means of social communication and cultural identi-
fication that may obscure the reason or source of the child’s learning difficulty.
Language-learning problems in a second language may depend on the child’s
learning disability, on a lack of appropriate learning opportunities, or on motiva-
tional aspects related to the child’s use of language in authentic communicative
and everyday life contexts.
5. Meeting the Needs of Struggling Writers?
The ability to produce written text in an effective and efficient manner is one of the
most highly prized skills of the 21st century. To support pupils in achieving this
goal, there is a need to understand the linguistic and cognitive prerequisites to text
generation and the ways in which the language pupils are learning and the educa-
tional contexts in which they find themselves impact on this process. When reading
the chapters in this book it is important to ask:
1. Are the conclusions language specific or language general?

2. Do these concerns generalize to my cultural context?
3. In what ways, if any, can the identified processes, procedures, and frame-
works transfer to pupils learning in the schools in my country?
4. What further information is needed to enhance the writing skills of pupils in
the context in which I am working?
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the writing of expository essays for adults with written expression difficulties: Preparing
for the GED. Remedial and Special Education, 33, 124–136.
Berninger, V. W., & O’Malley M. (2011). Evidence-based diagnosis and treatment for specific
learning disabilities involving impairments in written and/or oral language. Journal of
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ing to explain beginning and developing writing. Advances in Cognition and Educational
Practice, 2, 57–81.
Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R., Begay, K., Byrd Coleman, K., Curtin, G., . . . Graham,
Simple View of Writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 291–304.
Berninger, V. W., Yates, C., Cartwright, A., Rutberg, J., Remy, E., & Abbott, R. (1992).
Lower-level developmental skills in beginning writing. Reading and Writing: An
Boscolo, P. (2012). Teacher-based approach to writing research. In V. W. Berninger (Ed.), Past,
present, and future contributions of cognitive writing research to cognitive psychology (pp.
359–387). New York, NY: Psychology Press/Taylor Francis Group.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
COST action—learning to write effectively. http://www.cost-lwe.eu/ Accessed 5.4.12
Cutler, L., & Graham, S. (2008). Primary Grade Writing Instruction: A National Survey. Journal
of Educational Psychology, 100, 907–919. doi:10.1037/a0012656
Department of Education, England (2012). http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthe-
news/a00192403/key-stage-2-review-of-testing-assessment-and-accountability-go
vernment-response. Accessed 10.5.12.
Dockrell, J. E. (2009). Causes of delays and difficulties in writing development. In R. Beard,
D. Myhill, M. Nystrand, and J. Riley (Eds.) Sage Handbook of Writing Development pp.
489–505. London:Sage.
Dockrell, J. E. and Lindsay, G. (2001). Children with specific speech and language difficul-
ties—the teachers’ perspective. Oxford Review of Education, 27(3), 369–394.
Dockrell, J. E., Ricketts, J., & Lindsay, G. (2012). Understanding speech language and communica-
tion needs—profiles of need and provision. Better Communication Research Programme
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Fuchs, L., & Fuchs, D. (1998). General educators’ instructional adaptation for students with
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Graham, S., Harris, K. R., Mason, L., Fink-Chorzempa, B., Moran, S., & Saddler, B. (2008).
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Child Psychology, 24(3), 18–36.
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(2006). Converging evidence from Triple Word Form Theory in children with dyslexia.
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Bridging Research and Practice
Conclusions
T eachers and clinicians view writing as a complex process for the child, and
certainly one of the most complex challenges children with learning problems
face in school (Bereiter, 1980; Graham, 2008; Silliman, c hapter 21, this volume).
This view derives from both everyday experiences and observation of writing
difficulties in children and adults and from the direct difficulties teachers and
speech-therapists have in teaching writing and writing skills. When oral language
problems are present, the development of writing skills is even a greater challenge
for the child, the teacher and for the researcher. As researchers our responsibility is
to help understand the causes of the writing problems, that is, how oral language
and written language interact in language development and in the writer’s mind.
This information is necessary to produce reliable and valid assessments of language
and writing and to drive intervention. In many countries, standardized measures
are still not available, and, thus, the need to discuss evidence-based assessment of
writing difficulties is even greater.
Most speech-therapists and specialist teachers would agree that we must aim to
integrate oral and written language into a new practice model. Silliman and Nelson
make this point explicitly in c hapter 20 and chapter 21, this volume. However, as
Boscolo emphasizes in chapter 3 of this volume, our understanding of writing is
also informed from studies of cognitive processes. Cognitive models of writing
have increased our understanding of the production of written text significantly
and have inspired many instructional tools to improve the writing process (see
meta-analyses by Graham & Hebert, 2010; Graham & Perin, 2007; Graham &
Sandmel, 2011; Morphy & Graham, 2012). However, to date, these analyses have
not considered the role of oral language. As chapters in this book illustrate, writing
must also be examined as a language process and a form of linguistic expression
(Berman, chapter 2, Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, Silliman, chapter 21, this vol-
ume), and a communicative act that is shaped by the natural environments in which
it occurs (Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, Nelson, chapter 20, and Dockrell & Arfé,
chapter 23, this volume). It is also necessary to understand the ways in which oral
and written language interact in natural contexts. Current cognitive writing models
do not address these issues (Arfé, 2012).
When language processes are used as a lens to study writing it is necessary to
consider the language assessed (and its orthographic system). All the chapters in
this book demonstrate how this can contribute to our understanding of language
problems (see for example Bouton & Colé, c hapter 5, Levie et al., c hapter 6, Arfé
et al., chapter 7, Sénéchal, chapter 10, Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, Reilly et al.,
chapter 13). Comparing writing problems across different language systems also
allows us to establish whether results in one language can be generalized to all
languages, languages with similar orthographic features, or are language specific.
This is especially important in our multilingual societies (see Danzak & Silliman,
chapter 12). In many cases, our clinical and educational practices are informed
from research on one language (English), without examining their applicability to
other language systems.
Chapters focusing on spelling demonstrate the role of different forms of linguis-
tic representations (phonological, orthographic and also morphological). It has
already been established that morphological training can be effective in supporting
spelling in English speaking children with dyslexia (Berninger & Richards, 2010).
The appropriate timing and the nature of the interventions may vary across orthog-
raphies. The chapters in this book suggest that similar approaches should be tested
in other languages and for other populations (see Levie et al., chapter 6 and Arfé
et al., chapter 7, Sénéchal, chapter 10, this volume).
A further implication that is derived from the chapters in this book is the impor-
tance of considering written production at different levels (from word, to sentence
and text), when the goal is to capture the writer’s strengths and difficulties (see for
example Berman, Chapter 2, Arfé et al., c hapter 7, Danzak & Silliman, c hapter 12,
Reilly et al., c hapter 13). The use of these complex assessments of the text at word,
sentence, and text level are sensitive to variation in writing across typically devel-
oping students and those with developmental difficulties (Mackie, Dockrell, &
Lindsay, 2013; Puranik, Lombardino, & Altmann, 2008) and as such allow us to
consider the ways in which language skills at word, sentence, and discourse level
interact in writing.
There is also evidence of the ways in which different genres of discourse (such
as narrative and expository) (e.g., Albertini et al., chapter 8, Davidi & Berman,
chapter 11, and Danzak & Silliman, c hapter 12), and the learning context and chil-
dren’s motivation to write (Albertini et al., chapter 8, Davidi & Berman, c hapter 11,
Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12) influence the writing product. Interventions need
to take into account the effort and frustration that language learning typically
entails for many children with oral language difficulties. As Correa, c hapter 17, this
volume, and others (e.g., Boscolo, c hapter 3, Albertini et al., c hapter 8, Danzak &
Silliman, c hapter 12, this volume) suggest, no language intervention for these chil-
dren can produce significant changes if motivational factors are not incorporated
within it. The meaning that a writing activity has for a child is a crucial aspect of
B r i d g i n g R e s e a r c h a n d P r act i c e [ 3 3 7 ]
engagement in the writing task. The writing topic, the type of text, and the nature
of the writing task all play a role in writing quality. These factors need to be consid-
ered both in the assessment process and in interventions (Albertini et al., chapter 8,
Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, and Silliman, chapter 21).
Berman highlights the importance of examining different genres when we strive
to develop models of text production (chapter 2, this volume). Although current
assessment practices assess writing skills, this is typically through narrative texts.
But as authors in this book (Davidi & Berman, chapter 11; Silliman, chapter 21,
this volume) stress, the importance of other types of written discourse should be
considered in assessments. Different genres imply different goals, styles of written
expression, different discourse organization and information density and, as such,
pose different challenges to the writer. Thus, the assessment of oral and written
language by different discourse genres allows the practitioner and researcher to
evaluate the child’s ability to use language skills flexibly (Berman, chapter 2, and
Silliman, c hapter 21, this volume).
As Puranik et al. emphasize in their chapter (chapter 9, this volume), early
assessment and intervention are also important. The best intervention is the one
which supports writing skills taking into account the child’s abilities. Assessing
early writing difficulties related to oral language development does not mean sim-
ply identifying risk factors for writing development, but in addition examining
emergent writing and early writing skills. To prevent writing problems teachers,
speech-language pathologists, and educators need to target those specific emer-
gent, early writing skills, particularly for children at risk.
The chapters in this book raise other questions about the ways in which writ-
ing skills should be taught. Should writing instruction for children with oral lan-
guage problems be different from that offered for typically developing children?
Should instruction on oral language be given to support their acquisition of written
language? Should writing instruction be implicit or explicit? Should intervention
address associated skills such as working memory? And should it focus on indi-
vidual writing processes only or should it address to the task environment as well?
There are no simple answers to these questions and there have been many stud-
ies addressing and challenging the notion of special pedagogies. However, what
we have established is that children with oral language problems have difficulties
which impact on written text production in a range of different ways. For example,
children with hearing loss have poorer vocabulary and poorer phonemic awareness
skills than hearing children. According to some authors in this book (Hayes et al.,
chapter 4, this volume) there is, thus, a need for modification of instruction for
these children. However, there is other evidence that demonstrates that some writ-
ing strategies (e.g., in spelling) used by typically developing children and children
with dyslexia and deafness are similar in kind (see Hayes et al., chapter 4, Levie
et al., chapter 6, and Casalis, chapter 15, this volume). For example, morphologi-
cal knowledge of words supports the word spelling skills of children with hear-
ing loss and dyslexia as in typically developing children. This would suggest that

interventions focused on morphological word structure will be effective in teaching
spelling skills for these children.
Oral language is an important component of writing instruction and chapters in
this book (e.g., Sénéchal, c hapter 10 and Nelson, c hapter 20), show that instruction
in oral language can support the learning of written language, but this is probably
most effective when the language skills in the two modalities are integrated in inter-
vention (e.g., Sénéchal, c hapter 10, this volume). Nelson in her chapter (chapter 20,
this volume) demonstrates the way language intervention can be successfully
integrated into curriculum-based instruction of written expression. Graham and
colleagues have demonstrated the reciprocal relationship between writing inter-
ventions and reading (Graham & Hebert, 2010). Similarily, interventions for writ-
ten language may also impact on oral language skills.
Explicit instruction for writing is also highlighted (e.g., Hayes et al., c hapter 4;
Sénéchal, chapter 10, this volume). The idea that explicit instruction is necessary
to scaffold the writing of children with language learning problems also underlies
most of current interventions in writing (Berry & Mason, 2012). Some suggest that,
for children with oral-language problems, incidental learning or implicit learning
can be less effective than for typically developing children, as the language learn-
ing mechanisms in these children are compromised (see for example, Hayes et al.,
chapter 4, this volume). This is clearly an avenue for further research. For example
Ricketts and colleagues have shown how simple exposure to the orthographic fea-
tures of words can support lexical acquisition (Ricketts, Bishop, & Nation, 2009).
We have yet to establish how these processes work in children with oral language
problems.
It is important not to ignore the role that incidental and implicit learning have in
writing instruction. For example, practicing writing skills at some versus other lev-
els (e.g., training spelling versus text-generation skills), on some writing tasks only
(e.g., narrative or expository writing), and for some audiences only (the teacher)
significantly impacts on the child’s incidental learning of writing skills. It may affect
the meaning that writing has for that child, the subjective experience (s)he has of
the writing activity (as frustrating or gratifying), the engagement in writing and,
finally, the development of his or her language and writing skills. Moreover, it is
possible that, by teaching writing skills, teachers and speech-therapists incidentally
train basic language-learning mechanisms such as executive functions and working
memory (e.g., Arfé et al., c hapter 7, this volume). Taking into consideration these
effects is important when designing writing instruction and activities (Palincsar &
Klenk, 1992).
Some of the contributions in this book also emphasize that clinical and instruc-
tional intervention must pay equal attention to scaffolding the individual’s language
and writing processes and designing developmentally appropriate, authentic, and
meaningful learning activities and environments for the writing task. The idea that
intervention can focus on restructuring the context and not only the individual’s
writing process is an important contribution to the field of some of the authors
of this book (Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12; Nelson, chapter 20, and Dockrell &
Arfé, chapter 23, this volume). As Boscolo underlines in c hapter 3, this volume,
current writing instruction has been inspired by a cognitive approach to writing,
an approach that focuses on individual (cognitive) writing processes. However,
this approach cannot explain the intra-individual variability emerging in writing
engagement and performance when we assess writing by different writing tasks, in
different contexts, or with consideration of the socio-cultural values that writing
entails for a child (e.g., Danzak & Silliman, chapter 12, this volume). All these fac-
tors will affect children’s response to writing instruction.
In conclusion, there is no simple and unequivocal answer to the question “What
is best in intervention?,” but this book and its authors suggest some interesting ave-
nues for teachers and clinicians to address for writing problems. The study of writ-
ing problems is clearly an area in need of more systematic investigations(see Arfé,
2012; Berninger et al., 2008; Dockrell, 2014; Katusic et al., 2009) and our hope is
that this book will also contribute to inspire further research in this field as well as
evidence-based assessment and instruction in practice.
REFERENCES
Arfé, B. (2012). Looking into the text generation box to find the psycholinguistic
(cognitive-language) writing processes. In V. W. Berninger (Ed.), Past, present, and future
contributions of cognitive writing research to cognitive psychology (pp. 573–578). New York,
NY: Psychology Press/Taylor Francis Group.
Bereiter, C. (1980). Development in writing. In L. Gregg and E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive
processes in writing (pp. 73–93). Hilldale, NJ: Erlbaum.
School Psychology, 46(1). doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2006.11.008
Berninger, V., & Richards, T. (2010). Inter-relationships among behavioral markers, genes,
brain, and treatment in dyslexia and dysgraphia. Future Neurology, 5, 597–617.
doi:10.2217/fnl.10.22
Berry, A. B., & Mason, L. H. (2012). The effects of self-regulated strategy development
on the writing of expository essays for adults with written expression difficul-
ties: Preparing for the GED. Remedial and Special Education, 33(2), 124–136.
doi:10.1177/0741932510375469
Dockrell, J. E.(2014). Developmental variations in the production of written text: Challenges
for students who struggle with writing. In Stone, C., Silliman, E., Ehren, B., & Wallach,
G. (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy (2nd ed.) Guildford Publications.
Graham, S. (2008). Effective writing instruction for all students. Renaissance learning.
Retrieved from http://doc.renlearn.com/KMNet/R004250923GJCF33.pdf.
Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2010). Learning to read, Evidence on how writing can improve reading.
Washington DC: Carnegie Trust.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3). doi:10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.445
Graham, S., & Sandmel, K. (2011). The process writing approach: A meta-analysis. Journal of
Educational Research, 104(6). doi:10.1080/00220671.2010.488703

Katusic, S. K., Colligan, R. C., Weaver, A. L., & Barbaresi, W. J. (2009). The forgotten learning
disability: Epidemiology of written-language disorder in a population-based birth cohort
(1976-1982), Rochester, Minnesota. Pediatrics, 123(5). doi:10.1542/peds.2008-2098
Mackie, C. J., Dockrell, J. E., & Lindsay, G. A. (2013). An evaluation of the written texts of
children with SLI: The contributions of oral language, reading and phonological
short-term memory. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 26(6), 865–888.
doi:10.1007/s11145-012-9396-1
Morphy, P., & Graham, S. (2012). Word processing programs and weaker writers/read-
ers: a meta-analysis of research findings. Reading and Writing, 25(3). doi:10.1007/
s11145-010-9292-5
Palincsar, A. S., & Klenk, L. (1992). Fostering Literacy Learning in Supportive Contexts.
Journal of Learning Disabilities, 25(4), 211–229.
Puranik, C. S., Lombardino, L. J., & Altmann, L. J. P. (2008). Assessing the microstructure
of written language using a retelling paradigm. American Journal of Speech-Language
Pathology, 17, 107–120.
Ricketts, J., Bishop, D. V. M., & Nation, K. (2009). Orthographic facilitation in oral vocabu-
lary acquisition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(10), 1948–1966.
doi:10.1080/17470210802696104
INDEX
f denotes figure; t denotes table
Abbott, A, 244 Batteria per la valutazione della scrittura e

academic essays, composition of using della competenza ortografica nella scuola
dictation and technology to dell’obbligo (BVSCO), 262
improve fluency, 100–108, 103f, 105t, British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS),
106t 59
academic language proficiency, 302 context-based factors (in assessment of
ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity learning difficulties), 332
disorder), 205, 258, 260, 331 Detailed Assessment of the Speed of
adverbial clauses (AV), 23, 182 Handwriting (DASH), 316
African American English, 289 difficulties with, by students with dyslexia,
Alamargot, D., 87, 96 188
Alegria, J., 204 dual-route model and, 319
Allen, D. N., 87 evidence-based, 336, 340
Alouette test, 59, 206 function of in writing, 39
alphabetic principle, 55, 291 handwriting measures, 316
Altmann, L. J., 321 importance of common measurement for
American Sign Language (ASL), integration of written language and oral
102 language disorders, 315–316
analogy approach, 51 importance of early assessment, 338
analogy effects, 204 Kaufman Brief Intelligence Scale
analogy task, 133 (K-BIT-2), 118, 120
analysis of variance (ANOVA), 89, 120, 207, lack of, adapted for Italian context, 258
208, 209, 220, 296 of multiple domains, benefits of, 169
anxiety disorder, 205 pupil-based factors (in assessment of
Apel, K., 291 learning difficulties), 332
Applebee, A. N., 288 as relying on cut-off points, 189
Arabic language, 70 of spelling, 253
articulation disorders, 114 for students with dyslexia, 223
ASL (American Sign Language), 102 teacher-based approaches to, 327
ASL-ASR condition, 103f through narrative texts, 338
ASL condition, 108 TROG scores, 93, 95
ASR (automatic speech recognition), 100, variations in by states for ELLs, 159
101 Wechsler intelligence scales, 87
assessment WJ-III, 119
based on relationship between oral and Writing Assessment Summary and Goals
written language, 326 sheet, 282, 286f, 291
assessment (Cont.) British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS), 59
of writing in UK, 331 Britton, J., 33
See also dynamic assessment Bruck, M., 203
See also language assessment BRULEX database, 202
See also story probes Bruner, J., 274, 294
See also tests BVSCO (Batteria per la valutazione della
attention, as one of four resources at resource scrittura e della competenza ortografica
level, 4–5 nella scuola dell’obbligo), 262
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), 205, 258, 260, 331 Cabell, R., 114, 122
atypical language development/learning, Caeran, M., 260
158, 159 Caravolas, M., 214
author notebooks, 275, 278t, 280, 294 Carlisle, J. F., 139
author’s chair activities, 275, 278t, 280 Carpenter, P. A., 6
autistic spectrum difficulties, 331 Catts, H. W., 113
automatic speech recognition (ASR), 100, 101 Cavalier, A. R., 101
AV (adverbial clauses), 23, 182 CCSS (Common Core State Standards
avoidance strategies, 254 Initiative), 123, 307
CCSSO (Council of Chief State School
BACKDROP principles, 274 Officers), 123, 307
Baker, S., 267 CDR (clause density ratio), 165, 166t, 167,
Bakhtin, M. M., 33 168
Bar-Ilan, L., 22 CELF-R, 178
Batteria per la valutazione della scrittura e Chanquoy, L., 36, 39
della competenza ortografica nella scuola Chenoweth, N., 5, 6, 7
dell’obbligo (BVSCO), 262 Chenu, F., 317
Beers, S., 303, 304, 307 CHILDES programs, 17, 18, 21, 317
Belec battery, 206 Christianakis, M., 37
Benton Retention Test, 207 CI (cochlear implants)
Bereiter, C., 35, 101 See cochlear implants (CI)
Berman, R. A., 19, 22, 306, 338 Clarkson, B., 177
Bernard, A., xv clausal complexity, 161, 165–167
Berninger, V. W., 8, 36, 193, 196, 244, 253, clause (as unit of analysis), 17, 19
254, 257, 303, 304, 321 clause-combining, 20, 23, 24, 148
Berninger’s model of composing, 257 clause-combining complex syntax, 147, 148
bilingual writing, 160, 161, 166t clause density ratio (CDR), 165, 166t, 167, 168
Biser, E., 102 clause-internal syntax, 153
Bishop, D. V. M., 177 clause package (CP), 17, 20, 23, 24–25, 146,
Boscolo, P., 108, 327, 336, 340 147–148, 152
Boudreau, D., 113 Cleary, M., 87
bound morphology, 85, 91 CM (complement), 23
Bourassa, D., 204 CO (coordinate clause), 23, 25, 182
Brazil, prevalence of developmental dyslexia cochlear implants (CI)
in, 230 acquisition of spelling in French children
Brazilian children, with dyslexia, writing with, 55–57
development of, 228–239, 236f, 237f, characteristics of children with, 60t
238f chronological age, reading age, and
Brazilian Portuguese (BP) non-verbal IQ level of children with
linguistic features of, 229–230 compared to normal hearing children,
orthography, 231 61t
[ 3 4 4 ] Index
scores of children with, in French DCD (developmental co-ordination
research, 63t disorder), 194
spelling skills in children with, 45–52, Deacon, S. H., 204
57–68, 65t deaf, application of framework for cognitive
cognitive processes, 3–13, 24, 25, 33, 38, 86, processes in writing to persons who
100, 152, 188, 192, 234, 239, 258, 275, are, 12
316, 336 deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students,
Cohen’s d effect sizes, 296 101
Cohen’s kappa, 119 deafness
Common Core State Standards Initiative cases of in France, 55
(CCSS), 123, 307 impact of onset of on working-memory
common measurement, importance of for system, 12, 58
integration of written language and oral overlapping definition with hearing loss
language disorders, 315–316 and hearing impairment, 314–315
complement (CM), 23 deep orthographies, 57, 71, 228, 328, 329
complex syntax, 25, 144, 146, 147, 165, 178, definitions, importance of clear ones for
181, 182–183, 185 integration of written language and oral
composing language disorders, 314–315
Berninger’s model of, 257 Defior, S., 215, 223
Hayes-Flower model of, 100, 257 De La Paz, S., 8
computer software supports, 274, 275, Detailed Assessment of the Speed of
279–280 Handwriting (DASH), 316
Connelly, V., 8, 177, 193 developmental co-ordination disorder
Conrad, N., 204 (DCD), 194
consonant clusters, 203, 216, 217, 219, 220, developmental dyslexia
222, 223, 229, 231, 236, 237 definition, 201
context-based factors (in assessment of DSM-IV criteria for, 205
learning difficulties), 332 prevalence of in Brazil, 230
contextual effects, 62, 64, 65f, 66 DHH (deaf and hard-of-hearing) students,
contextual influence, 216, 219, 222 101
coordinate clause (CO), 23, 25, 182 dictation
Cornoldi, C., 259, 260 Hebrew Spelling Task (HST), 74
Correa, J., 326, 336 use of in composition of academic essays,
COST action on learning to write effectively, 100–108, 103f, 105t, 106t
326, 327, 328 word dictation test, 61–62
COST sociolinguistic report, 328b digital writing tablets, 195, 317, 320
Council of Chief State School Officers Digit Span, 86, 87, 88t, 89, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97
(CCSSO), 123, 307 digraphs, 62, 63t, 64, 65, 65f, 66, 216, 219,
CP (clause package), 17, 20, 23, 24–25, 146, 220, 222, 223, 236, 237
147–148, 152 discourse level analysis, 282, 288
cross linguistic research integration, 318–319 discourse stance, 25, 26, 27
cued speech, 12, 58, 66 discursive abilities, 144, 152
Czech language, 70, 214 distributional counts, 26
DJUR word-decoding test, 246
Daneman, M., 6 Dockrell, J. E., 177, 245
Danish language, 71 Dromi, E., 73, 80
Danzak, R. L., 160, 161, 332 DSM-IV, 205
DASH (Detailed Assessment of the Speed of DSM-IV-R, 217
Handwriting), 316 dual-route model, 56, 202, 319
Davidi, O., 306 Dutch language, 18, 70, 71, 73, 74
Index [345]
dynamic assessment, 39, 273, 274, 275, 276t, English Language Learners (ELLs), 158
280, 293–294, 298 English national curriculum, 331
The Dynamics of Perception and Production English-speaking children
during Text Writing, 245 with language impairment, written
dysgraphia, 331 narratives from, 176–185, 179t, 180t,
dyslexia 181t, 182t, 183t, 184t, 185t
definition, 189–190, 216 writing profile of children with dyslexia,
diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV-R, 217 190
as label, 331 ENPs (elaborated noun phrases), 163–165,
review of, in English, 188–196 166, 167, 168, 169, 305, 306
writing development of Brazilian children ET (eye-tracking) equipment, 247, 317
with, 228–239, 236f, 237f, 238f European pedagogy, 326, 327
written spelling in French children with, European Research Network on Learning to
201–211, 208t, 210t Write Effectively, 318
written spelling in Spanish-speaking evaluator, as one of four cognitive processes,
children with, 214–224, 218t, 221t 6, 7
Dyson, A. H., 37 EVIP (Échelle de Vocabulaire en images
Peabody), 59, 134
early auditory deprivation, effects of, 86–87 executive control, 4, 86, 87
Échelle de Vocabulaire en images Peabody executive function, 4, 5, 11, 97, 158, 169,
(EVIP), 59, 134 233, 234, 245, 248, 254, 330, 339
educational standards, 302, 307–308, 309 explicit instruction, 47, 51, 52, 116, 233, 294,
See also Common Core State Standards 304, 307, 339
Initiative (CCSS) expressive writing
Ehren, B. J., 309 different measurements of, 315
elaborated noun phrases (ENPs), 163–165, improvement of in children with learning
166, 167, 168, 169, 305, 306 disabilities, 257–267, 262t, 263t, 264t,
Elbow, P., 101 266t
elision, 18, 49 review of, in English for students who
ELLs (English Language Learners), 158 have dyslexia, 188–196
ELLS with Language Learning disabilities in Swedish adolescents with reading and
(ELL-LLD), 159 writing difficulties, 244–255, 248t,
English Acquisition Act (US), 159 249t, 250t, 251t
English language eye-tracking (ET) equipment, 247, 317
African American English, 289
Californian English, 17 Facebook, 8
as compared to Spanish, Czech, and Faigley, L., 100
Slovak, 214 FARL (free and reduced lunch), 115, 120
conventions for writing compounds in, 18 Fayol, M., 132, 203, 204, 317
as having rich auxiliary verb systems, 24 Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, 228,
as less transparent orthography, 70 232
Modern English, 177 Feuerstein, R., 274, 293
modifiers preceding head noun, 19 Finnish language, 70, 71, 130, 131
as more opaque, 130 fixed-topic strategy, 9, 10f, 11
orthography of, 131 flexibility, of the writing mechanism, 36–38
phrasal verbs, 17 flexible-focus strategy, 9, 10f, 11
plain English, 23 Flower, L. S., 6, 275
spelling system, 46, 47, 51, 320 focused attention, 4
as structurally distinct language, 21 framework for cognitive processes in writing
as verb-satellite language, 24 application of to clinical populations,
writing system, 46 11–13
[ 3 4 6 ] Index
control level, 9–11 graphemes
future developments, 13 definition, 55
integrating levels of, 11 simple graphemes, 62, 63, 64, 65
overview, 3–4, 5f grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence
process level, 6–7 (GPC), 56, 202, 203, 206, 208, 210,
resource level, 4–6 214, 231
task environment, 7–9 graphics tablets, 317
France grapho-phonemic relationship, 71
cases of CI in, 55 graphotactic knowledge, 203–204, 205
criterion for dyslexia, 201 graphotactics, 46, 47, 51, 132
free and reduced lunch (FARL), 115, 120 Greek language, 70, 71
free morphology, 85, 91, 92, 97 Gregg, N., 258
French language/orthography, 70, 131–133, guided error analysis, 51
202–203, 204, 207, 208, 211
French Sign Language (LSF), 59 handwriting
French-speaking children and ASR, 101
with dyslexia, written spelling in, of children with SI, 122
201–211, 208t, 210t as constraining text generation, 319
with language impairment, written as intimately linked to language, 320
narratives from, 176–185, 179t, 180t, measures of, 316
181t, 182t, 183t, 184t, 185t and writing difficulties in children with
morphological awareness and spelling dyslexia, 193–195
difficulties in, 130–139, 131t, 135t, See also transcription
138t Harris, M., 50, 255
frequency effects, 204 Hayes, J. R., 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10–11, 48, 49, 50,
fronting, 114 57, 66, 275, 303, 304
Hayes-Flower model of composing, 100, 257
Gallaudet University, 50 hearing loss (HL)
Games-Howell, 120 and development of spelling skills, 49
GC (Grammatic Completion) subtest, 119, influence of verbal working memory in
121 children with, 85–97
Gee, D., 8 spelling abilities in Hebrew-speaking
Geers, A. E., 49 children with, 70–82
genre distinctiveness, 25 Hebrew language
genre rigidity, 36 conventions for writing compounds
Gentry, J. R., 291 in, 18
German language, 18, 24, 25, 70, 204, 228 expressing distanced, impersonal stance in
Gillam, R. B., 177 expository essays, 25
Gillis, S., 73, 74, 76 modifiers, 19
Glenn, C. G., 288 morphology, 72, 73, 81
global revision schema, 11 orthography, 71, 72, 73
Goelman, H., 101 phono-morpho-orthography, 79
Goswami, U., 320 spelling, 72, 81
Goulandris, N., 216 as structurally distinct language, 21
Graham, S., 8, 38, 255, 301, 321, 329, 339 See also Hebrew-speaking children
grammar, effect of poor spelling on in Hebrew-speaking children
children with dyslexia, 192–193 with hearing loss, spelling abilities in,
grammatical agreement, 85 70–81, 75t, 76t, 77f, 78t, 79t, 80t
grammatical knowledge, 190, 304 with/without language/learning
Grammatic Completion (GC) subtest, 119, impairment, writing abilities of,
121 143–153, 148t, 149t
Index [347]
Hebrew Spelling Task (HST), 74–75, 76, factors to be considered in, 338
77t, 78, 80 focused on morphological word structure,
Hedberg, N., 113, 288 339
HL (hearing loss) focus on early intervention, 124
See hearing loss (HL) guidance for design of, 136
homophony, 56, 70, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, importance of culturally relevancy and
80, 81, 132 personal meaning in, 169
Hunt, K. W., 288 integrating language assessment,
Hyönä, J., 6 instruction, and intervention in
inclusive writing lab approach,
ICD-10, 258 273–298
Icelandic language, 25 integration in, 339
idea generation, 196, 258, 260 lack of, adapted for Italian context, 258
implicit learning, 339 reciprocal relationship between writing
incidental learning, 47, 339 interventions and reading, 339
inclusive instructional practices, 274, in Spanish, 223
279–280 in spelling for children with dyslexia,
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 192
(IDEA), 159 to support spelling, impact on written
Indonesian language, 70 expression, 195
inferential thinking problems, 13 to support writing in schools, 329–330
inflexional morphology, 193 teacher-based approaches to, 327
informational discourse, 302–306, See also language intervention
308, 309 inventive spelling, 51
informational genre development, 303 “Io scrivo” (I write) program, 260–262
informative text IQR (interquartile range) scores,
clauses in, 19 62–63, 64
requirements of, 26 IQ tests/scores, 3–4, 189, 205, 258, 262
restructuring of by pre-adolescents with/ irregular spelling, homophony as source of,
without language/learning impairment, 70
143–153, 148t, 149t Italy, program to increase expressive writing
integration, of written language disorders competence in children with learning
with oral language disorders, 313–322 difficulties, 260
interclausal relations, 20, 25, 151
interclausal syntactic complexity, Jacobs, A. M., 202
150–151 Jiménez-Fernández, G., 215
International Dyslexia Association, 201 Jisa, H., 317
interquartile range (IQR) scores, Johansson, A., 245, 315
62–63, 64 Johansson, R., 245, 315
interventions Johnston, J., 177
accurate targeting of, 331 judgment of string similarity, 207, 210
addressed to developing verbal working Justice, L., 114
memory in children with HL, 97 juxtaposed main clause (MCJ), 23
based on relationship between oral and
written language, 326 Kaakinen, J. H., 6
for children’s literacy difficulties, 232–235, Kandel, S., 195, 196, 320
239 Kaufer, D. S., 6, 8
clinical and instructional, 339 Kaufman Brief Intelligence Scale (K-BIT-2),
to develop writing skills, 228 118, 120
dual-route model and, 319 Kearnan, K., 130, 134
effect of on linguistic revision, 260 Keenan, S., 102
[ 3 4 8 ] Index
Kemtes, K. A., 87 language typology, 17, 24, 26, 71
Kessler, B., 48 Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education
keystroke logging, 246, 317 Center (Clerc Center) (Gallaudet
kindergarteners, comparative analysis University), 50–51
of, with speech and oral language learning disabilities (LD)
impairments and their typically ASR with students with, 101
developing peers, 112–124, 120t, 121t improving expressive writing in children
Korean language, 71 with, 257–267, 262t, 263t, 264t, 266t
research on informational writing and
labels, diagnostic, xix, 143, 314, 331 students with, 303
language assessment, integrating language self-regulated strategy development and,
assessment, instruction, and 330
intervention in inclusive writing lab See also language learning disabilities
approach, 273–298, 276t–278t, 279f, (LLD)
281f, 287t–288t, 290t, 292f, 293t, Leonard, L. B., 73
295t Lervág, A., 214
language impairment (LI), 12, 20, 22, 112, Lété, B., 203, 204, 317
113–114, 120, 122, 124, 143, 176–186, letter knowledge, 194
189, 193, 201, 205, 315, 331 Levin, I., 73
language intervention lexical density, 21, 163–165, 167, 307
integrating language assessment, lexical diversity, 21, 26, 192, 193, 247, 249,
instruction, and intervention in 250, 252, 253, 254, 315
inclusive writing lab approach, lexical orthographic knowledge, 204, 205
273–298, 276t–278t, 279f, 281f, lexical procedure, 202, 208
287t–288t, 290t, 292f, 293t, 295t lexical signaling, 307
integration of into instruction, 339 lexical-syntactic density, 304–306
and motivational factors, 337 lexical usage, 21–25
specialists in, 298 lexicon, 17, 22, 23, 24, 56, 72, 73, 81, 153,
See also interventions 165, 329
language learning disabilities (LLD), 12–13, Leybaert, J., 58, 66
143, 158, 159, 301 LI (language impairment), 12, 20, 22, 112,
language-learning environment, 12, 113–114, 120, 122, 124, 143, 176–186,
327–332 189, 193, 201, 205, 315, 331
language/learning impairment (LLI), 26, Lindsay, G., 177
143, 145, 152 linguistic literacy, 16, 143, 302
languages linguistic perspectives on writing
cross linguistic research integration, development
318–319 background and purpose, 16–17
differences in consistency between communicative appropriateness, 25
reading and spelling, 214 diagnostics of developing written text
differences in transparency of, 328–329 construction, 20–25
difficulties in spelling inconsistent syntactic measures, 23–25
conventions of writing systems, 231 units of analysis, 17–20
impact of spelling problems of different word-based measures, 20–23
written languages on children with linguistic register, 21, 22, 26
dyslexia, 196 linguistic skills, 85, 97, 152, 233, 234
stress-timed, 230 LIRIPAC, University of Padova, 258
syllable-timed, 230 LLD (language learning disabilities), 12–13,
verb-framed languages, 24 143, 158, 159, 301
verb-satellite languages, 24 LLI (language/learning impairment), 26,
See also specific languages 143, 145, 152
Index [349]
local revision schema, 11 morphology, 47, 51, 71, 72, 132, 177,
Lombardino, L. J., 321 181–182, 329
long-term memory, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 136, 216, See also bound morphology
257, 258 See also free morphology
Lonigan, C., 114, 122 See also inflexional morphology
Lorch, R. F., 6 morpho-orthographic representations, 79
LSF (French Sign Language), 59 morpho-phonology, 81
morphosyntax, 81, 161, 167, 168, 291
Macarthur, C. A., 101 Most, T., 73
Mackie, C., 177 motivation/motivational factors, 39, 233,
Maggio, S., 317 234, 337
main clause (MC), 23 Mousty, P., 204
Malani, M. D., 309 movement difficulties, in children with
MANCOVA, 92 dyslexia, 194
Mann-Whitney U tests, 147, 248 Muraza, K. A., 309
Manulex-infra database, 202
Martinet, C., 204 Nagy, W., 303, 304, 307
Mason, L., 108, 255 Naipaul, V. S., xvii
Masterson, J. J., 291 National Commission on Writing, 325
Matrices subtest, 119, 120 National Consensus Conference, 264
Matthew Effect, 124 National Governors Association (NGA),
McGinity, A., 114 123, 307
MCJ (juxtaposed main clause), 23 National Reading Panel, 47
mean clause length (MCL), 23 National Technical Institute for the Deaf,
mean length of T-unit (MLTU), 165, 167, 45, 49
168, 289, 293, 295, 297 Nelson, N. W., 326, 336, 339
mechanism, as metaphor for cognitive nested construction/nested dependencies,
approach to writing, 34–35, 39, 40 147, 151, 306
mediational scaffolding, 294 neuro-scientific research, and study of
mental graphemic representations, 291 writing, 36
meta-analyses, 130, 303, 329, 336 Nielsen, K., 244
metacognitive abilities, 239, 258, 259, 267 Nippold, M. A., 307
minilessons, 275, 276t, 277t, 279, 280, 281f, nominal abstractness, 21
291, 292, 294, 297 non-lexical procedure, 202
mixed-methods designs, 160, 161, 167, 169 nonword repetition, 49
Modern English, 177 normally hearing (NH), 57
morphemic knowledge, 291 noun phrases (NP), 18, 23, 24, 25
morphological awareness See also elaborated noun phrases (ENPs)
definition, 130 NP complexity, 23, 24
as predictor of spelling abilities, 205 Nunes, T., 133, 136, 139
and spelling difficulties in French-
speaking children, 130–139, 131t, 135t, opacity
138t degree of in spelling as compared to
and written spelling in French children reading, 215
with dyslexia, 207, 209, 210–211 in phonology-orthography link, 70
morphological knowledge, 46, 71, 132, opacity-transparency continuum, 56, 214
136, 138, 139, 158, 204, 211, 291, opaque orthographies, 177, 228
292, 338 opaque phonology-orthography relations, 71
morphological representations, 57, 73, 90 Open Court curriculum, 116
morphological skills, 73, 85 oral language
[ 3 5 0 ] Index
integration of with written language into a phonological procedure, 56, 58, 61, 63–64,
new practice model, 301–309 203
role of in developing written language phonological processing, 57, 65, 66, 123,
skills, 325–332 216, 217, 222, 223, 230, 232
oral language disorder research, 321 phonological representations, 55, 57, 73,
oral language disorders, integration of with 115, 124, 202
written language disorders, 313–322 phonological skills, 50, 56, 85, 191, 203, 204,
orthographic consistency, 58, 214, 216, 222, 210, 223, 232
223 phonological transparency, 130
orthographic knowledge/procedure, 55, 56, phonological variations, 71
57, 58, 62, 64, 66, 177, 191, 202, 204, phonology, 12, 46–47, 49, 57, 70–71, 72, 73,
205, 215, 291, 328 79, 81, 90, 134, 190, 314, 318
orthographic processing, 58, 66 phonology-orthography link/interface,
orthographic representations, 56, 66, 71, 73, 70–71
130, 136, 216, 329 phrase (as unit of analysis), 17, 18–19
orthographic transparency, 202, 328–329 phrase-based measures, 23
physical task environment, 8
PA (phonological awareness), 51, 93, 97, See also task environment
116, 133, 139, 149, 205, 209, 210, 217, PI (phonologically implausible), 90, 92, 95t,
230, 232, 234, 235 96, 185, 231
Pacton, S., 132, 203, 204 Picture Vocabulary subtest, 119
participation, as metaphor for socio-cultural Pisoni, D., 87
approach to writing, 34–35, 36, 39 planner, 6, 9
pause locations, 253, 254, 318 Portuguese language, 71, 228, 229, 230, 231,
peer conferencing, 277t 233, 234, 235, 236, 320
Peereman, R., 204 position influence, 216, 219, 221, 223
PEREL test, 218 PP (phonologically plausible), 46, 47, 48, 49,
Perl, S., 101 57, 90, 95t, 185, 203, 231
Perruchet, P., 132, 203, 204 pre-adolescents, writing abilities of,
personal minilessons, 275, 280, 281f, 291, 143–153, 148t, 149t
292, 294, 297 prepositional phrases (PP), 18, 22, 23, 24
phoneme-grapheme relationship, 70 procedural facilitation, 35, 36, 260,
phonemes, definition, 55 262, 267
phoneme-to-grapheme (PG), 202, 203 process pedagogy approach, 101
phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence PROLEC-SE, 217
(PGC), 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, PROLEC standardized subtest, 217
203, 206, 214, 215, 216, 230 proposer, 6, 9
phonemic awareness, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 66, propositions, compared to phrases, 19
89, 93t, 230, 291, 338 protocol studies, 6
phonemic segmentation abilities, 223 pseudoword deficit, 202
phonological awareness (PA), 51, 93, 97, pseudoword processing, 56
116, 133, 139, 149, 205, 209, 210, 217, pseudoword reading, 206, 215, 217
230, 232, 234, 235 pseudowords, 56, 118, 202, 203, 206, 207
phonological disorders, 114 pseudoword spellings, 204, 207, 208, 209,
phonological knowledge, 223 210–211
phonologically implausible (PI), 90, 92, 95t, pupil-based factors (in assessment of
96, 185, 231 learning difficulties), 332
phonologically plausible (PP), 46, 47, 48, 49, Puranik, C, 113, 122, 193, 307, 321, 338
57, 90, 95t, 185, 203, 231
phonological memory, 96, 115, 202 quality of interclausal relations, 25
Index [351]
RAN task, 194 self-esteem, 233, 234, 239
rapid naming, 190, 205, 209, 210, 230 Sénéchal, M., 130, 131, 133, 134, 136
RAVEN test, 217 Sentence Imitation (SI) subtest, 119
Ravid, D., 73, 74, 76 sentence level analysis, 288–289
RC (relative), 23 sentences, compared to phrases, 19
Re, A. M., 260 shallow orthographies, 56, 228, 329
reading Share, D. L., 56, 208
and writing difficulties in children with SHEMA, 74
dyslexia, 190–191 Shteiman, M., 73
as written language skill, 4, 6 SI (speech impairments), 112, 114–115
reading and writing difficulties, as alternate Silliman, E. R., 332, 336
term for dyslexia, 244 simple-clause syntax, 151
reconstruction, 144, 145, 151, 152, 153 simple graphemes, 62, 63, 64, 65, 65f
regression analyses, 93, 94t, 95t, 96, 209, sketchy planning, 258, 260
210 SLI (specific language impairment), 189,
regularity effects, 204 205, 315, 331
Reilly, J. S., 304 Slobin, D. I., 19
relative (RC), 23 Slovak language, 214
re-reading, 8, 9, 190, 259 SLPs (speech-language pathologists), 124,
revision 161, 169, 273, 274, 275, 280, 294, 296,
as basic tool, 36 297, 298, 302, 308, 309, 338
Chanquoy on, 39 SN (special needs), 273, 280, 298, 307
effects of a training focused on, 257–267, social media, 8
262t, 263t, 264t, 266t social task environment, 7
executive functions as linked to, 330 See also task environment
teaching of, 102 socio-linguistic diversity, 289
use of writing scheme concept to analyze, 10 sound-to-spelling correspondences, 58
revision process, 39, 259–260 Spanish-English bilingual students, with
revision types, 253, 254 language learning disabilities, writing
Ricketts, J., 339 development of, 158–169, 164t, 166t
Rimmer, W., 27 Spanish language/orthographic code, 70,
Romance languages, 24, 177 214, 216, 217, 223
Rose report, 189 Spanish-speaking children, with dyslexia,
Russian language, 19 written spelling in, 214–224, 218t, 221t
Spanish-speaking ELLs, 159
Saddler, B., 255 Spearman’s Rank Correlation test, 248
SALT (Systematic Analysis of Language special needs (SN), 273, 280, 298, 307
Transcripts), 289–290 specific language impairment (SLI), 189,
Sarsour, M., 73 205, 315, 331
scaffolding, 152, 260, 273, 274, 275, speech impairments (SI), 112, 114–115
276t–277t, 280, 292, 294, 297, 330, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), 124,
339 161, 169, 273, 274, 275, 280, 294, 296,
Scardamalia, M., 35, 101 297, 298, 302, 308, 309, 338
Scheffe, 120 speech problems, application of framework
Schmitz, K., 102 for cognitive processes in writing to
Scott, C. M., 177, 309 persons who have, 12
ScriptLog, 246, 247 speech recognition technology (automatic
selective language impairment, application speech recognition) (ASR), 101
of framework for cognitive processes in speech-sound disorder, 12
writing to persons who have, 12–13 spell-checkers, 255, 279, 280
[ 3 5 2 ] Index
spelling spelling-to-sound correspondences, 177
abilities in Hebrew-speaking children with SPM scale (of RAVEN test), 217
hearing loss, 70–82, 75t, 76t, 77f, 78t, Sprenger-Charolles, L., 204
79t, 80t stacked construction/stacking dependencies,
in children and adolescents with cochlear 147, 151, 306
implants, 45–52 stanine (STAndard NINE-grade scale), 246
as constraining text generation, 319 Stein, N., 288
English compared to French, 184–185 Sterling, C., 193
English spelling system, 46 Stone, C. A., 139
examining early spelling and writing skills, Stone, G. O., 202
112–124, 120t, 121t story maturity, 288
as intimately linked to language, 320 story-probe analysis, 282
phonological strategy in, 203 story probes, 273, 282, 291–293, 294–298
predictors, 205 See also written story probes
in typically developing hearing children stress-timed languages, 230
and adolescents, 46–47 string similarity judgment, 207, 210
and writing difficulties in children with Stroop task, 4
dyslexia, 191 Swanson, H. L., 196
written spelling in French children with Swedish children, with reading and writing
dyslexia, 201–211, 208t, 210t difficulties, expressive writing in,
written spelling in Spanish-speaking children 244–255, 248t, 249t, 250t, 251t
with dyslexia, 214–224, 218t, 221t Swedish language
spelling acquisition conventions for writing compounds in, 18
in different languages, 70, 71 keystroke-logged essays in, 194
in French children with cochlear implants, proportion of words from Latinate
55–67 compared with native Germanic origin,
homophony as challenge to, 72 22
spelling assessment, 253 research in showing link between spelling
spelling difficulties, in French-speaking and vocabulary choice, 192
children, 130–139, 131t, 135t, 138t as structurally distinct language, 21
spelling interventions, for children with use of generic pronouns, 25
dyslexia, 192, 195 syllabic phonological awareness, 235
spelling skills syllable-timed languages, 230
in children with cochlear implants, 49, syntactic awareness, 304
57–59, 64, 66, 67 syntactic complexity, 19, 24, 27, 150–151,
in children with hearing loss, 90–91 163, 168, 247, 249, 252, 303
developmental models of, 56 syntactic density, 23, 26, 146, 151, 165–167,
as embedded in English national 168, 302, 304–305
curriculum, 331 syntactic packaging, 20, 25
link with morphological knowledge, 136, syntax, 12, 17, 20, 24, 329
330, 338–339 See also clause-internal syntax
link with phonological processing deficits, See also complex syntax
216 See also morphosyntax
as markers of literacy attainment, 45 See also simple-clause syntax
as not taught systematically in Israel, 331 syntax gap, 307
questions about what they really are and Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts
how they can be measured, 253 (SALT), 289–290
Spanish-speaking children as acquiring
reading skills earlier than, 215 talk-write model, 101
and speech problems, 12 task environment, 3, 4, 6, 7–9, 11, 320–321, 338
Index [353]
task initiator, 9, 11 text production, 36, 85, 86, 89, 144, 195,
TD (typically developing) students, 113, 244, 246, 247, 250, 255, 258, 316, 317,
144, 178 329, 330, 331, 338
teacher-based approaches, to assessment and textual connectivity, 24, 146, 151, 307
intervention, 327 thematic quality/thematic content, 16, 21,
teacher conferencing, 275, 278t 27, 144, 146, 147, 148–150, 152
teachers, role of in supporting pupils writing thinking for writing, 25, 26
skills, 329 think-write model, 101
Terleksti, E., 50 TL (typical language), 273
Terminable unit (T-unit divisions), 161, 165, TOLD-P:3 (Test of Language Development-
172, 247, 288, 289, 295, 306 Primary: Third Edition), 119
See also mean length of T-unit (MLTU) topic development, 302, 303–304
terminology, importance of for integration topic-elaboration strategy, 9–10, 10f
of written language and oral language transcriber, 6, 7, 9
disorders, 314–316 transcription, 7, 8, 12, 17, 35, 85, 87, 96, 122,
Test of Language Development- 192, 194, 231, 238, 254, 257, 259, 260,
Primary: Third Edition (TOLD-P:3), 304
119 transcription errors, 103, 104, 105,
tests 106, 107
Alouette test, 59, 206 transcription skills, 115, 122, 196, 245, 248,
Benton Retention Test, 207 329, 330
DJUR word-decoding test, 246 transcription technology, 8
Grammatic Completion (GC) subtest, translations, 102
119, 121 translator, 6–7, 9
IQ tests/scores, 3–4, 189, 205, 258, transparent orthographies, 70, 130, 131, 202,
262 214, 228, 230, 234, 329
Mann-Whitney U tests, 147, 248 transposition, 48–49, 56, 258
Matrices subtest, 119, 120 Treiman, R., 48, 203, 204
PEREL test, 218 TROG, 93, 95
Picture Vocabulary subtest, 119 T-unit divisions (Terminable unit), 161, 165,
PROLEC-SE, 217 172, 247, 288, 289, 295, 306
PROLEC standardized subtest, 217 See also mean length of T-unit (MLTU)
RAVEN test, 217 Turkish language, 19
Sentence Imitation (SI) subtest, 119 typical language (TL), 273
Spearman’s Rank Correlation test, 248 typically developing (TD) students, 113,
SPM scale (of RAVEN test), 217 144, 178
Test of Language Development-
Primary: Third Edition (TOLD-P:3), underivable, 62, 64, 65f, 66
119 United Kingdom
Verbal Knowledge subtest, 119, 120 definitions of dyslexia, 189
word dictation test, 61–62 Harris and Terleksti study of teenagers
text construction, 17, 20–25, 26, 27, 143, in, 50
144, 147 writing assessment, 331
text generation, 87, 89, 91, 92, 96, 97, 123, Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro, 228,
144, 231, 232, 239, 245, 316, 319, 330, 232
332, 339 utterances, compared to phrases, 19
text length, 20, 144, 151, 192, 247
text organization, 146, 161, 169, 302–304, Valdois, S., 204
307 Verbal Knowledge subtest, 119, 120
text planning, 122, 258, 260 verbal productivity, 144, 146
[ 3 5 4 ] Index
verbal working memory, influence of on cognitive approach to, 33–34, 35, 36, 38,
writing skills in children with hearing 39
loss, 85–97, 88t, 92t, 93t, 94t, 95t as communication tool, 33, 34
verb-framed languages, 24 differentiated teaching strategies
verb phrases (VP), 18, 23, 24 for, 330
verb-satellite languages, 24 examining early spelling and writing skills,
video drafts, 102 112–124, 120t, 121t
vocabulary socio-cultural approach to, 33–34, 35,
appropriateness, 22 37–38, 39, 40
of children with hearing loss, 338 support of in school, 329–330
effect of poor spelling on in children with transactional function of, 33
dyslexia, 192–193 usability of, 36
impact of writing lab approach on, 290 Writing Across the Borders Conference, 38
importance of for literacy development, Writing Assessment Summary and Goals
20 sheet, 282, 286f, 291
limited as related to reading writing convention analysis, 291
difficulties, 50 writing development, of Spanish-English
and morphological awareness, 135 bilingual students with language
reading as developing complex vocabulary, learning disabilities, 158–169, 164t,
190 166t
VOCD (Vocabulary Diversity), 21, 246 writing environment, 38, 326–327
VP (verb phrases), 18, 23, 24 writing instruction
Vygotsky, L. S., 33, 39, 274 aim of for students with reading and
writing difficulties, 254
Wallace, D., 10–11 benefits of study of, 322
Walsh, E., 8 for children with oral language problems,
Weaver, C., 289 338
Wechsler intelligence scales, 87 developmental model of, 196
Wechsler’s Digit Span, 87 evidence-based recommendations for, 38
See also Digit Span flexibility in approach and monitoring
Wengelin, A., 244, 245, 253, 315 progress as essential components of,
Westby, C. E., 288 331
Windsor, J., 177, 309 inspiration for current strategies, 340
WISC, 205 integrating of with writing development,
WISC-R Digit Span, 89 321
Woodcock Johnson, Third Edition (WJ-III), oral language as important component
119 of, 339
word (as unit of analysis), 17, 18 preparing teachers to support, 329
word attack, 49 role of incidental and implicit learning
word-based measures, 20 in, 339
word frequency, 22, 219, 247, 317 and spell-checkers, 255
word length, as criteria of lexical usage, 21 studies on as rare, 160
word level analysis, 289–290 variations in, 332
working memory (WM), 4, 5–6, 7, 11, 12, writing lab approach, integrating language
35, 96, 97, 101, 151, 158, 196, 210, 230, assessment, instruction, and
234, 245, 257, 258, 338, 339 intervention in, 273–298, 276t–278t,
See also verbal working memory 279f, 281f, 287t–288t, 290t, 292f, 293t,
writing 295t
as academic and cross-disciplinary ability, Writing Process and Product Worksheet,
33 282, 283f–285f
Index [355]
writing processes written language disorders, integration of
evidence-based model of, 303 with oral language disorders,
importance of analyzing those of children 313–322
with dyslexia, 195–196 written language skills
story probes and, 282 reconstruction task and, 152
strategies that determine selection of, 9, 10 as required for full participation in
that have received most attention from democratic society, 244
researchers, 100 role of oral language in developing,
tools to investigate, 316–318 325–332
writing processes analysis, 282 written narratives
writing-process instruction, 274, 275 from French- and English-speaking
writing research, 33–41, 313–322 children with language impairment,
writing schemas, 9, 10, 11 176–185, 179t, 180t, 181t, 182t, 183t,
writing skills, in children with hearing loss, 184t, 185t
influence of verbal working memory written story probes, 273, 280, 281–282,
on, 85–97, 88t, 92t, 93t, 94t, 95t 289, 290
writing tablets, 195, 317, 320
written expression disorders, formula for Ziegler, J. C., 202, 320
identifying, xvii Zoellner, R., 101
written language, integration of with oral zone of proximal development, 39, 274
language into a new practice model, Zorman, M., 203
301–309 Zucker, T., 114
[ 3 5 6 ] Index

Writing Development in Children With Hearing Loss, Dyslexia, or Oral Language Problems

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

PART ONE: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

PART TWO: The Impact of Oral Language Problems on Written

PART THREE: Linking Research to Practice in Oral and Written Language

Bridging Research and Practice: Conclusions 336

Language problems are considered to be a significant barrier to learning, partici-

UNESCO (2013). Literacies for the 21st century. Downloaded from: http://unesdoc.unesco.

John Albertini Virginia W. Berninger

Barbara Arfé Sophie Bouton

Nickola Wolf Nelson Judy S. Reilly

Elena Pozzebon Michael Stinson

Models and Perspectives on

Cognitive Processes in Writing

We have included four resources at the resource level: attention, long-term mem-

[ 4 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [5]

[ 6 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

The Task Environment

Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [ 7 ]

[ 8 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [9]

[ 1 0 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

INTEGRATING LEVELS OF THE FRAMEWORK

APPLYING THE COGNITIVE FRAMEWORK TO CLINICAL

In exploring the applications of this framework to writing practice and research,

Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [11]

Factors to consider in evaluating the resources (lower level Figure 1.1) a writer

Selective Language Impairment (Language-Learning Disability)

[ 1 2 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

It is a step forward, however, to acknowledge, as this volume does, that individuals

Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [13]

[ 1 4 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

Cognitive Processes in Writing: A Fr amework [15]

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Written language is examined here as a style of discourse necessary for achieve-

• Notational features such as spelling or punctuation, which have critical linguis-

Analysis focuses on linguistic units involved in text analysis, with a cross-linguistic

UNITS OF ANALYSIS (SECTION 1)

Linguistic elements relevant to analyzing written language need to be defined

[ 1 8 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

DIAGNOSTICS OF DEVELOPING WRITTEN TEXT CONSTRUCTION

Application of these units of analysis proved diagnostic of school-age writing abili-

[ 2 0 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

[ 2 2 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

[ 2 4 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

COMMUNICATIVE APPROPRIATENESS (SECTION 3)

[ 2 6 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

[ 2 8 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

[ 3 0 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development

High School Boy’s Personal-Experience Written Narrative

1 When I was in the seventh grade, [AV-TMP preposed]

∗Legend: AV = Adverbial Clause, AV-CND = Conditional, AV-CCS = Circumstantial, AV- TMP = Temporal Clause,

Two Metaphors for Writing

TWO METAPHORS FOR TWO OPPOSING APPROACHES

From the cognitive perspective, writing development can be compared to the

[ 3 4 ] Part I: Models and Perspectives on Writing Development