Journal of

Research in Reading
Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01433.x
Volume 33, Issue 1, 2010, pp 77–93

Investigating narrative writing by

9–11-year-olds
Roger Beard and Andrew Burrell
University of London, UK

Standardised tasks and a repeat design were used to investigate development in narrative
writing by 112 primary schoolchildren. The scripts comprised the NFER Literacy
Impact Writing Test B, completed near the end of the children’s second terms in Year 5
and Year 6. The test includes a narrative task using content of appeal to both genders.
The scripts were rated by specially trained panels, using a numeric scheme applied to
five constituents of writing, and text-level and technical accuracy rating scales derived
from relevant sources. All constituents of writing showed an improvement, although
analysis of text-level ratings showed that there were substantial proportions of children
whose writing included a feature in Year 5 but not in Year 6, as well as vice versa.
Qualitative analysis revealed common features within attainment subgroups in content,
language use, technical accuracy and overall effectiveness of the writing. The study
provides findings that may contribute to the discourse of literacy education and also
raises issues of interest for further comparative studies.

Over the past 10 years or so, the writing of primary schoolchildren in England has been
the focus of national concern (e.g. Beard, 2005; HMI, 2000; Ofsted, 2005). The concerns
are focused on the general ‘under-attainment’ of children in writing compared with their
attainment in reading. Each year large numbers of primary schoolchildren are not
attaining the ‘national expectation’ benchmark for writing for 11-year-olds set by
national curriculum tests. Although 86% of pupils now attain the benchmark in reading,
only 67% reach it in writing (DCSF, 2009). In addition, boys’ attainment is substantially
below that of girls, an issue that is addressed elsewhere (Beard & Burrell, unpublished
data; Daly, 2003; Ofsted, 2003; Younger & Warrington, 2005). According to central
government statistics, children who score below Level 4 are under-prepared for the
writing demands of secondary schooling.
There are a number of issues in the way this concern has been conceptualised. The
definition of under-attainment is solely based on the broad ‘level descriptions’ of
attainment in the national curriculum which were introduced in 1994 to replace more
formulaic ‘statements of attainment’ that had been used since the national curriculum was
first introduced in 1989. ‘National expectation’ is centred around ‘Level 4’ in these
descriptions and is rather generalised. The criteria for Level 4 attainment include ‘lively
and thoughtful’ writing in a range of forms, ‘adventurous vocabulary choices’, some use
of complex sentences where appropriate, correct spelling of regular words (including
polysyllabic ones) and correct use of full stops, capital letters and question marks (full
details can be found at http://www.qcda.gov.uk).

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78 BEARD and BURRELL

Level descriptions are annually translated into marking criteria used by national test
markers. While general commentaries on pupil performance are published annually (e.g.
QCA, 2004) and test designers undertake analyses of previous national test scripts in
preparing subsequent tests, only numerical attainment levels are reported to schools. The
national concern also raises broader questions about what ‘development’ in writing can
comprise and how it is assessed. Relatively little rigorous research appears to have been
done on this aspect of literacy education in the primary age range. The study being
reported here makes an original contribution to the field within a theoretical framework
largely derived from educational linguistics. The overall aim was to characterise the
development of narrative writing in a sample of primary schoolchildren.

Some previous work in the field

Large-scale studies in the United Kingdom and the United States have found total text
length (word count) to be a crude but valid measure of writing development (e.g. Chall,
Jacobs & Baldwin, 1990; Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis & Ecob, 1988). Other
studies of the development of the constituents of writing have included the influential
work in the United States of Loban (1963) and Hunt (1965). In the United Kingdom, a
substantial study by Harpin (1976) was also in this tradition. Harpin investigated samples
of creative and factual writing from nearly 300 junior schoolchildren (7–11-year-olds)
over six terms. The analysis focused on word counts, vocabulary and syntactical
structures, providing indications of the general direction and rate of development in this
age range. In a later paper, Harpin (1986) acknowledges the need for quantitative studies
to be refined by the inclusion of broader textual assessments, which also take account of
the situational demands made on the writer. Cameron & Besser (2004), investigating the
writing skills of pupils for whom English is an additional language, analysed 264 scripts
from 13 schools in eight Local Authorities in order to identify key features of language
that pupils learning English as an additional language appeared to handle less confidently
than English mother tongue speakers. Other studies have examined the occurrence of
specific features, such as subordination in different genres of children’s writing (Allison,
Beard & Willcocks, 2002) and features of sentence structure in different key stages
(Hudson, 2009).
None of these studies, however, has used repeat designs and standardised tasks that
allow developments in specific constituents of writing to be investigated over a specific
timescale. The study reported in this paper addresses this gap in the literature on writing
through a rigorous analysis of children’s narrative writing at the end of the primary
school age range. The core research questions were as follows: what features are found in
Year 5 narrative writing? How does the profile of features change when the same writing
tasks are undertaken in Year 6?

Methods
Design
A repeat design was used. The National Foundation for Educational Research Literacy
Impact Test B was administered to 112 Year 5 children near the end of the spring term
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and again 1 year later. The test comprises a 10-minute persuasive description writing task
and a 30-minute narrative writing task (both continuous prose), using content that is
likely to appeal equally to boys and girls: an advertisement for a new dessert and a
narrative about a surprise reward, in the form of a gift, from collecting cereal tokens.
Both tasks are supported with teacher introductions that are set out in the Literacy Impact
Teachers’ Guide (Twist & Brill, 2000). The findings from the analysis of the persuasive
description texts are being reported in a separate paper.

Participants
The participants were all the Year 5 pupils (60 boys, 52 girls) from five schools
representing a range of socioeconomic catchments from two English Local Authorities.
These schools were identified through local professional networks and the Ofsted website
was checked to ensure that their pupil attainment reflected an appropriate range when the
schools were last inspected. Compared with ‘all schools’, one of the schools was rated as
‘well above average’ in its standards achieved in English, three as ‘average’ and one as
‘below average’. The five schools followed slightly adapted versions of the National
Primary Strategy guidance.

Procedure
The scripts were rated in three ways, with different rating panels being used for each.
Firstly, using the Literacy Impact Teacher’s Guide, which is based on a numeric scheme
applied to five constituents of writing and informed by analyses of national curriculum
test scripts (Twist & Brill, 2000, p. v): purpose and organisation (0, 3, 6 or 9 marks);
grammar, vocabulary and style (0, 2, 4 or 6 marks); punctuation; spelling and handwriting
(0, 1, 2 or 3 marks each). Ratings for grammar, vocabulary and style; punctuation;
spelling and handwriting are made across both narrative and persuasive description texts.
The criteria for the purpose and organisation element for narrative are shown in Table 1.
Further details of all the rating schemes, with worked examples, may be found in Twist
and Brill (2000). Tables are available to convert raw scores to scaled scores, and likely
achievement on national curriculum tests, although these are based on aggregates from
both persuasive description and narrative tasks.
The scripts were rated by experienced national test markers, who were trained in
standardisation meetings led by a technical representative of the publishers, NFER-
Nelson. Each member of the marking panel was responsible for all the scripts from a
specific number of schools. The reliability of Literacy Impact Writing Test B (Cronbach’s a),

Table 1. Rating scores for narrative purpose and organisation in the Literacy Impact test.
Textual features Rating score

Main features of story structure are used (beginning, middle, simple ending) 3
Events form a chronological, related sequence
Simple characters/setting/reported or direct speech
Main features of story structure are used with some parts clearly distinguished 6
Events form a chronological, related sequence; some are clearly developed
Some interaction between characters/development of setting or use of direct/reported speech
Main features of story structure provide an overall logical framework 9
Events form a logically related and developed sequence
Evidence of characterisation, setting, direct/reported speech, attempts to interest reader

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which also includes the persuasive description task not being discussed in this paper, is
reported as .87, considered to be suitably high for tests of this length and nature (Twist &
Brill, 2000, pp. 63–65).
Secondly, in order to rate text-level features of narrative, texts were rated on scales
derived from relevant sources (Beard, 2000; Cameron & Besser, 2004; DfEE, 2000;
DfES, 2002; QCA, 2004; Twist & Brill, 2000; Wyatt-Smith, 1997). Scales were
extensively trialled and refined. The scales were mostly dichotomous and examined
whether a feature is present or not. In relation to the ‘ability to write in a style appropriate
to audience and purpose’, the texts were rated on whether they contained the following:
‘attention to specified story prompt’; ‘style appropriate to audience and purpose’ (five
features); whether the text portrayed key events from Alex’s (the main character) point of
view; and whether this viewpoint was well controlled.
In relation to the ‘ability to select and sequence information in the format of a story’,
the texts were rated on: ‘amount of narrative structure’ (four features); ‘strategies used to
elaborate narrative’ (the use of action, dialogue and description in four features); whether
there was ‘plot resolution’; and whether the young writer provided any comment on this.
In relation to the ‘ability to link the narrative’, the use of connectives was rated in
relation to signalling time, shifting attention and injecting suspense.
In relation to the ‘ability to choose words which enhance the writing’, the texts were
rated on: stylistic choices that focus on narrative appeal (five features); and the choice of
vocabulary for narrative impact on reader’ (two features). The rating of text-level features
also included the use of paragraphs, whether the opening paragraph established the
narrative purpose and whether the texts showed evidence of planning and self-correction.
Full details of all the rated features are listed in the figures that follow. The panel for
this rating exercise also had extensive national test marking experience. To help improve
inter-rater reliability, and to refine the scales if appropriate, an approach was used similar
to the one used by Cameron and Besser (2004) with moderation trials being undertaken
on sets of 10 randomly selected scripts. After each trial, discrepancies were noted and
discussed with each panel. Across the text-level (dichotomous) items in the narrative
task, the Kuder–Richardson coefficient was .76 (Year 5 data) and .69 (Year 6 data).
Thirdly, in order to rate more general linguistic features of technical accuracy, rating
scales for 100-word samples were derived from recent studies in the field, especially
Cameron and Besser (2004), and also extensively trialled and refined. The raters for this
phase were doctoral students from a university linguistics department. Again, moderation
trials were carried out on sets of 10 randomly selected scripts. Cronbach’s a for the 12
technical accuracy items for the narrative task was .49 (Year 5 data) and .56 (Year 6
data). It is acknowledged that these reliability figures are not high and findings in relation
to any features with low levels of agreement are being reported with caution, although the
above reliability figures refer to sentence- and word-level features. This paper focuses
primarily on text-level features of narrative. Confidentiality of pupil names during rating
and coding was maintained in the coding exercise by the removal of the cover sheets
from photocopies of the Literacy Impact booklets and the addition of specially coded
labels.

Quantitative analysis
Comparisons were made between the Year 5 and Year 6 Literacy Impact raw scores for
the five constituents of writing and their aggregates. Analysis of the dichotomous
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text-level data was undertaken as follows: percentages of the pupil sample whose texts
included the features in Year 5 and in Year 6; binomial analysis to test for significant
differences in proportion; w2 analysis for each item in the rating scales to investigate the
numbers of pupils whose writing included a feature in Year 5 but not in Year 6 and vice
versa. For the predominantly numerical entries for technical accuracy (also including
total text length), significant differences between the Year 5 and Year 6 scripts were
tested for, using the paired t-test.

Qualitative analysis
Subsamples of texts were selected which, according to Literacy Impact scores, were rated
highest and lowest in Year 6 (13 and 12, respectively), and which showed the greatest
gains and the greatest decreases between Year 5 and Year 6 (13 and 15, respectively).
The slight variation in the sizes of the subsamples was due to distribution variations
around the boundary scores that were used. Of the 13 highest-attaining children in the
Year 6 narratives, with a range of raw scores from 21 to 24, the texts of nine were also
rated among the highest 13 in Year 5, with a range of scores from 19 to 24.
The mean gain between Year 5 and Year 6 of the 13 children who scored highest in
Year 6 was 2.9. The high attainers showed improvement in all five constituents of writing
and, in contrast to the lowest attainers, most improvement was apparent in purpose and
organisation. In Year 6, 12 of the 13 children in the high attaining group achieved the
highest rating for purpose and organisation; 11 the maximum rating for grammar,
vocabulary and style; all 13 the maximum rating for punctuation; 10 the maximum rating
for spelling; 7 the maximum score for handwriting. No pupil in this subgroup achieved
the lowest rating for any constituent of writing in Year 6, with the exception of
handwriting, in which five achieved the lowest rating.
Of the 12 lowest-attaining children in the Year 6 narratives, with a range of scores
from 5 to 12, the texts of nine children were also rated among the lowest 12 in Year 5,
with a range of scores from 4 to 10. The mean gain between Year 5 and Year 6 of the 12
children who scored lowest in Year 6 was 1.2. In Year 6, 10 of the 12 lowest-attaining
children achieved the lowest rating for purpose and organisation (with another 2 being
rated 0), 9 the lowest rating for grammar, vocabulary and style, 8 the lowest rating for
punctuation (with another 2 being rated 0), 10 the lowest rating for spelling and 9 the
lowest rating for handwriting (with another 3 being rated 0).
While other subgroups could have been identified from a smaller range of criteria (e.g.
ratings for grammar, vocabulary and style, punctuation, spelling or handwriting, or any
combination thereof), it was felt that the use of all the available criteria, including
purpose and organisation, was appropriate for an investigation of narrative writing.

User participation
All five schools agreed to be involved in the project and a half-day briefing meeting was
held with teachers from the schools just before the project began. The original teachers
were contacted again at the end of the quantitative analysis so that they could comment
on the findings from their school and also on a summary of the results as a whole. The
Year 6 teachers, where these were different, were invited to a meeting to discuss the study
and its implications.
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Results
Quantitative data
Both the mean and the median of the Literacy Impact raw scores increased between Year
5 and Year 6 (see Table 2).
Of the 111 pupils in the sample who completed the tasks in both years, 27 (24.3%)
achieved a lower score in the second year, 13 (11.7%) showed no change and 71 (64.0%)
showed an improvement in their score. The proportion achieving a lower score in Year 6
may appear surprising. However, when the 13 highest gain children are compared with
the 15 children whose scores had decreased the most, the mean differences for the scores
on the tests as a whole were 13.5 and 6.1, respectively. Of the 15 children whose scores
had decreased, the range was smaller, 3–11, compared with a range of 11–19 in the 13
highest gain children. Eight of the 15 came from one class, perhaps indicating that the
narrative task had been rushed for some reason. Two of these children had only managed
to write an introductory, albeit reasonably coherent, paragraph.
Table 3 shows that, across the sample as a whole, there was an improvement in all
categories.
In the text-level ratings, as can be seen from Figure 1, there was a very significant
increase in ‘Attention to the specified story prompt’. When the children were in Year 5,
70.3% of the scripts were rated as attending to the specified story prompt; in Year 6, this
had increased to 87.3% of the sample (po .01).
Figure 1 indicates that there was also an increase in the percentage of all the other
features in this section of the rating exercise, which were all concerned with the ability to
write in a style appropriate to audience and purpose. Two features showed most increase:
awareness of reader (1 12.4%, po .05) and clear evidence of purpose (attempts to engage
reader; 1 16.9%, po .01). A significant increase was also found in key events portrayed
from Alex’s point of view (1 8%, p 5 .05).
Regarding the ‘ability to select and sequence information in the format of the story’,
there were percentage increases in all features except the elaboration of the setting
through dialogue and description. As can be seen in Figures 2 and 3, the two features that
increased most were the use of dialogue to elaborate on the resolution of the narrative
(1 18.4%, po .01) and the amount of narrative structure related to the main event

Table 2. Summary statistics for Year 5 and Year 6 Literacy Impact tests.
Year 5 (n 5 111) Year 6 (n 5 112)

Mean 15.80 19.07

Median 14.00 19.00

Table 3. Mean score in each category for Year 5 and Year 6 (n 5 111 for Year 5 and 112 for Year 6).
Category Mean score for Year 5 Mean score for Year 6

Purpose and organisation 4.66 5.54

Grammar, vocabulary, style 3.28 3.87
Punctuation 1.26 1.94
Spelling 1.71 1.96
Handwriting 1.35 1.57

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Figure 1. Features used to write in a style appropriate to audience and purpose.

Figure 2. Features used to select and sequence information in the format of a story: setting and character.

(1 16.7%, po .05). Other significant increases were found in the use of action to develop
character (1 11.5%, p 5 .05) and the use of action to develop the main event (1 14.1%,
po .05).
Figure 4 indicates that of the connective features that link a narrative, the one that
increased most was the ability to use connectives to inject suspense into the narrative
(1 11%, po .05). There was also a nonsignificant increase in the use of connectives to
signal time.
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Figure 3. Features used to select and sequence information in the format of a story: main event and
resolution.

Figure 4. Use of connectives.

As indicated in Figure 5, of the features concerned with choosing words which enhance
the writing, there were significant increases in the use of exclamations for impact
(1 19.5%, po .01), the use of adventurous vocabulary to add interest to the writing
(1 14.9%, po .05) and in the use of verbs to emphasise action, thoughts or feelings
(1 17.7%, po .01). One feature that was less used in Year 6 was the use of repetitive
structures ( 5.7%, ns).
There was very limited evidence of planning and self-correction across the sample as a
whole.
Chi-squared analysis revealed substantial proportions of children who included some
features in Year 5 but not in Year 6 and vice versa. The analysis revealed a moderate
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Figure 5. Features used to enhance the writing.

initial level of use, and also a significant increase, in the use of the following features, but
also a substantial proportion of pupils whose writing included one of them in Year 5 but
not in Year 6: a developed main event; the elaboration of character through action; the
elaboration of the main event through action; the use of exclamations for impact; and the
use of adventurous vocabulary.
There was a low initial level of use, and also a significant increase, in the use of
connectives to inject suspense and the elaboration of the resolution through dialogue, but
also a substantial proportion of pupils whose writing included one of these features in
Year 5 but not in Year 6.
Analysis of the interval data from the technical accuracy ratings indicated that Year 6
texts were longer (po .01) and had fewer spelling errors (po .05). The Year 6 texts also
had more missing commas (po .01), more inverted commas in the wrong place (po .05)
and more noun–pronoun errors (po .05).

User participation
In a meeting and in correspondence after the quantitative analysis was completed, the
teachers did not report any misgivings about the content of the narrative task, although
some felt that the sense of audience might have been stronger in the task brief and that
planning time might have been explicitly built in. One teacher, whose school was situated
in a relatively disadvantaged catchment, reported that her pupils had ‘revelled’ in the
task. In general, the scores and ratings were in line with the teachers’ own assessments,
especially in the high gains subgroup. Two of the teachers expressed some surprises in
the membership of the high attainment group, indicating that some children had shown a
higher attainment profile than had been expected. None of the teachers consulted were
aware of the ‘ebb and flow’ profile of particular features; being made aware of this had
contributed to their professional development.
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Qualitative data
Given the current concern about writing that was referred to earlier, this section will
report some of the findings that illustrate narrative features in which there were
significant developments. In order to provide some ‘conceptual calibration’, this section
will also report and briefly summarise and illustrate the features that characterised the
texts of the high and low attainment subgroups.
Table 4 summarises the features that generally characterised the texts of the high
attainment subsample.
Mary was an example of someone who used an opening paragraph to establish the
narrative purpose with an early stylistic choice of ellipsis to draw the reader into events:

Alex finally sent off for his mysterious [sic] gift. Every day he ran to see if he got
any post. Nothing. Untill the fifth week a packge arrived . . .

Mary’s writing was a good example of the effective use of appropriate and adventurous
vocabulary to emphasise actions, thoughts and feelings:

He untied the string carefully and unrapped the brown paper . . . A funny-shaped
metal object lay in the box. Alex took it out and gloomily took it to his room. He
observed it. There was something about this object, except he did not know what
. . . He pressed it expectantly . . .

There was also confident use of dialogue: ‘ ‘‘Excuse me, Alex, [said the oddly shaped
button] I want to get passed [past]’’. ‘‘Cool, you can talk! What’s your name?’’ asked
Alex’.
Table 5 summarises the features that generally characterised low attainment in
narrative texts.
Denise was one of the subsample of children whose overall attainment remained
relatively low. She only produced 109 words in Year 5 and 113 in Year 6. Her spelling
and punctuation were rated as improving slightly, although her handwriting attainment

Table 4. Imaginative narrative: what characterised high attainment?

Textual element Features

Overall effectiveness of imaginative Consistent narrative structure

narrative Frequent use of dialogue
Series of paragraphs
Content Attention to the specified story prompt
Focus on Alex’s [main character] anticipation and subsequent reaction
to the free gift
Language use Third person/past tense used consistently
Dialogue in different tense
Stylistic choices used to draw the reader into events
Appropriate and adventurous vocabulary to emphasise actions,
thoughts and feelings
Other Length often about 300 words
Handwriting joined and usually fluent
Punctuation reasonably secure

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Table 5. Imaginative narrative: what characterised consistently low attainment?

Textual element Features

Overall effectiveness of imaginative narrative Limited information about setting and characters
Little attempt to organise the narrative into paragraphs
No/limited use of dialogue
Incomplete/rather abrupt ending
Content Lack of attention to specified story prompt
Language use Third person/past tense used inconsistently
Only time-related connectives
Other Length often below 200 words
Handwriting a mixture of print and joined
Punctuation often missing/limited in use

remained low and her Year 6 grammar, vocabulary and style were rated as slightly lower
than in Year 5. Her overall structural development was not secured because in Year 5 she
did not manage to use the story prompt to link to a setting in which key events were
portrayed from Alex’s point of view. In Year 6, she did portray events, but from a point
of view that was not made clear.
In Year 5, Denise did not explicitly engage with the story prompt and described Alex’s
mum waiting outside school for him. The main event was the arrival of a swimming pool
in a van. ‘A man says to Alex’s mum ‘‘this is for yor sun we whll fix ni to yor back gadan
for you’’.’ While Alex’s excitement was described, and the story ended with ‘a big
Shlash’, there is no mention of the cereal token collection itself.
In Year 6, Denise provided plenty of insight into the main character’s thoughts but did
not name the character, provide a setting or explain the main event. She did, however,
begin to develop a resolution:

What a wast of time, wast of money. I wish I hadant got a stupid lital shoping
vishur [voucher?] i don’t evan like shoping I am nether geting any more vishers
ever again Not even [when] I am older. I bet that evry body els did not get one of
these. I [k]now I will give to my mum. Mum I have got you a shoping tiket for
shoping . . .

When the texts of the 13 children in the ‘high gains’ subsample were considered, a range
of features and explanations were evident. It is also interesting to note that all five schools
were represented in this subsample. Where characterisations could be derived, they are
shown in Table 6.
One of the most striking developments was apparent in the writing by Samuel, whose
Year 6 writing exhibited more features of narrative structure, particularly an initial setting
with sequence of events in chronological order. In Year 5, his writing largely comprised a
non-chronological report, written in the present continuous tense. The content dwelt
mostly on the gift and the arrangements for claiming it:

The gift is just a paper airaplane but if you collect ten more tokens you will get the
ceral plus a necales for free but the more your get the better you get so for just 50
tokens you get a amazing watch witch has gliter in side with the time not a second
fast or slow.
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Table 6. Imaginative narrative: what characterised high gains?

Textual element Features

Overall effectiveness of More features of narrative structure (e.g. initial setting with sequence of
imaginative narrative events in chronological order)
Greater use of paragraphing
More direct speech
More developed interaction between characters
Content Improved attention to specified story prompt
Greater focus on Alex’s reaction to the gift
Language use Third person/past tense used more consistently
Greater use of connectives
Vocabulary used more to emphasise action, thoughts or feelings
Other Increase in word length
Improved handwriting – mostly joined and fluent
Improved and increased use of punctuation

This explanatory opening was continued to the end of the text and the narrative never
really gets started. Samuel’s Year 6 narrative indicated much more awareness of the need
to focus on the main character and to build a sequence of events around
the assigned plot:

One day Alex woke up then went down stairs for some cereal. He picked the cereal
box up when the corner of his eye saw the last token he needed for all five, he
quickly cut it out and said ‘Please, can I ring the cereal company to get my price
[sic]?’

Helen showed a clear grasp of narrative structure in her Year 5 narrative but her Year 6
writing showed greater plot development. Her Year 5 writing immediately established the
setting: ‘It was a sunny morning. The only sound was the bacon sizzling on the pan. All
that changed when the postman pushed a parcel through the letter box’.
The plot centred on the discovery of a pixie in the parcel but, despite the pixie’s
invitation to play ‘tricksies’, Helen did not have time to develop the narrative further.
The Year 6 narrative was substantially longer (249 words cf. 185 in Year 5) and was
considerably more effective in quickly establishing the core of the plot and developing it
more extensively: ‘Alex stared, disappointed, at the tiny packet of powder on her bed.
‘‘Vanishing powder’’, she scoffed, ‘‘as if it will really work! . . . If only I could get my
money back’’ she muttered angrily’. The plot can be guessed at from an extract from later
in the text: ‘Alex heard her mother shriek ‘‘Where’s the baby?’’ ’ The narrative continued
with Alex rushing to check the small print on another cereal packet: ‘ ‘‘Collect 10 tokens
to find the cure’’. She looked desperately about . . . OK, now she was really in trouble . . .’
Norma’s most distinctive development was in the more conventional grammar and
style of narrative. In Year 5, her narrative began with an incomplete subordinate clause:
‘Because Alex saw on the box and it said collect 5 tokens and sent off for your mystery
free gift. But Alex did not get his free gift he had waiting for his gift to come but it never
came’.
In Year 6, her opening sentence established the narrative purpose and her style
reflected a more confident use of subordination: ‘One day Alex’s free mystery gift had
come. He want to find out what it was. He ran upstairs with it. When he got to his
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bedroom he took of the lid. When he looked inside it he found a token to go on holiday to
Spain’.
For Imran, the main characteristics of his improvement in the overall effectiveness of
imaginative narrative were more developed interaction between characters linked with a
more accomplished narrative style. Typical was the following exchange in the Year 6
text, which was not evident in Year 5, although, exceptionally, Imran’s Year 6 writing
was shorter than his Year 5 piece.

‘Mum, I didn’t expect to find a mystery gift’ Alex explained. ‘Hmm’, mum
hummed, wondring what she will do. Moments later, Mum was downstairs and
calling on the help line.

Some of the most notable developments in narrative structure were evident in Elizabeth’s
writing, whose attainment in the Year 5 administration of the Literacy Impact task was
relatively low in all aspects of writing except grammar, vocabulary and style. The Year 5
narrative began reasonably effectively: ‘At last Alex had enough tokens to get a free toy.
But the toy [that] was sent wasent qite wate we expected’, but was then interrupted by a
description of herself and her pets: ‘I have a kat called Peater and some fish’ followed by
‘My brother is called Alex and . . . he has Brown her [hair] and lodst of fish and a kat
calld flufey. What a dome [dumb] name for a kat’, before resuming the narrative, ‘aney
way Bake to the toy’ before further digressions on the gift ‘I cant Bleve they wood put
that in ther, But wat if a gile [girl] had got that to she wood give away’.
A year later, Elizabeth’s writing showed many more features of narrative structure,
especially in the improved attention to specified story prompt, although her spelling
attainment remained low:

It was sonday shopping day. For some reson Alex was exsited. He was exsited
Because he was getting his sireyel monch [cereal munch] as it was called. It had his
last tocen on it he had to clecte [collect] five and this would be his last one. He got
home cut it out and sent of for a toy. the gift was a Book that Alex counld not aford so
this was his chans to get the Book. He’d beed desprt to read it for ages. It was a weak
later and it came throw the post. Alex ripe open the paceg and had a look inside.

Discussion

This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to have used a repeat design
and standardised tasks that allow developments in specific constituents of primary
schoolchildren’s writing to be investigated over a specific timescale. The study had a
number of limitations, including the relatively small sample, the arbitrary and limited
nature of the task, the lack of preparation time for the children who participated and the
lack of choice in the tasks that they were asked to complete. While these limitations seem
likely to be inherent in repeat-design studies of this kind, it is possible that at least some
of the children would have written more expansively if they had had greater choice and
more time.
While a wide range of assessments and ratings were used, a different set of scales
might have been arrived at if alternative sources were consulted, perhaps leading to a
different set of findings and different profiles of development. It could also be argued that
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the balance of assessment in Literacy Impact, which gives a higher weighting to purpose
and organisation (maximum rating 9 for narrative), and to grammar, vocabulary and style
(maximum rating 6), and a lower weighting to transcription skills like handwriting
(maximum rating 3), may risk distorting the assessment profile of pupils whose narratives
are conventionally expressed, but inefficiently communicated.
It also needs to be noted that the National Literacy/Primary Strategy was well
established in primary schools at the time when the Literacy Impact assessments were
administered. As primary schools in England have been under considerable pressure to
improve their national test results, particularly in writing, teaching practices in some Year
6 classes may be concentrated in the second half of the year by preparation and practice
for the national tests in May. However, as data were not systematically collected on
teaching provision, it is not possible to report whether there was a change in practice
between Year 5 and Year 6 in the schools in the study or whether there were notable
differences between schools. In meetings with school staff, no mention was made of
disproportionate national test preparation.
With these caveats in mind, the data reported here provide some indications of the
features of children’s narrative writing in the 9–11 age range and how these changed over
a 12-month period in which the five schools all reported following the same national
curriculum and national strategy guidance. Given the circumstances of the test
administration, it seems unlikely that any of the schools provided any specific
preparation or support for the writing tasks used in the study. The range of individuality
of the texts seems to bear this out.
While the raw data from the Literacy Impact and technical accuracy ratings provided
some indications of development (Beard, Burrell, Swinnerton & Pell, 2007), a more
specific range of results were found from the use of the genre-specific rating scale that
was an original part of this project. The use of this scale provided indications of
development in the children’s writing that could not be ascertained from the use of more
numerical or impressionistic judgements. Some items in the scale were derived from the
manual for the Literacy Impact tests and thus made explicit the criteria on which purpose
and organisation was initially scored. Other items introduced additional dimensions of
appraisal that captured subtleties in the writing that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.
The broad assessment strand of ‘grammar, vocabulary and style’ might similarly be
unravelled to allow investigation of different sentence types, lexical range (e.g. type–
token ratio) and various stylistic elements.
Looking across the sample as a whole, the findings reflected a substantial amount of
significant data capture. As well as reflecting positively on a range of dimensions of pupil
learning, the data may be of value in replication studies and could in time contribute to
international comparative studies, when cultural and cross-national issues might be
addressed. It may also be testimony to the teaching that the children had experienced that,
in the 12 months between the two tasks, they had learned to translate greater attention
into clear evidence of purpose, through attempts to engage the reader. This engagement
was extended into portraying key events from the main character’s point of view,
allocating more narrative structure to the main event and elaborating on the resolution
through dialogue. More specifically, there was greater use of action to develop character
and main event, connectives to inject suspense, exclamations for impact, adventurous
vocabulary to add interest and verbs to emphasise action, thoughts or feelings.
The use of some features reduced over the 12 months. Although none were significant,
they also warrant some comment. There were reductions in the use of dialogue and
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description to elaborate the setting, as well as in the use of repetitive structures. It is

possible that the first two of these findings reflect the ebb and flow that was evident from
the chi-squared analysis. There was a 12% increase in the use of a developed setting
(po .05) and this was accompanied by a preference in Year 6 for the use of action in this
part of the text (1 8.5%, ns). The reduction in the use of repetitive structures might reflect
a greater range of connective devices being used in Year 6, particularly the significant
increase in the use of connectives to inject suspense and the nonsignificant increase in the
use of connectives to signal time.
The increase in the number of missing commas and noun–pronoun errors could
conceivably reflect increases in text length and structure not being combined with the
necessary rereading in a time-controlled task. Similarly, the lack of evidence of planning
might be due to the test design, which does not include an explicit planning stage, and the
lack of self-correction might reflect the test’s time constraints.
Overall the findings provide evidence of the multiplicity of narrative techniques used
by the children in the sample and the variation in the means by which development was
achieved. Nearly all the texts contained elements of individuality and many of the
children in the sample had drawn upon considerable ingenuity in the 30 minutes that they
had for the task. This was evident in the qualitative analysis.
The qualitative analysis of the subsamples also underlines the large range of attainment
that is evident in this age range. Comparison of the texts of accomplished writers like
Mary and Helen with those of children like Denise, who was clearly struggling with
written language at a number of levels, underlines the challenges that teachers face. Such
comparisons could be used to support the greater use of layered curriculum provision and
early interventions that have recently been endorsed across the principal UK political
parties (Gross, 2008).
If future studies were to build research on this project, a number of additional aspects
might be built in, funding permitting. Although the class teachers were involved at the
beginning and end of the project, and had the opportunity to comment on the profile of
findings for their school, no provision was made to track their teaching or to attempt to
link it to the children’s progress and development.
Future studies might also extend the investigation by giving the children opportunities
to comment upon their work, to compare their Year 5 and Year 6 texts and to explain
some of the choices that they had made in composing them. The study has also suggested
several lines for future writing research: which features of writing characterise
development in other genres; which features in the ebb and flow profiles secure the
basis for subsequent, incremental development in different genres; and which practices
are most effective in fostering writing development in different genres.
The immediate contribution of this paper may be to add to what is known about
narrative development in primary and elementary schoolchildren. It may also contribute
to practice, although not by using the identified features of narrative as notional
curriculum content to be applied in practice tasks. The ebb and flow profiles identified
from the use of chi-squared analysis indicate that such an application would be to risk
misrepresenting the implications of the study. Rather, the findings from the study may
add to the language of literacy, especially in informing dialogue between teachers and
learners and perhaps, in time, between learners and learners. If the latter is achieved,
then the study may further contribute to what Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) have
suggested is a key issue in writing development – reading with a writer’s alertness to
technique.
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Acknowledgements

The study was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, RES-
000-22-1050. The authors would like to thank Sharon Besser, Bronwen Swinnerton and
Godfrey Pell for all their work at different stages of the study, the members of the rater
panels, all the children and teachers who participated and Sue Grant, for her assistance in
preparing the manuscript.

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Received 31 March 2009; revised version received 29 October 2009.

Address for correspondence: Roger Beard, Institute of Education, University of

London, London, UK. E-mail: r.beard@ioe.ac.uk

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