A Longitudinal Study of Schoolchildren's Discursive Competence in Informational Writing

• In Event: Table 2 (Measuring Writing Competencies)

Abstract

Developing children’s discursive competence in informational writing is a key goal of K-12 education. This study examines children’s use of nouns — a powerful grammatical resource for making meaning — in informational writing. Approximately 200 students in third, fifth, seventh, and ninth grades were asked to write an informational text on a familiar animal of interest. Their writing was analyzed for their lexical, syntactic, and semantic complexities. Statistical analyses showed a clear developmental trend toward greater nominal complexities across the grade levels, with all children relying heavily on simple nouns and older children using a higher percentage of nouns with postmodifiers than did younger children. The finding suggests that nouns are an area of language deserving greater attention in K-12 literacy instruction.

Authors

• Zhihui Fang, University of Florida

• Peijuan Cao, University of Florida

• Valerie Gresser, University of Florida