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The aims of the current project included to (a) describe the use of connectives in written language samples by fifth grade students, (b) examine differences in connective use between groups who differed in English proficiency and exceptionalities, and (c) examine the predictive relationship between connective measures and writing quality ratings. Investigators utilized written expository responses of 1,128 students in fifth grade who differed in English proficiency and language ability. The sample included 214 English learners and 144 students with language learning disabilities (LLD). Group differences were examined in the use of advanced connective words in academic writing. Regression analysis was used to examine connective measures as predictors of overall writing quality rating. Students with LLD used advanced connectives less frequently than their peers and demonstrated less variety in their connective word use. Two connective measures (total number of advanced connectives and the ratio of connectives) were significant predictors of writing quality. Findings support the need for additional efforts to improve the use of cohesive devices in academic writing for students with LLD to minimize achievement gaps.

Purpose: The aims of the current project were twofold: (a) to describe the use of academic words in written language samples by fifth-grade students and (b) to examine the predictive relation between academic word use in academic writing and reading comprehension. Method: Investigators utilized written expository responses of 1,128 students in fifth grade who differed in English proficiency and language ability. The sample included 214 students who were English learners (ELs) and 144 students with identified language learning disabilities (LLD). Group differences in the use of academic words from the Coxhead word list were examined. Results: ELs and students with LLD used academic words less frequently than their peers and demonstrated less variety in their academic word use. There was a significant relation between students' use of academic words and reading comprehension. Academic word use accounted for 16% of the variance in reading comprehension, which was not significantly different for ELs or students with LLD. The relation was moderated by economic advantage, with the strength of the relation being lower for students who were eligible for free/reduced lunch. Conclusions: Findings support the need for additional research on ways to improve academic vocabulary skills to minimize achievement gaps. The relation between academic word use and reading comprehension warrants further consideration.

Oral narrative retells are rich sources of information for language development. Investigators collected English-language oral narrative retells during the fall and spring from 65 Spanish-English-speaking dual language learners (DLL) in kindergarten and first grade. Investigators examined transcripts of oral narratives for (a) inclusion and accuracy of microstructural elements using the Narrative Assessment Protocol (NAP; Pence, Justice, & Gosse, 2007), (b) percentage of grammatical utterances, and (c) types of verb errors. Prepositional phrases, elaborated noun phrases, irregular past tense verbs, and copula verbs were the most prevalent grammatical forms. Omission errors were the most prevalent verb error type. DLLs' narrative retells revealed significantly increased number of total NAP codes and diversity of NAP codes. Grammaticality of utterances increased from approximately 77% to 87% from fall to spring. All verb errors types decreased over the academic year. Direct feature coding approaches are useful for tracking developmental progress in DLLs' retells.

Background: Reading attitudes are recognised as an influencing factor on the language and literacy achievement of school age monolingual English-speaking children. The relationship between reading attitudes and achievement in young Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs) remains understudied. Purpose: The aim of the current study was to describe reading attitudes of young Spanish-speaking ELs and to examine the relationship between attitudes and language performance. Method: The investigators utilised the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS) with 204 participants--100 ELs in kindergarten and 104 in first grade. Investigators administered standardised measures of language and literacy performance. Correlational analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between attitudes and performance on language assessments. Findings: Significant mean differences were observed between girls and boys, with girls showing more positive attitudes towards recreational reading. Phonological awareness skills showed a significant strong correlation with academic reading attitudes for children in kindergarten. Spanish receptive vocabulary showed significant positive correlation with reading attitudes. No significant grade differences were found in overall mean reading attitudes. Conclusions: Overall, students in both grades demonstrated generally positive attitudes towards reading, despite potential language barriers. Findings substantiate a positive relationship between reading attitudes and receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness skills in young children. [This article was published in "Educational Research" (EJ1160511).]

There is not general consensus on best practice for assessment and intervention of phonological awareness (PA) for children who are D/deaf or hard of hearing (D/dhh). The current study surveyed the PA practices of teachers of the deaf and speech-language pathologists to explore perceptions of PA importance, familiarity, and helpfulness related to assessment and intervention approaches used when working with children who are D/dhh. Survey responses from speech-language pathologists (n = 80) and teachers of the deaf (n = 94) indicated that the majority of respondents perceive PA to be important to literacy instruction with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Notably there was a significantly higher average PA importance rating for literacy instruction with children with typical hearing than the PA importance rating for children who were D/dhh. There was wide variability in reported PA assessment and intervention practices. Participants reported using some assessments that included explicit items or subtests for PA including the following: "Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing," and the "Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills." There was not general consensus on a particular instructional method or approach to support literacy development.

This study aimed to describe 1-year changes in students' vocabulary in written narratives. Secondary aims included examination of accuracy and the relationship between lexical diversity and achievement. Participants included 749 students in first through eighth grades. Within-subjects 1-year change in diversity, productivity, and accuracy was examined across time points by grades. Findings indicated there was significant change in lexical diversity in early elementary grades with decreases in the proportion of spelling errors. There was significant change in the proportion of different words to total words in upper grades. Students' lexical diversity was moderately related to performance on standardized measures of achievement. Findings support the use of lexical measures as a tool to examine and describe written language growth.

The purpose of this study was to examine construct validity of methods of calculating lexical diversity in written narrative samples relative to children's performance on a reading vocabulary measure. For 234 children in first to fifth grade, written narratives were examined and compared between grades for number of different words (NDW), total number of words (TNW), NDW in a truncated 50 word sample, and type token ratio (TTR). The relationship between lexical diversity in written narratives and a standardized reading vocabulary measure ("Gates-McGinitie Reading Test--Fourth Edition" [GMRT-4]) was analyzed by comparing correlations. Grade differences were observed in measures of lexical diversity and productivity. Lexical diversity showed a significant moderate correlation with the GMRT-4. NDW had a stronger relationship to GMRT-4 scores than TTR for participants in first and second grade. Considering length (TNW, NDW constrained to 50 words, or TTR) did not result in a stronger relationship with reading vocabulary. Following additional study establishing probe equivalence, NDW in written narratives may be an efficient, educationally relevant, marker of language maturity, and a good predictor of performance on a standardized reading vocabulary measure.

The present meta-analysis was conducted to examine how shared book reading affects the English language and literacy skills of young children learning English as a second language. The final analysis included 54 studies of shared reading conducted in the United States. Features of the intervention and child characteristics were tested as potential moderators, and the impact of methodological criteria was examined using sensitivity analyses. Results revealed an overall significant, positive effect of shared reading on English learners' outcomes. Children's developmental status moderated this effect, with larger effect sizes found in studies including only typically developing participants than in studies including only participants with developmental disorders. No other significant moderators were identified. The main positive effect was robust to the application of more stringent methodological inclusion criteria. These results support shared book reading as an early educational activity for young English learners.

Background: Reading attitudes are recognised as an influencing factor on the language and literacy achievement of school age monolingual English-speaking children. The relationship between reading attitudes and achievement in young Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs) remains understudied. Purpose: The aim of the current study was to describe reading attitudes of young Spanish-speaking ELs and to examine the relationship between attitudes and language performance. Method: The investigators utilised the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS) with 204 participants: 100 ELs in kindergarten and 104 in first grade. Investigators administered standardised measures of language and literacy performance. Correlational analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between attitudes and performance on language assessments. Findings: Significant mean differences were observed between girls and boys, with girls showing more positive attitudes towards recreational reading. Phonological awareness skills showed a significant strong correlation with academic reading attitudes for children in kindergarten. Spanish receptive vocabulary showed significant positive correlation with reading attitudes. No significant grade differences were found in overall mean reading attitudes. Conclusions: Overall, students in both grades demonstrated generally positive attitudes towards reading, despite potential language barriers. Findings substantiate a positive relationship between reading attitudes and receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness skills in young children.

The aims of the current project included to (a) describe the use of connectives in written language samples by fifth grade students, (b) examine differences in connective use between groups who differed in English proficiency and exceptionalities, and (c) examine the predictive relationship between connective measures and writing quality ratings. Investigators utilized written expository responses of 1,128 students in fifth grade who differed in English proficiency and language ability. The sample included 214 English learners and 144 students with language learning disabilities (LLD). Group differences were examined in the use of advanced connective words in academic writing. Regression analysis was used to examine connective measures as predictors of overall writing quality rating. Students with LLD used advanced connectives less frequently than their peers and demonstrated less variety in their connective word use. Two connective measures (total number of advanced connectives and the ratio of connectives) were significant predictors of writing quality. Findings support the need for additional efforts to improve the use of cohesive devices in academic writing for students with LLD to minimize achievement gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is not general consensus on best practice for assessment and intervention of phonological awareness (PA) for children who are D/deaf or hard of hearing (D/dhh). The current study surveyed the PA practices of teachers of the deaf and speech-language pathologists to explore perceptions of PA importance, familiarity, and helpfulness related to assessment and intervention approaches used when working with children who are D/dhh. Survey responses from speech-language pathologists (n = 80) and teachers of the deaf (n = 94) indicated that the majority of respondents perceive PA to be important to literacy instruction with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Notably there was a significantly higher average PA importance rating for literacy instruction with children with typical hearing than the PA importance rating for children who were D/dhh. There was wide variability in reported PA assessment and intervention practices. Participants reported using some assessments that included explicit items or subtests for PA including the following: Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, and the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. There was not general consensus on a particular instructional method or approach to support literacy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to describe 1-year changes in students' vocabulary in written narratives. Secondary aims included examination of accuracy and the relationship between lexical diversity and achievement. Participants included 749 students in first through eighth grades. Within-subjects 1-year change in diversity, productivity, and accuracy was examined across time points by grades. Findings indicated there was significant change in lexical diversity in early elementary grades with decreases in the proportion of spelling errors. There was significant change in the proportion of different words to total words in upper grades. Students' lexical diversity was moderately related to performance on standardized measures of achievement. Findings support the use of lexical measures as a tool to examine and describe written language growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral narrative retells are rich sources of information for language development. Investigators collected English-language oral narrative retells during the fall and spring from 65 Spanish-English-speaking dual language learners (DLL) in kindergarten and first grade. Investigators examined transcripts of oral narratives for (a) inclusion and accuracy of microstructural elements using the Narrative Assessment Protocol (NAP; Pence, Justice, & Gosse, 2007), (b) percentage of grammatical utterances, and (c) types of verb errors. Prepositional phrases, elaborated noun phrases, irregular past tense verbs, and copula verbs were the most prevalent grammatical forms. Omission errors were the most prevalent verb error type. DLLs' narrative retells revealed significantly increased number of total NAP codes and diversity of NAP codes. Grammaticality of utterances increased from approximately 77% to 87% from fall to spring. All verb errors types decreased over the academic year. Direct feature coding approaches are useful for tracking developmental progress in DLLs' retells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine construct validity of methods of calculating lexical diversity in written narrative samples relative to children's performance on a reading vocabulary measure. For 234 children in first to fifth grade, written narratives were examined and compared between grades for number of different words (NDW), total number of words (TNW), NDW in a truncated 50 word sample, and type token ratio (TTR). The relationship between lexical diversity in written narratives and a standardized reading vocabulary measure (Gates–McGinitie Reading Test–Fourth Edition [GMRT-4]) was analyzed by comparing correlations. Grade differences were observed in measures of lexical diversity and productivity. Lexical diversity showed a significant moderate correlation with the GMRT-4. NDW had a stronger relationship to GMRT-4 scores than TTR for participants in first and second grade. Considering length (TNW, NDW constrained to 50 words, or TTR) did not result in a stronger relationship with reading vocabulary. Following additional study establishing probe equivalence, NDW in written narratives may be an efficient, educationally relevant, marker of language maturity, and a good predictor of performance on a standardized reading vocabulary measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]