Examining Child and Word Characteristics in Vocabulary Learning of Struggling Readers     

Amy M. Elleman  Laura M. Steacy  Natalie G. Olinghouse  Donald L. Compton 《Scientific Studies of Reading》2017,21(2):133-145

Although instruction has been shown to be effective at increasing vocabulary knowledge and comprehension, factors most important for promoting the acquisition of novel vocabulary are less known. In addition, few vocabulary studies have utilized models that simultaneously take into account child-level, word-level, and instructional factors to better understand the acquisition of novel vocabulary from informational text. Sixty-eight children with reading difficulties in Grades 3–5 were randomly assigned to either vocabulary strategy instruction or traditional comprehension instruction with both groups reading the same set of expository texts. Crossed random-effects models were used to predict item-level variance in vocabulary acquisition. Results indicated main effects for condition favoring vocabulary instruction, child-level predictors (vocabulary and knowledge of the content), and word-level factors (frequency and imageability). One interaction was significant, indicating that students with higher vocabulary scores were more likely to do better when provided vocabulary instruction than students with lower prior vocabulary.  相似文献   

The relationship between vocabulary and writing quality in three genres     

Natalie G. Olinghouse  Joshua Wilson 《Reading and writing》2013,26(1):45-65

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of vocabulary in writing across three genres. Fifth graders (N = 105) wrote three compositions: story, persuasive, and informative. Each composition revolved around the topic of outer space to control for background knowledge. Written compositions were scored for holistic writing quality and several different vocabulary constructs: diversity, maturity, elaboration, academic words, content words, and register. The results indicated that students vary their vocabulary usage by genre. Story text had higher diversity than informative text as well as higher maturity as compared to persuasive text. Persuasive text contained higher diversity than informative text, and higher register than both of the other genres. Informative text included more content words and elaboration than the other text types as well as more maturity than persuasive text. Additionally, multiple regression and commonality analysis indicated that the vocabulary constructs related to writing quality differed by genre. For story text, vocabulary diversity was a unique predictor, while for persuasive text, content words and register were unique predictors. Finally, for informative text content words was the strongest unique predictor explaining almost all of the total variance in the five factor model, although maturity was also a unique predictor.  相似文献   

Syntactic complexity measures: variation by genre,grade-level,students’ writing abilities,and writing quality     

Jagaiah  Thilagha  Olinghouse  Natalie G.  Kearns  Devin M. 《Reading and writing》2020,33(10):2577-2638

Syntactic complexity has been recognized as an important construct in writing research, and for the past five decades, many syntactic complexity measures (SCMs) have been examined in numerous studies. This systematic review is the first study of its kind to synthesize 36 studies spanning from 1970 to 2019 by identifying and cataloging all SCMs examined during this period. An analysis was performed on how the use of SCMs varied by genre, grade level, students’ writing ability, and writing quality. Five online databases (Academic Search Premier, ERIC, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, and PsycARTICLES) were searched. A total of 48 SCMs were grouped into six categories: T-units and sentences, clauses, phrases, words, combined measures, and other measures. Most studies examined three common SCMs: mean T-unit length, mean number of words per clause, and mean number of clauses per T-unit. The argumentative genre had the highest values for T-unit length and mean number of clauses per T-unit, which could indicate greater sentence complexity. Higher-grade-level students generally construct sentences that are syntactically complex, but comparison between studies was difficult because different studies investigated different SCMs. Although students with higher writing abilities generally construct sentences that are syntactically more complex compared to students with lower writing abilities, the findings are not conclusive, as only a few studies examined this relationship. A similarly inconclusive relationship was found between syntactic complexity and writing quality because only a few studies examined this relationship. More research is needed to examine the relationship between SCMs, writing quality, and genre.

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The relationship between measures of vocabulary and narrative writing quality in second- and fourth-grade students     

Natalie G. Olinghouse  Jacqueline T. Leaird 《Reading and writing》2009,22(5):545-565

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between measures of written vocabulary and writing quality. Participants included 92 second-grade students and 101 fourth-grade students. Students completed two writing samples: one an experimenter-developed writing task and the other, a standardized assessment of writing quality. Research questions examined whether four vocabulary measures (vocabulary diversity, less frequent vocabulary, mean syllable length, number of polysyllabic words) demonstrated developmental differences, whether the vocabulary measures remained stable across two different writing prompts, and whether the vocabulary measures explained unique and shared variance beyond that explained by compositional length and compositional spelling. The results indicated that vocabulary diversity and less frequent vocabulary showed developmental differences across the two writing tasks. Vocabulary diversity was the only variable to remain stable across the two writing tasks. Commonality analysis revealed that vocabulary measures explained unique and shared variance in writing quality in all four models (2 grades and 2 writing prompts). Generally, vocabulary diversity was the most stable and consistent of the four vocabulary variables.  相似文献   

Content and alignment of state writing standards and assessments as predictors of student writing achievement: an analysis of 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress data     

Gary A. Troia  Natalie G. Olinghouse  Mingcai Zhang  Joshua Wilson  Kelly A. Stewart  Ya Mo  Lisa Hawkins 《Reading and writing》2018,31(4):835-864

We examined the degree to which content of states’ writing standards and assessments (using measures of content range, frequency, balance, and cognitive complexity) and their alignment were related to student writing achievement on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), while controlling for student, school, and state characteristics. We found student demographic characteristics had the largest effect on between-state differences in writing performance, followed by state policy-related variables, then state and school covariates. States with writing tests that exhibited greater alignment with the NAEP writing assessment demonstrated significantly higher writing scores. We discuss plausible implications of these findings.  相似文献   

Student- and instruction-level predictors of narrative writing in third-grade students     

Natalie G. Olinghouse 《Reading and writing》2008,21(1-2):3-26

This study examined the student-level and instruction-level predictors of narrative writing fluency and quality. Participants included 120 third-grade students from 13 classrooms. Student predictors included measures of reading, handwriting, spelling, IQ, grammatical understanding, and gender. Instructional predictors focused on the amount of time allocated to teaching basic writing skills and planning skills. Significant predictors of compositional fluency included gender, advanced planning ability, and handwriting fluency, while significant predictors of compositional quality included gender, compositional fluency, Full-scale IQ, word reading ability, and grammatical understanding. There were no main effects of instructional variables; however there were two student by instruction interactions. Implications of the study highlight the importance of student characteristics in writing achievement, as well as considering the need for differential instruction based on student needs.  相似文献