A comparison of imagery, dialogue and drawing prewriting strategies with second‐grade students in Guam

Abstract

Summary The purpose of this study was to examine Guamanian second‐graders’ short‐ and long‐term prewriting preferences. Good literature books were used to stimulate writing; thus the study also examined if a child's favourite or longest story would be influenced by the good literature selection, the prewriting strategy or the phase of the study in which the story was written. The children wrote three times weekly. Prewriting strategies, trained classroom instructors and good literature selections were counterbalanced. Likert‐scale preference measures were administered to assess short‐ and long‐term student preferences. In addition, children chose their favourite prewriting strategy and favourite story written at the conclusion of the six‐week study. Teachers’ perceptions of the prewriting strategies used in the study were examined using an evaluation instrument containing open‐ended items. Frequency counts were used to assess when favourite and longest stories were written. Mean scores were calculated to ...