Intermediate Grade Children Research Articles

A Feasibility Study in Virtual Assessment Procedures of a Sentence-Writing Probe for Use With Intermediate-Grade Students

This article reports on the development and initial feasibility of virtual assessment procedures for a sentence-writing probe for remote instructional purposes with intermediate-grade students. The study included a sample of 15 intermediate-grade children. The sentence-writing probe was administered through video conferencing software, an innovation of the times, across three sessions separated by 2 weeks. Scores derived from sentence probes included total number of words, a sentence accuracy score, and a word accuracy score, which were compared across time points. Results indicated no statistically significant differences across time points for the entire sample for all measures except the total number of words at Time 2. Measures obtained from the sentence-writing probe were significantly correlated with standardized measures of oral language. Findings from this study support the proof of concept that virtual assessment procedures can be used to assess sentence-level writing in intermediate-grade students. Future directions are provided regarding the utility of remote instruction for assessment purposes, the types of scores derived from measures, and future plans to scale up the assessment for use in research studies and as a curriculum-based evaluation tool.

Writing-Process Products of Fourth- and Sixth-Grade Children: A Descriptive Study

AbstractThis study examined developmental differences in written expression of intermediate-grade children across planning, writing, and revising products. This work is the first step in a programm...

Written cohesion in children with and without language learning disabilities

Cohesion refers to the linguistic elements of discourse that contribute to its continuity and is an important element to consider as part of written language intervention, especially in children with language learning disabilities (LLD). There is substantial evidence that children with LLD perform more poorly than typically developing (TD) peers on measures of cohesion in spoken language and on written transcription measures; however, there is far less research comparing groups on cohesion as a measure of written language across genres. The current study addresses this gap through the following two aims. First, to describe and compare cohesion in narrative and expository writing samples of children with and without language learning disabilities. Second, to relate measures of cohesion to written transcription and translation measures, oral language, and writing quality. Fifty intermediate-grade children produced one narrative and one expository writing sample from which measures of written cohesion were obtained. These included the frequency, adequacy and complexity of referential and conjunctive ties. Expository samples resulted in more complex cohesive ties and children with TD used more complex ties than peers with LLD. Different relationships among cohesion measures and writing were observed for narrative verse expository samples. Findings from this study demonstrate cohesion as a discourse-level measure of written transcription and how the use of cohesion can vary by genre and group (LLD, TD). Clinical implications for assessment, intervention, and future research are provided.

Writing Process Products in Intermediate-Grade Children With and Without Language-Based Learning Disabilities.

Difficulties with written expression are an important consideration in the assessment and treatment of school-age children. This study evaluated how intermediate-grade children with and without written language difficulties fared on a writing task housed within the Hayes and Berninger (2014) writing process framework. Sixty-four children completed a writing task whereby they planned, wrote, and revised a narrative story across 3 days. Children had extended time to produce an outline, first draft, and final copy of their story. Language transcription approaches were used to obtain measures reflecting writing productivity, complexity, accuracy, and mechanics, in addition to measures of planning and revision. Results indicated that children with writing difficulties produced poorer quality stories compared with their peers yet were not significantly different across all measures. Children with typical development produced longer stories with better spelling accuracy. Writing process measures predicted significant amounts of variance in writing quality across the sample. Writing should be considered as part of language assessment and intervention, whether as the sole language difficulty or alongside difficulties with speaking, listening, or reading in children with language-based learning difficulties. Implications for translation of research to practice and service delivery are provided.

Taking a Closer Look: LGBTQ Characters in Books for Intermediate-Grade Children

Some years ago a student in our graduate course on children’s literature said, “We have looked at a lot of picture books with LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning) themes and characters, but are there any books for intermediate-level elementary students? There aren’t any listed in our textbook.” Until hearing the question from this student, we had never thought about the availability of LGBTQ books for intermediate-grade children. However, this question began a search lasting several years and resulted in the book list at the end of this article. In 2012, Jamie Campbell Naidoo’s book Rainbow Family Collections affirmed the experiences we had locating LGBTQ books for intermediate-level elementary students.1 This book covers LGBTQ media for preschool through grade six published through 2011, as a result, we have limited this article to books published since 2011. This article also discusses why locating these titles is often difficult and why the books need to be available to students.

A structural equation model of the writing process in typically-developing sixth grade children

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how sixth grade children planned, translated, and revised written narrative stories using a task reflecting current instructional and assessment practices. A modified version of the Hayes and Flower (1980) writing process model was used as the theoretical framework for the study. Two hundred one sixth-grade students participated in a three-day writing task. On the first day they generated ideas for their story, on the second day they produced a first draft, and on the third day they revised their draft to produce a final copy. Scores from each day’s writing were used as measured variables representing the latent variables of planning, translating, and revising. Confirmatory structural equation modeling results suggested that the latent variable of planning had a moderate relationship to translating and that translating had a stronger than expected relationship with revising. Significant paths between measured and latent variables demonstrated the relative contribution of skills towards the writing process. The approach used in this study highlighted the linear manner in which intermediate grade children write. Findings suggest that planning had a direct effect on translating, but no direct effect on revising. There was a strong relationship between translating and revising, suggesting few differences between students’ first and final drafts.

SELF-PERCEPTION IN WRITING: THE EFFECTS OF WRITING WORKSHOP AND TRADITIONAL INSTRUCTION ON INTERMEDIATE GRADE STUDENTS

This study compared the self-perception - specifically in terms of writing - of fourth- and fifth-grade students whose teachers used a writingworkshop approach with those whose teachers used a traditional approach. The measure used was the Writer Self-Perception Scale (Bottomley, Henk, & Melnick, 1997/1998). No significant differences were found between the scores of students who had been taught by the two teaching approaches. The findings of this study suggest that individual teachers are more important than strategies or approaches in affecting the writer self-perception of intermediate-grade children.

Hierarchy of response to handicaps.

This study compared the relative attitudes toward various types of exceptionality among three groups of elementary and intermediate-grade children ( ns = 36, 41, and 79) and one group of adults ( n = 1030). It also investigated the stability of these rankings over 13 years and in different parts of the United States. The hierarchies of preferences for these two groups of southwestern children were highly correlated, as were those preferences for these children and adults in the east. A comparison of the ranks obtained in 1987 with those reported in 1974–75 showed a stable hierarchy over time and geographical locations.

Development of Children's Knowledge of Story Structure and Content

AbstractThis study investigated the development of intermediate-grade children's knowledge of both structural features and content of stories from a longitudinal perspective. At the beginning of both the fourth and sixth grades, 30 subjects told two stories and recalled two scrambled stories.Knowledge of structural features was determined mainly by stuctural complexity in story productions and by the degree to which scrambled stories were restructured into the canonical versions. Knowledge of story content was examined in the story productions by determining the amount and nature of conflict, characters' response to conflict, and conflict resolution, and by analyses of actions occurring in the stories.Two primary conclusions were drawn. First, children did acquire over the intermediate grades greater knowledge about structural complexity in stories. Second, there were few indications of growth in knowledge of content, either when conflict, response, and resolution were examined or when story actions were ...

Reading Preferences of Intermediate-Grade Children in Relation to Sex, Community, and Maturation (Grade Level): A Canadian Perspective

THE METHOD of paired comparisons was used to construct a reading preference inventory (RPI) based on 14 reading themes extrapolated from previous research. The RPI was administered to samples of intermediate-grade children in three Canadian communities (N = 1,127). Analysis of variance results indicated highly significant preference differences for 8 out of the 14 themes for the three communities; for 8 out of 14 themes for Grades 5, 6, and 7; and for 11 out of 14 themes for males and females. Significant interactions were also found on combinations of community, grade, and sex for many of the themes. No strong regional differences between British Columbia and Ontario appeared, but there were clear maturational changes in preference for the three grades. Exploratory factor analyses of the 14 themes suggest reading preference is a multidimensional construct; three factors for males and four factors for females emerged accounting for a considerable percentage of the covariance among the 14 themes. The predominant factor for both the sexes consists of the themes mystery, adventure, and fantasy. The RPI and the related index of reading preference proved to be useful and reliable tools for measuring and ranking preference for reading themes in intermediate grades and aiding teachers, librarians, and reading specialists in developing a frame of reference for identifying and stimulating reading interests.

Effects of mental imagery and oral and print stimuli on prose learning of intermediate grade children

Two studies investigated the effects on prose learning of oral vs, written presentations of text and the use of mental imagery. Sixth graders (Study 1) and fourth graders (Study 2) listened to or read a text. Some students were asked to imagine pictures of the material. Oral presentations produced better results than written-only forms. Fourth graders benefited more from mental imagery than did sixth graders.

Effects of Facultative Questions and Practice on Intermediate Students' Understanding of Character Motives

The study investigated the effects of a six-step facultative questioning strategy, a practice with feedback strategy and a no-intervention strategy on intermediate-grade children's ability to make inferences about a character's motives. The results of the study indicate that both the facilitative questioning strategy and the practice with feedback strategy contributed significantly to intermediate grade students' ability to make inferences about a character's motives. The results of this study indicate that a practice with feedback procedure would be a more efficient strategy for practitioners to employ in teaching children to identify character motives since it requires far less teaching time than a complex questioning procedure.

Locus of control and reading attitude

The relationships between three measures of locus of control and eight dimensions of reading attitude were investigated for a sample of 431 inner-city children. The sample included the intermediate grade children enrolled in the 20 regular classrooms of the three elementary schools from the Columbus, Ohio, Public Schools. Correlation coefficients were computed between locus of control scores and the eight dimensions of reading attitude. Reading Anxiety showed a significant relationship with the I- score. This finding suggests that inner-city children who are willing to accept personal responsibility for negative events in their lives also tend to experience more anxiety about their reading. The other seven dimensions of reading attitude were not significantly related to internality scores.

Some Effects of Adjunct Questions on Intermediate Grade Children with Differing Reading Comprehension Abilities

AbstractIntermediate grade children read a text about knighthood. Factual questions, either singly or in blocks, were interspersed before or after parts of the text. A criterion test contained those questions and new ones. Children scored better on the criterion test if questions had been interspersed with parts of the text. For repeated questions, scores were higher if children had answered questions one at a time instead of in blocks during reading. High comprehenders scored significantly higher on repeated questions if initially they had seen the questions just after reading the passage, but the difference for low comprehenders in this respect was not significant.

The dimensions of reading attitude for children in the intermediate grades

This study represents the first phase of an ongoing research program aimed at identifying the dimensions of reading attitude and determining how these dimensions relate to a broader range of variables such as reading achievement, scholastic aptitude, classroom behavior, and cognitive styles. The 150 items which comprise the experimental edition of A Survey of Reading Altitudes (Wallbrown, Brown, & Engin, 1974) were factor analyzed along with measures of scholastic aptitude, reading vocabulary, and reading comprehension. The analysis was based on the responses of 853 intermediate grade students. The attitude items were presented orally to control for reading problems, but the students also had booklets so they could read the items to themselves. Seven independent dimensions of reading attitude and one reading achievement factor were identified, interpreted, and discussed. The findings are encouraging, since they suggest that investigating the expressed reading attitudes of intermediate grade children constitutes a promising line of educational research.

Things You Can Try: Using the compass for outdoor mathematics

We are all aware of the importance and value of using the child's environment in his mathematics program. One way of accomplishing this is to use a compass. Such an activity is a particularly good experience for intermediate-grade children. It can provide practice in estimation, in linear and angular measurement, in division of rational numbers, and in geometry.

Things you can try: “Contig”: a game to practice and sharpen skills and facts in the four fundamental operations

“Contig” is a game that intermediategrade children love to play and with which they can challenge their older brothers, sisters, or parents. Four things are required -three dice, a score pad, markers, and a Contig board. The dice, pad, and markers are readily available, and a supply of boards can be made by reproducing the sample provided at the end of this article on sheets of paper.

A determination of commonalities of science interests held by intermediate grade children in Inner‐City, Suburban, and rural schools

A determination of commonalities of science interests held by intermediate grade children in Inner‐City, Suburban, and rural schools

Commonalities of Science Interests Held by Intermediate Grade Children

One of the problems confronting education today is concerned with the search for effective ways of teaching science in the elementary school. It has become increasingly apparent, for example, that young children require an understanding of certain simple scientific principles to use as they attempt to solve the alarming environmental problems that threaten the existence of life itself. As science takes its place as an integral part of the elementary school curriculum, it is imperative that every effort be made to discover rather precisely the nature and scope of the interests that children display in particular areas of science. A fair uniformity exists in the thinking today that learning is likely to occur more deliberately and more readily when a child accepts as useful and important those learning activities in which he is expected to engage. The improvement of science education in the United States has, in the past, been thwarted simply because basic statistical data about the nature and scope of science interests held by elementary grade children are surprisingly lacking. The problem: A study was undertaken to determine the particular areas in science which are of common interest to intermediate grade boys and girls from three different environmental settings. The following specific problems were examined as they developed from the larger central purpose of the study:

In the classroom: Multiplication football

Football in the classroom? Why not! As any experienced teacher knows, review of the basic multiplication facts can be quite boring to intermediate-grade children; football is another matter.