Anna H. Hall

Examining the Effects of Preschool Writing Instruction on Emergent Literacy Skills: A Systematic Review of the Literature

This article presents the results of a systematic review of the literature involving writing interventions in the preschool setting. The information presented is timely considering the current expectations for young children to write. Framing the empirical literature within different philosophical approaches, trends were analyzed to identify instructional strategies related to increases in emergent literacy outcomes and where gaps in the literature existed. The results from 22 intervention conditions from 1990 to 2013 indicated the overall effect size was g = .44, 95% CIs [.27, .60], suggesting that preschool writing interventions enhanced children’s early literacy outcomes. The findings also highlighted the importance of quality literacy environments and adult involvement. The findings from this article have important instructional implications for writing instruction in the preschool setting.

Dancing literacy: Expanding children’s and teachers’ literacy repertoires through embodied knowing

This paper explores dance as literacy. Specifically, it examines qualitative case study research findings and student examples from a dance artist-in-residence that explored curricular content using dance as its primary mode of enquiry and expression. Throughout the residency, students constructed meaning through their dance experiences in dynamic and autonomous ways, exhibiting complex literacy practices of enquiry and communication. Focusing on the kindergarten student participants’ experiences, the authors highlight three themes in their dance literacy practices: (a) artistic autonomy, (b) embodied knowledge and (c) multimodality. As embodied knowledge, dance innately allowed for integrative literacy possibilities in the dance residency. The dance experiences observed and referenced in this research illustrate the complexities of dance as literacy, as both a unique literacy and in meaning making across literacies. Drawing on the findings of this study, the authors seek to inspire teachers to foster similar experiences to develop transformative literacy practices individually in their classrooms and collaboratively in their schools.

Who counts as a writer? Examining child, teacher, and parent perceptions of writing

ABSTRACT The current study used a mixed method design with 245 preschool children, 255 teachers, and 156 parents. Researchers interviewed children and surveyed teachers and parents about their perceptions of preschool children’s writing abilities and developmental writing stages. The results of the study showed that each group defined writing differently and parents were less likely to have positive perceptions about preschool children’s writing abilities than children and teachers. Correlation analysis demonstrated that teacher and parent perceptions of children’s writing abilities were not related to children’s own perceptions of their writing abilities in this study. This study illuminates that alignment of home and school writing practices could be improved through parent education about developmental writing stages, by asking children about their own writing perceptions, and by encouraging sharing between parents and teachers about their home and school practices and philosophies related to writing.

Taking Care: Understanding the Roles of Caregiver and Being Cared for in a Kindergarten Classroom

Despite concerns about the importance of teachers learning to care for their students, most teacher education programs do not utilize relational pedagogy and place little emphasis on caring. In the current study, the authors used conversational interviews with one kindergarten teacher and photo-elicitation interviews with her 22 kindergarten students to explore ways in which this teacher in a public, all-girls’ school employed caring and how her students viewed being cared for. The authors utilized Noddings’ work on the ethic of care to guide our project and the methodological approach is feministic. In this study, we discovered the ways this teacher cared and how that was translated for the students. Ultimately, we feel these ways of caring have implications for early childhood teacher preparation programs.

Quality Standards Matter: A Comparative Case Study Examining Interactive Writing in the Preschool Setting.

ABSTRACT Interactive writing is a research-based early literacy strategy that has been found effective at increasing young childrens oral language skills, alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, concepts of print, and early writing skills. This paper reports on a case study which explored the feasibility and fidelity of implementing interactive writing in two contrasting preschool contexts. The findings suggest that with minimal training and support, public preschool teachers can implement interactive writing effectively. The study also found that quality standards, specifically teacher education and training, may affect the successful implementation of preschool interactive writing instruction.

Examining Shifts in Preservice Teachers' Beliefs and Attitudes toward Writing Instruction.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of integrating self-reflection, focused instruction, and field practice in a semester-long language arts course in order to shift early childhood preservice teachers’ (PSTs) beliefs and attitudes about writing instruction, as well as their development and planned use of tools for instruction. The findings revealed that a course focused primarily on preparing PSTs to teach writing can influence PSTs’ definitions of writing, the importance they place on writing instruction, their self-efficacy related to teaching writing, and their tools for instruction.

The writing attitude scale for teachers (WAST)

This study examines the psychometric properties of the writing attitude scale for teachers (WAST) using scores of preservice teachers to gather evidence of content, internal structure, response processes, reliability/precision, and correlations with external variables. Four contending models were compared using CFA, but the unidimensional model was championed. The WAST was further refined using IRT to 10-items and shown to have high precision across most of the latent continuum. The WAST was shown to have incremental evidence relative to the writing apprehension test when predicting attitudes towards attending a professional development workshop on writing instruction and time devoted to writing instruction.

Test Review: J. L. Wiederholt & B. R. Bryant. (2012). Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fifth Edition (GORT-5). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

The first edition of the Gray Oral Reading Tests (GORT, 1963) was written by Dr. William S. Gray, a founding member and the first president of the International Reading Association. The GORT was designed to measure oral reading abilities (i.e., Rate, Accuracy, Fluency, and Comprehension) of students in Grades 2 through 12 due to the noteworthy advantages this type of assessment has over silent reading assessments (e.g., ability for the examiner to analyze miscues and identify an individual’s ability to make letter–sound correspondences). Through the years, revisions of the GORT were published in 1986 (GORT-R), 1992 (GORT-3), and 2001 (GORT-4). The latest edition published in 2012 (GORT-5) includes updated norms extending from 6 years 0 months upward to 23 years 11 months, streamlined basal and ceiling rules, revised items that are passage dependent, and additional studies showing evidence of sound psychometric properties (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012a). The purposes of the GORT-5 are to identify students with oral reading difficulties, determine strengths and weaknesses, evaluate student progress, and provide a standardized norm-referenced test that is appropriate for conducting reading research with school-age children (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012a). The GORT-5 should be administered individually by examiners trained in formal assessment such as teachers, school psychologists, and diagnosticians.