Deborah McCutchen

A capacity theory of writing: Working memory in composition

The review examines ways in which working memory contributes to individual and particularly to developmental differences in writing skill. It begins with a brief definition of working memory and then summarizes current debates regarding working memory and capacity theories in the field of reading. It is argued that a capacity theory of writing can provide a framework within which to consider the development of writing skill, and relevant data are discussed. Effects of capacity limitations are documented in all three component writing processes: planning, translating, and reviewing.

Knowledge, Processing, and Working Memory: Implications for a Theory of Writing

This article surveys writing research and attempts to sketch a principled account of how multiple sources of knowledge, stored in long-term memory, are coordinated during writing within the constraints of working memory. The concept of long-term working memory is applied to the development of writing expertise. Based on research reviewed, it is speculated that lack of fluent language generation processes constrains novice writers within short-term working memory capacity, whereas fluent encoding and extensive knowledge allow skilled writers to take advantage of long-term memory resources via long-term working memory.

Domain knowledge and linguistic knowledge in the development of writing ability

Abstract This article presents a psycholinguistic analysis of the development of writing skill and reports a developmental study of knowledge effects in writing. A theoretical framework decomposes the requisite knowledge into three main components: (1) generalized, high-level problem-solving plans; (2) a Content component, and (3) a Discourse component. The Content component includes domain knowledge pertinent to the writers topic, and the Discourse component includes knowledge about text and linguistic structures. The focus of the study is the interaction of the Content and Discourse components. Psycholinguistic analyses of 240 elementary school texts revealed differences related to the age of the writer, as well as to knowledge of topic. These differences are accounted for in terms of processing interactions between schema instantiation and linguistic skills from the Discourse component and the relevant knowledge base from the Content component.

Functional Automaticity in Children's Writing: A Problem of Metacognitive Control.

An argument is presented for distinguishing between fluency and automaticity of procedures in writing. Writers must develop a certain level of fluency in some of their writing subskills, but skilled writing necessitates that automaticity not be absolute, not be “modular” to use Fodors (1983) terminology. Various empirical results are presented suggesting that a prominent difference between skilled and less skilled writing is the extent of metacognitive control over writing subprocesses. It is this metacognitive control, not increasing encapsulated automaticity, that enables the processes that characterize skilled writing, such as directed search, critical examination, and revision. Educational implications of this premise are explored.

Coherence and Connectedness in the Development of Discourse Production.

This paper discusses discourse components in writing, especially the relationship between coherence and connectedness, and examines connectedness in children s written essays and narratives. Developmental trends were observed in the number of local sentence-to-sentence connectiom children wrote between adjacent sentences and in the type ofconnective device used. Essays by sixth and eighth graders showed a higher proportion of local connections than did those by second and fourth graders, and the local connections changed from a majonty ofreference connections in second grade essays to an increasing use of complex syntactic connections in eighth grade essays. Text form also influenced writing. The level of connectedness was higher in narratives than in essays. The narrative form also influenced the type of connective device used, especially in the writing of younger children. Writing from each grade level was modeled, and the developmental differences are described in Computer simulations äs differences in procedures used to scan and retrieve Information from memory.

Morphological Development in Children's Writing.

This study focused on the development of childrens control of morphological markers in their writing. The authors examined inflectional and derivational morphological forms within narratives written by 247 3rd and 4th graders. The majority of 3rd and 4th graders used inflectional forms consistently and accurately in their writing. In contrast, fewer students used derived forms, and significantly more 4th than 3rd graders used them accurately. Results indicate that childrens control of morphological structures in their writing mirrors that in their speech: Inflectional morphology is largely mastered by age 9 or 10, but skills with derivational morphology continue to develop in middle childhood. The relationships among written morphological accuracy, reading, and spelling were also examined. Written morphological accuracy predicted reading and spelling performance at both grade levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

The visual tongue-twister effect: Phonological activation in silent reading

We discuss the activation of phonological information during silent reading and report two experiments demonstratng a visual tongue-twister effect. Judgments of semantic acceptability took longer for sentences which repeated initial consonants or consonant pairs differing only in voicing such as /p/ and /b/ (tongue-twisters), compared with matched phonetically “neutral” sentences (those containing a natural mix of phenemes). In addition, concurrent vocalization with a tongue-twister phrase slowed performance, but did not produce reliable specific interference when the vocalization phrase repeated the same word-initial consonant (for example, bilabial /p/) as the sentences being read. We argue that the longer reading times for tongue-twisters is caused by interference due to the similarity of the phonetic representations automatically activated during reading. The lack of specific interference between concurrent vocalization and the reading task suggests that these automatically activated phonetic repreesntations are not subvocal motor programs and that the concurrent vocalization paradigm is not an appropriate method to examine the phonological information used during reading.

Speech Processes in Reading

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a model of speech processes in reading and reviews research on the role of such processes in reading. Much work has been guided by the question of whether speech recoding precedes lexical access. Although that question seems generally answerable in the negative, it is suggested that a richer understanding of speech processes in reading must include attention to postlexical processes. Activation of some phonemic information is automatic and concurrent with lexical activation. Although there is little direct evidence for this at present, it is argued that postlexical demands of reference securing make it reasonable to hypothesize such a process. It is also suggested that the phonemic code is not a mere replica of a speech production. In connection with the general proposal, it is also conclude that experiments employing speech suppression paradigms are inadequate to detect the speech processes involved. Moreover, it is suggested that there is a continuum of speech activation and that suppression operates at a higher level than the relevant speech processes

Children's discourse skill: Form and modality requirements of schooled writing

This article describes a psycholinguistic investigation of childrens competence in the production of extended discourse. Two factors are of special interest: Discourse Form (specifically narrative versus expository) and Production Modality (written versus spoken). Analyses of 240 elementary school texts reveal interactions between these two factors and provide insights into the process of text production. Theoretical explanations are offered that involve interactions among access of information from a knowledge base and structural characteristics of the two discourse forms examined here.

Children's Morphological Knowledge: Links to Literacy

Using a reliable and broad-based measure of morphological awareness, which tapped knowledge of relational, syntactic, and distributional morphology, we examined the development of morphological knowledge among older elementary students and the relationship of their morphological knowledge to a range of literacy measures. We found that morphological awareness continued to develop from fourth to sixth grade and development was most pronounced when derivational forms required phonological changes to their base words (i.e., phonologically opaque items such as signature/sign). Furthermore, childrens skill with phonologically opaque items on our morphological assessment made a unique contribution to real-word and non-word reading, beyond phonological awareness and vocabulary. In the case of comprehension, neither morphological nor phonological awareness accounted for unique variance once vocabulary was considered as a factor.