EXCEED THE SPACE PROVIDED. The goals of the proposed research are (1) to build upon and extend prior research on instruction aimed at component writing skills to instruction aimed at integrating component writing and reading skills, and (2) to build upon and extend prior cross-sectional assessment research on writing development to longitudinal assessment research on writing development. This research is important for two reasons. First, improving literacy is a national priority so that more students meet standards on state assessments. Second, science-based treatments for students with dyslexia and dysgraphia are sorely needed to optimize their potential and prevent the mental health problems associated with reading and writing disability. Two strands of research will operate throughout the 5-year grant period. Each year an instructional study will be conducted in Strand 1: word recognition with and without a handwriting component for 60 first graders, year 1; spelling with and without a word-specific training component for 6.0third graders with reading and writing disability,year 2, and for 60 third graders with spelling disability only, year 3; report writing with and without a reading comprehension/note taking component for 30 fifth grade students with reading and writing disability, year 4, and for 30 fifth grade students with spelling disability only, year 5. In Strand 2 two cohorts each with 50 children from families with a history of reading and/or writing disability and 50 children from families without a history of reading and/or writing disability will be followed longitudinally each year from grade 1 to grade 5 (Cohort 1) or from grade 3 to 7 (Cohort 2) in an overlapping cohort design with overlapping data in grades 3-5. State-of-the-art hierarchical linear modeling of growth curves, structural equation modeling, and ANCOVA will be used to test specific hypotheses about writing-reading connections and transfer within and across the functional writing and reading systems. Results should have practical significancefor diagnosis and treatment of writing and reading disabilities and theoretical significance for understandingthe functional writing and reading systems and their interconnections. PERFORMANCE SITE ========================================Section End===========================================
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