CS 201 195 Burrows, Alvina T.; And Others ChildrenIS Writing

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 090 546 CS 201 195

AUTHOR Burrows, Alvina T.; And OthersTITLE ChildrenIS Writing: Research in Composition and

related .Ski)jS.INSTITUTION National Conference on Research in English.; National

Council of Teachers of English, Champaign, Ill.PUB DATE 61NOTE 72p.; Reprinted from "Elementary English"

BURS PRICE MP-$0.75 HC-$3.15 PLUS POSTAGEDESCRIPTORS *Composition (Literary); Elementary Education;

Evaluation Techniques; Handwriting Skills; LanguageArts; *Language Development; *Language Research;Language Skills; *Literature Reviews; Study Skills;*Writing Skills

ABSTRACTThis bulletin reports on studies dealing with the

major role of composition and the supporting roles of discussing,dictating, illustrating, spelling, and handwriting in improving thelanguage skills of elementary school students. Chapters include"Composition in primary Grades," which stresses the importance ofteaching children to express themselves in writing by the end of theprimary grades and lists 136 selected references; "WrittenComposition in the Intermediate Grades," which discusses the resultsof research in grades 4,5, and 0 showing effective teaching methodswhich produce high quality writing; "Grammar in Language Teaching,"which concludes that for the teaching of English idiom and thestandard use of the remaining inflections in the language, neitherold nor new grammar is an efficient tool for improving composition;Handwriting and Children;s Composition," which explores theinconclusive evidence about' handwriting and suggests certaindirections for more research; "Research in Spelling," which, inaddition to reviewing the literature and suggesting new directionsfor research, contains a 319-item bibliography; and "EvaluatingChildren's Composition," which presents numerous ideas and ways ofevaluating written composition. (RB)

u S. DEIPARTmENTOP HEACTILEDUCATION wELPARE

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OPEDUCATION

'oils DOCUMENT NAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACT Lv AS RECEIVED PROMTHE PERSON OR ORGANiZATPON ORIGINAtiNG I! ROOM Of VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INStilL,TE0FEDUCATION POSITION OP POLICY

Children's Writing:

Research in Composition

And Related Skills

Prepared by the NationalConference on Research in English

ALV1NA T. Buutows

MARGARET B. PARKE

NEAL R. EDMUND

JOHN J. DEBOER

THOMAS D. HonN

Vinon, E. HEARom

Runt G. STRICKLAND

Reprinted from Elementary English

-508 South Sixth Street

Champaign, Illinois

Reprinted from

ihminthity- ENGLISHAn Official Publication of the National Council of Teachers of English

Copyright 1980-1901 by the National Covncil of Teachers of English

"PERMISSIOII TO REPRODUCE THI$ cOpy-A/OWED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

National Council ofTeachers of English

TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATINGUNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE NATIONAL IN-STITUTE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRO-Ducrwri OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM RE-WIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHTOWNER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IntroductionAlvin T. Burrows 5

Composition in Primary GradesMargaret B. Parke 6

Written Composition in the Intermediate GradesNeal R. Edmund 21

Grammar in Language TeachingJohn I. De Boer 32

handwriting and Children's CompositionVirgil E. Herrick 41

Spelling and Children's Written CompositionThomas D. Horn 52

Evaluating Children's CompositionRuth C. Strickland 64

Children's Written Composition:Introauetion

To collect, present, and interpret researchdata pertinent to children's composition is noeasier than to teach the arts and skills of writ-ing. Many skills and abilities go into the com-plex act of committing experience, thought,feeling, and imagination to written form; manydimensions of personality are involved. Inves-tigation of composition must therefore beconcerned with a broad range of activities andproblems, both human and technical. Hence,the material of this bulletin includes studies ofthe leading role of composition itself and thesupporting roles of discussing, dictating, illus-trating, spelling, and handwriting.

Varied and complicated as are these com-ponents of written expression, the job of iden-tifying them in children's learning has been inprogress for a long time. Study of the skills inwriting has gone on since before the Civil Warin this country and considerably longer inEurope. Composition has been studied as awhole; likewise the interdependent parts there-of have been subjected to analysis, experiment,and to evAuation. Indeed, it appears that some-what more attention has been given to themechanical aspects of writing than to the es-sential ones of invention or to children's basicmotivation for writing.

The committee has searched both the pub-lished and the unpublished literature for re-ports, whether of action or experimentalresearcII, status or historical research. Eachcontributor has been free to use his own judg-ment in selecting the material he thought valid.Exchange of opinion within the committeehas been limited but functional.

In reporting research studies (AC question ishow to present a picture of present knowledgeand pe.forinance without repeating material

k

ALVINA T. BURROWS

already widely known. In general, the attemptis made to report here those studies done earlyin this century that seem necessary for a clearunderstanding of current practices and currentproblem& However, the larger emphasis isgiven to studies of the last three decades.

One other question of scope and contenthas been answered by including In briefestform those general treatments of compositionwhich were not in themselves research studiesbut which set the stage for detiqed investiga-tion and in other ways shaped many of theforms of present day teaching. Pioneer ef-forts of Mearns reported In Creative Youth(Doubleday 1929) and of the National Councilof Teachers of English publication, An Experi-ence Curriculum in English (Appleton. Cen-tury, 1935), did much to build TwentiethCentury attitudes and beliefs. Many studies ofwriting have been based upon one or morefacets of these two dynamic departures frommore limited approaches.

The committee is mindful of the uniquestrength of the written word in an era of massmedia of communication, and of the new re-lationships and stresses brought to bear uponwriting in this technological age. It is bothchallenging and rewarding to bring togetherthese research findings and thus to further theclarification of insights into the nature of thewriting experience as well as to illuniinrteways and means of teaching children to expressthemselves with honesty and clarity, withsatisfaction to themselves, and with continuedgrowth toward new heights )i beauty.

Dr. Burrows is Professor of Elementary Educa-tion, New York University, and chairman of thecommittee preparing this bulletin.

Composition in Primary GradesAlthough it is commonly conceded that the

first language needs of young children arethose of oral expression, both personal andsocial values are realized by children who learnto write well in the primary grades. Markedprogress has taken place during the last twodecades in teaching six-to-eight-yearolds toexpress their ideas in writing. This progress hasbeen an outgrowth of new insights and pro-cedures in a number of areas. The vitalizationof the curriculum through the introduction ofa wealth of firsthand experiences has providedreasons and motivation for writing as well astopics. Increased communication among chil-dren in primary grade classrooms in a more per-missive atmosphere has add,..d significantly tothe joy of writing. Research about child growthin general and linguage development in par-ticular has given new ekes to the teacher. Theintroduct;on of manuscript writing has simpli-fied the writing process for the young chid im-measurably and laid the groundwork for es-tablishing common symbols for all languagetezching. Influenced by these factors, primarygrade teachers have made great effor, to slm.plify and relate the various aspects of languagereaching and to base it on the life experienzesof the children concerned. It is the purpose ofthis paper to find some answers to questionssuch as these: What have been the contributions of research in this field? Whet changeshave taken place as a result of such research?What remains to be done?

6

MARGARET B. PARKE

Teaching Written Expressionhi Relation to Other Language Arts,Firsthand Experiences, and Me TotalCurriculum

Three books were powerful in pointing upthe ,Irection that language teaching shoutd as-sume at all levels. !ladled (15), writing forthe National Council of Teachers of Erglish,analyzed the aspects of writing, reading, andspeaking, stressed the unity of the variouslanguage arts areas, and stimulated thinkingabout the interrelationships among them. Year-books of the Department of Elementary SchoolPrincipals (11) aed the National Society forthe Study of Education (23) crystallized Hat-field's point of view still further. Wright (35),Biber (3) and other teachers in private schools,wrote 4ivid accounts of exciting experiencesin teaching six-and seven-year-olds in newways in which "doing and learning" were In-exuicabit interwoven. Brown (4), Dal ison(9), GOodrich (14), Suickland (30), andothers pioneered in working with publishersto produce manuals for teachers on how toteach English in primary gradel. CurriculumBureaus of states (1, 5, 31), counties (2),and cities (6) turned out guides to help tea;chers understand new approaches to the devel .opment of the total curriculum in primarygrades. Publishers produced valuable books toguide teachers in planning the total curriculum

Dr. Parke is Professor of Education In BrooklynCollege.

;

COMPOSITION IN PRIMARY GRADES 7

of which English was a part (12, 13, 17, 18,28). Excellent books on the teaching of Eng-lish helped to give perspective to the sequentialdevelopment of language throughout the ele-mentary schools (7, 8, 10, 16, 19, 21, 32, 33).

In New York City an extensive curriculumexperiment in the activity program for ele-mentary schools (22) was followed in theearly 40's by an intensive experiment on theteaching of first-grade children. Two publica-tions (24, 25) set forth the conditions thatfacilitate the development of a good programfor young children, stated conclusions and im-plications, and recommended that the newlydeveloped practices be spread to other schoolsin the city. In 1944 experimentation in cur-riculum development in language arts for de-mentary schools began in a serious mannerand eventuated in a series of publications (26)that were and still are used extensivelythroughout the city. In addition, many publi-cations on reading were produced by the Bureauof Educational Research.

In 1954 Art ley, Hildreth, Townsend, Beery,and Dawson wrote a significant bulletin forthe National Conference on Research in Englishwhich summarized the research which had beendone on the Interrelationships among the Lan-guage Arts (2). Their findings emphasized thehigh correlations found among the languageskills by investigators, pointed out the inherentunity among the communication areas and theclose relationship by content, use, purpose, anddevelopment. Since high achievement in onelanguage ability tended to be associated withhigher than average achievement in the otherlanguage abilities, they concluded that thereshould be a greater integration in reaching andthat "the language arts program shnuld be modi-fied in the direction of a larguige programrather than a skills program in a given contentarea " Hildreth, who concentrated particularlyon the interrelationships between written ex-pression and the other language am., foresawthe need for more valid and reliable compara-

tive studies of separate and integrated teaching.Research on interrelationships among the

language arts which deals with children in thefirst and second grades has yielded sufficientlydifferent results from those reported by investi-gators at other levels to call for careful inter-Npretation. Martin (20) found little relationbetween speaking, reading, and writing abilitiesamong six-year-olds. She used seven types ofinstruments to measure language factors for240 first-grade children in Austin, Texas. Orallanguage was studied by means of the recordingmachine for total number of words used, num-ber of different words, and average length ofsentences. Interrelationships among languagevariables at the beginning and end of the firstgrade were studied. Fourteen cases were studiedintensively. She discovered that children couldlearn to speak and read well without learningto write. Some could copy at the end of firstgrade and not be able to read. The relationshipof oral language to reading readiness at the be-ginning and reading achievement at the endof the first grade was virtually negligible, butthere was a small definite relationship betweendrawing and the language variables. Martinconcluded that "growth in each variable followed an individual developmental pattern andwas unrelated to other variables. Parallel de-velopment in the language variables should notbe expected of first grade children." Parke(27), working more informally with tenhighly selected classes of six-year-olds in thepublic schools of New York City, made similardiscoveries.

The findings of Winter (34), a secondgrade teacher, tended to confirm those of Mar-tin. She studied 240 children during the firstyear and had complete data on 101 for thesecond year. She, too, carried fourteen casestudies. Data were analyzed at the end of thefirst and the second years to ascertain the re-lationship among these factors: motor ability,oral language, drawing, reading, writing, andspelling. The majority of correlations repre-

8 ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

sewed either a low stable degree of associationbetween language factors or no significant re-lationship. Only the two vocabularly measurestotal length of response and number of differentwords usedwere found to be highly depen-dent upon each other. A moderate degree of re-lationship was found to exist between readingand spelling. This study upset certain assump-tions commonly made about children in the pri-mary grades, such as: ( I) the first-grader whospeaks fluently and knows how to write hisname in full from memory when he comes toschool will succeed in every phase of languagelearning; (2) all good readers will be goodspellers; (3) success in spelling is highly de-pendent upon success in reading. Since the as-sociation between reading and spelling is onlymoderate among children in these early years,the two must be taught independently of eachother as well as in relation to each other. Thequality of these first and second grade chil-dren's development seemed to result from theaction and interaction of many factors withinthemselves and their environment. The pri-mary child's skill in writing by copying ap-pears to be completely independent of hisskill in the thought levels of oral communica-tion. Motor responses are completely or rela-tively independent of language factors. Therelationship be-preen reading and drawing arerelatively inderndent. Unique skills in eachvariable require many learning activities in-dependent of the other. Learning to read re-veals little or no dependence on oral languageas tested in children's show-and-tell situations.(This conclusion, however, leads one to ques-tion if Miss Winter included any children Inher study who were learning English as asecond language or who entered school with abackground in oral language far below par.)The first and second grade child's achievementin writing is dependent to a small degree uponhis ability in reading.

These important studies should cause tea-chers to consider both the relationships and

lack of relationships which have been detectedfor first and second-grade children. It wouldseem wise to proceed cautiously enough withtotal Integration to discover points at whichthe separate teaching of skills is highly desir-able.

The Picture Dictionary as a PromisingText in Language Instruction

One drawback in the progress toward in-tegrated teaching of language arts In primarygrades may lie in instructional materials. Nil-dreth (40), Taylor and Frackenpohl (42) andothers have, for some time, advocated the de-velopment of a common core vocabulary to beused in all facets of language teaching in theprimary grades. It Is possible that in an attemptto produce good sequential materials throughoutall of the grades in the separate aspects oflanguagereading, writing, spelling, and hand-writinginsufficient attention has been givento the interrelationships among these variousmaterials at each grade level. It is for this reasonthat the pretty picture dictionary challenges ct-tenrion as a basic English text In primarygrades.

The movement to use the picture dictionaryin teaching reading, writing, spelling, andother language skills was started by Wittenand Courtis (43) in 1939. Use of a picturedictionary presented a way of simplifying writ-ing experiences for children by providing themwith words which they had learned to read. Itestablished a purposeful way of learning thealphabet to find words needed In writing andhelped to systematize their search for words.

There are many picture dictionaries available today. Values to be derived from their usehave been described by Breitenstein (36),Buswell (37), Dunser (38), Eakin and Brooks( 39 ), Parke (41), and Whitney (44). With apicture dictionary, teaching can be 4one in theearly grades in an integrated way at times, butseparate teaching of skills can also be plannedas needed. What is more, the Inherent pot-

COMPOSITION IN PRIMARY GRADES

sibilities for its flexible use make it a naturaltool in a program of individualized instruction.Further research will be needed to test theseand other values more fully.

Teaching Children to Express TheirThoughts in Writing

Research in child development as well as inlanguage teaching has indicated the thera-peutic value of writing to the individual. Tobe able to express one's feelings in writing isone way of "letting off steam" and getting emo-tional release. In addition, there are manypractical situations in life which call for abilityto write clearly, concisely, and correctly. Theobligation to meet these objectives is commonlyaccepted by elementary schools today. The im-portant question concerns how this instructioncan be given most effectively.

Interesting books send pamphlets have beenwritten on the topic of teaching children toexpress their ideas in writing (45, 46, 49, 57,58), and there is fairly common agreementamong these authors on certain points. Com-position writing is essentially a thinking pro-cess. The desire to write grows with writing.In stimulating children to write, the teacher hasa major responsibility to create an atmospherefor wilting, to utilize common class experiencesas well as personal experiences outside theschool, to develop background for writingthrough literature and the fine arts, and tohelp children accept reasons for writing. Theestablishment of standards does not "just hap.pen." The teacher guides children toward theattainment of standards by giving adequate en-couragement for effort. "Balance" is a key word.Overemphasis on high standards leads to dislikefor writitil and even plagarism. Methods ofhelping the child reach for higher levels of at-tainment are of great importance. There shouldbe an underlying respect for his ideas and hisways of thinking. Teaching should be concernedwith the selection and organization of materialsfor a purpose. Effort should be directed toward

9

helping him say better what he wants to say,The program should include sharing of writtenwork, sincere help in developing social aware-ness and in formulating values, occasional re-turn to literature to examine how other peopleexpress ideas, opportunity to continue writingwithout interruption when interest is high,and ample experience and help in proofreadinghis own work. Attention to the mechanics ofexpression at the proper time and in the properway contribute immeasurably to the child'ssuccess in writing and to the enjoyment he en-counters in the process, but the mechanics ofwriting should be subordinated to the substanceof ideas. Folders of written products are con-sidered to be the most useful measure of pro.gress in composition and handwriting sincegrowth in sentence power appears to be the bestsingle measure of developing maturity in ex-pression.

Bear (47) and Heffernan (52) have in-dicated that effective written expression is in-fluenced by some of the same factors whichmake for good oral expression, namely, an ex-tensive vocabulary, good sentence structure, andorganization of interesting ideas. In addition,there must be sufficient motor coordination tosucceed in the writing act and motivation tocommunicate with someone at a distance or torecord experiences for future use. Kidd (56)wrote an interesting digest of approaches tocreative writing. Well and Parke (58) outlinedthe relationship which should exist betweenreading and the various aspects of written ex-pression foe children at different developmen-tal levels.

Zirbes (67) listed twelve steps that schoolsshould take to give children a taste of the satis-faction that can be theirs in writing. Hildreth(2) summarized from the literature the stagesthrough which young children progress in themodern school as they learn to express theirideas in writing.

In the first step, children speak freely andspontaneously. Hughes and Cox (54) compared


spontaneous oral language of 45 first-gradechildren with that found in preprimers andprimers. They concluded that children's spokenlanguage was superior to that of the books invariety of vocabulary vitality, and sentencestructure maturity. Smith's study (62) approxi-mated the average vocabulary of sixyear-oldsto be 2500 words, but more recent studies haveshown that this figure needs revision upward(60, 63). The second step, according to Strick-land (30), involves dictation and appears tocall for more precise and organized thinkingthan is required in spontaneous storytelling.Betzner (48) described the form and contentof original compositions dictated by children offrom five- to eight-years of age. Studies byShaw (61), Wilson (65), Kidd (56), andothers have reported satisfying results when theteacher served as scribe. Rewarding results ofchildren's writing at the independent stages arefound in the abundance of articles written byteachers and in collections of children's writing(10, 30, 49, 58).

To help children bridge the gap betweentelling stories and writing them, Oftedal (59)tried "picture writing" with 25 third-gradechildren. The children planned, organized, andrecorded their stories on drawing paper foldedinto parts to tell a story as a sequence of events.The children then "read" their stories from thepictures. Two picture-written stories and twohandwritten stories of each of the 13 pupilswere analyzed for elements of expression. Thepicture-written stories were superior in num-ber of ideas, number of new ideas, amount oforiginal fantasy, adequacy of vocabulary, lengthof story, length of sentences, and reduction ofprojection of past experiences. This study veri-fied her belief that writing tends to inhibit thethought of young children.

In an extremely significant study, Howell(53) investigated differences in compositionswritten and dictated by seven-year-olds abouttopics that grew out of shared learning ex-periences and about topics that were assigned.

She analyzed 240 compositions from 12 girlsand 12 boys. Half of these were on assignedtopics; the other half grew out of shared ex-periences. Following each writing experience,each child dictated on the same topic aboutwhich he had written. Compositions were ana-lyzed for number of running words, number ofdifferent words, and number of generalizations.Contrary to the usual notion, there was nosignificant difference between the generallinguistic ability of boys and girls when bothoral and written compositions were taken intoaccount. Boys did better in the dictated com-positions, and girls did better in the writtenones. Children were able to write more runningwords and more different words about a sharedexperience than on an assigned topic, whereasthey dictated more on an assigned topic thanabout a shared experience. There were morerunning words, more different words, and moregeneralizations in dictated compositions thanin written compositions, but there were moregeneralizations per running word in the writtencompositions. A significantly greater numberof generalizations and of generalizations perhundred running words were found In compo-sitions about shared experiences. There was acorrelation of .489 between running words andgeneralizations. Over a ten-month period therewere significant increases in all factors meas-ured.

These findings led the investigator toconclude that seven-year-olds create longer tom-positions, use more extensive vocabularies, andexpress more generalizations when they arefree from the mechanics of written expression.Shared experiences are more conducive to gen-eralizing than assigned topics. Changes overa period of time may be caused by the topic ofcomposition and by additional experience. Op-portunities both to dictate and to write com-positions should be given as well as oppor-tunities to create compositions about assignedtopics and shared experiences. Written and dic-tated compositions can serve to check the ac-

COMPOSITION IN PRIMARY GRADES I I

curacy and completeness of children's under-standing. Since it seems that the mechanicsof expression stand in the way of boys morethan of girls at the age of seven, more supportand help should be given to boys when they at-tempt to write.

Witty and Williams (66) made an interest-ing analysis of children's compositions writtenin response to a film, Sucksdorff's Ibinter inthe Forest. First-grade children responded in anegocentric manner. They began sentences withI, labelled objects in relation to themselves(such as I saw a deer) used elements of sur-prise, asked questions which they often leftunanswered, and gave reasons for observation.They responded to music and claimed that itmade them think more about the picture.Second-grade children continued to be egocen-tric, continued to ask questions but gave longeranswers, mentioned appeal of music more fre-quently, and tended to be more sensitive to thedetails of the picture if they used the questionform. Third-grade pupils continued to askquestions, but made more attempts to answerthem. They wrote longer compositions withgreater objectivity and with more frequentdescription of their own emotional reactions.Poetry was written more often, and other formsof spontaneous language expression were morefrequent.

Although it is true that the mechanics ofexpression should be subordinate to the as-pects of thinking involved in compositionwriting, the mechanics of expression should notbe neglected. The child begins to develop aware-ness of sentences as he sees the teacher writehis own sentences on the chalk -board and ashe reads. The teacher helps him understandwhere punctuation marks and capital letters be-long. The recommended approach to usage is toanalyze the problems of the group being taughtand to teach them what they need (30). Studies(50, 51, 55, 64) to determine the kinds oferrors children make in the mechanics of writ-ing have been made from time to time on

third-grade children and above. They indicatethat the errors in punctuation, capitalization,and usage are legion, but that gc.xl results fol-loW, when instruction is adjusted to the needsof 'pupils.

HandwritingEffective research in the field of hand-

writing has resulted in drastic change in teach-ing primary grade children to write. Implica-tions of the research have been made availableby Freeman (76), West (90), and others.City (85), state (73, 78, 82), national (75,-89) and world (83) surveys have been madeof practices and reasons for these practices. Atrend to teach manuscript writing in grades oneand two swept the nation during the period be-tween 1935 and 1949 and continued until,at present, this form of writing is accepted al-most universally. Arguments for using manuscript symbols were well supported by studiesof Ames (68), Hildrzth (80), Washburne andMorphett (89), Voorhis (92), and others.The evidence concerning whether or not tochange from manuscript to cursive writing hasbeen less conclusive. Hildteth (81) stronglyadvocated the co ntinuance of manuscriptthroughout the grades for purposes of simpli-fying and promoting greater legibility. Herrickand Jacobs (19), Parke and Bristow (85) sum-marized the reasons which held schools backfrom moving in this direction in terms of thesocial acceptance of cursive writing, the incon-clusive evidence on speed, the strong pull for acursive signature in the business world, and thepressure brought to bear on the school by thechildren themselves who want to write likegrown-ups. Certainly the time has come formore intense study on the extent to which thewriting of children is retarded by the change toanother writing system soon after they have be-gun to write. Swenson's (88) study of the it-legibilities of third-grade children provides a

good start.Investigators have been concerned about


when to begin to teach handwriting and whento make the change from manuscript to cursivewriting. Surveys report that most schools beginto teach writing before the end of the first yearand make the change some here during a year-and-half period prior to th fourth grade. Per-haps this is all that should be said. Teachers,with a wide range of abiliti4 before them, needa chance to make adaptations which seem bestto them. There are, however, additional cluesfor the observant teacher. After reviewing theresearch studies pertinent to readiness forwriting, Beery (69) concluded that a childmight safely be taught to write when:

1. He has spontaneously shown an interestin learning to print his own name.

2. He has developed facility in the use ofscissors, crayons, the paint brush, and thepencil in a variety of informal activities.

3. He can copy simple geometric or letter-like characters with proper orientation.

4. He has established a dominant hand,5. He has participated in composing and

sending written messages.6. He senses a personal need to learn to

write.7. He can be introduced to a writing pro-

gram that is geared to his level of ma-turity.

Parke and Bristow (85) aced these signs ofreadiness for cursive writing:

1. A desire on the part of the child to writein cursive style.

2. Adequate physical development so thatthere is coordination of muscles of thearm, hand, and fingers.

3. Ability to write all letters of the manu-script alphabet from memory.

4. Ability to read simple passages written incursive writing.

5. Ability to copy a in manuscriptat a rate varying from 2; 1.o 45 letters perminute and to maintain a quality of 35to 50 on the Conard Scale or an equivalentquality on another scale.

Hetrick and Jacobs, Strickland, and others warnof the danger is teaching cursive writing be-

fore children enjoy wtiting in manuscript.Whether to teach incidentally or systemati-

cally has been a big issue. Some kindergartenchildren can write their names and all letters ofthe alphabet without school instruction where-as some third-and fourth-grade children are notsure of all letters of the alphabet. (85) Thereis enough evidence to indicate that some chit,dren learn to write a great deal without beingtaught formally. There is also evidence to showthat some children develop poor habits and arehandicapped by lack of adequate formal in-struction and followup in handwriting activi-ties. Guides (74, 85, 90) on the teachingof handwriting advocate sound teaching whennew elements are introduced. They direct at-tendon to the advisability of working at pointsof need as needs are revealed. Freeman (76)has emphasized the importance of applying theprinciples of selection and repetition. Accordingto the former, the writer must recognizewhether he is writing to express ideas or to im-prove his writing skill. Each purpose is a legiti-mate one. When his goal is to improve the skill,words and letters are chosen so as to representan advancing scale of difficulty. Practice thengoes from easy to difficult, and there is con-centration on one difficulty at a time. At-cording to the second principle, the child en-counters difficulties which call for attention,as he writes: Although much learning can takeplace incidentally, planned exercises probablyhelp him make the greatest gain in a giventime.

Considerable time has been spent by ex-perts to determine which letters cause thegreatest number of difficulties both in manu-script and cursive writing. Conrad (72) foundletters a, e, g, m, q, y, r, and x to be most dif-ficult for children when learning to write inmanuscript. Newland (84), Pressey (87),Swenson (88), and others analyzed handwriting to determine causes for illegible cursivewriting. According to Newland (84) 14 out of279 forms of illegibility account for almost

COMPOSITION IN PRIMARY GRAMS

half of the total number of illegibilities. Theywere a dosed, d like cl, 4 like 11, a like o, a like

with-crOts above, r like i, b lice 1i, I like1, I with no dot, r li Ce n,'o like at h like 11, andn like WPorty-five per cent of the errors weremade on (gut letters --a, e, r, and t. Most in.vestigitens agree on the first three. Parke andBristocci: (85) indicated the need to teachthoroughly the letter forms bb e, h k, r, 1, anda because of the radical change in letter formwhen the transition is made from manuscriptto cursive writing. Teachers who are aware ofthese undies do net teach each letter with equalemphasis. They help children discover the kindsof difficulties which occur in their writing andpractice at paints of error.

Young children need many opportunitiesfor meaningful writing. There is little evidenceto support the use of particular devices. Hertz-berg (79) found the direct copying of themodel to be Most superior of four methods.Tracing with the pencil was slightly superiorto the groove and finger tracing method. Gatesand Taylor (77) concluded from their studythat tracing and writing were quite differentfunctions although they embraced some cornmon elements. Practice Is necessary but theamount can be reduced by the use of writingin situations which have meaning and purpose.

S;.1.-ed and legibility must develop side byside; one should not be pressed at the expenseOf the other. Just as in typewriting, increasedemphasis can be placed on speed only whenthere is accurate writing of high quality. Speedshould be cut to the point where quality canbe produced. Borass (70) showed the influenceof speed on certain letter forms, particularlythe curved letters with no distinguishingcharacteristics. Help that is in any way re-lated to speed of writing should be given on anindividual basis in primary grades.

There is little evidence to substantiate someof the present recommendations concerningmaterials to be used by children in the primarygrades. What evidence there is favors the use

13`

of the adult pencil rather than ilia large begin.ner pencil (91). Blackboard and,eitel writinghave value as an oppormnity for free,Itugewriting, but In no.way Substitute for the 'Writ:Ing most individuals will do the rest of theirlives.

The best way to evaluate hand writing Isin terms of readability. Writing scales hive beendevised by Ayres, Freeman, Cray, and odiers,_The teacher can arrange specimens of pupils'writing in order of merit and use them as ascale (76).

SpellingMore insight has been gained from spell.

ing research than has been put into pracrke.Many of these insights were described in 'the,two excellent texts written by Fitzgerald -(98)and Ilildreth (108). Horn (112) - Wrote anelaborate and helpful description of spellinginstruction in an elementary school. Research:,has been well summarized In technical journtikas well as in popular form for teachers- (100,111, 119, 125, 130, 131). 'Word lists have Oil:iributed val table knowledge concerning the fre-quency of use of words by children (98, 126);semantic count (114), the accuracy with whichwords are spelled (103), and the kinds of spotsin words that are hard to spell (101).

A along need has been felt by many edu.cators to break the rigid lockstep method ofteaching spelling as an isolated subject in favorof individualizing instructions simplifying k,and relating it more effectively with teachingin the other areas of language arts and thetotal curriculum. Strickland (131) reducedspelling objectives to two, namely, "to help eachchild develop an effective method of learningto spell voids and to spell accurately and confidently as many as possible of the commonwords of English." Hildreth (107, 108, 113)proposed new procedures for teaching spellingand organized a spelling list of basic wordsby learning levels. Burrows (96) suggested asequence of leanings in spelling. Fitzgerald

14' ELB141114'tARY

0 4a 40e-1/4e4tii9?le generalizationsaboqt selling reietrth,-

16.414:11s hate Ogered Many articles Writ.ten teachers who are:Seeking better ways of

iChitig Spelling' (0; 104, 104; 109;116, 124).tea-chefs recOgnized!the need for spell-

ing ninth fUnction'al vtriting. Some worked!torn. a CON iocabidary. Others felt -that- thechild's Veiling vocabulary should grow our of

-

his needs in .written expression rather than anyother :Prepared list. Howell (113) found :that:

chi!dien,-, in their wilting, use Many ofthe words of spellingChilcItenin developing their writing vo,vabularies,, use -words that are listed invocabulary lists belay__ and above theirorganized levels.

3. Children:: in developing spelling through_ their writing, use many more words than

those In the basic ward lists.4. Children, in developing their spelling

throtign writing, tend to have more favor-,

able attitudes toward spelling and writing.2 Bristow, Parke, and others in New York

City (120) experimented with learning levelsin spelAng in relation to the sequential develop-ment of language as set forth in a chart, growthand Development in Language Artt (26). Fol-lowing experimentation, the Bureau of Cur-

2riculum Research of the New York CitySchools, in an attempt to meet the pressingneeds of an extremely diversified school popu.WOO, broke tradition and produced their ownspelling materials' for the City's elementaryand junior high schools including individualspelling lists for children, supplementary teach-ing materials, a guide for experimentation, andfinally a -syllabus.

The New York City Research Project inSpelling has been described by Parke (121,122, 123). Wagner (132) devised a scale forevaluating this kind of spelling program. Salis-bury (128) used the New York City materialsin Los Angeles to promote pupil.teacher plan-ning of spelling lessons. Other schools, such asPortland and Spokane, have taken steps to

Blount

IVI"Itrieuticeil!*1' ex- perhilent iciqcik

Of

Despite the gains ,that have: beeP déY

Puny problems o' method In spelling ateunanswered; Dolch, ritigetald, 1-fofn,: Stridp.,land; and others believeapproach should be used in learning toQuestions on 'phonics, are '_being reiritalfied _

Betts -(94) and Others'," and sonfeitasWeiS tiretending to Move eciticators-in new directions.-There is fairly common agreement char_ Ili-striiction In phonics can facilitate grOWth- In .-

both geacling-ancl spelling. The cpieStiOni ate-what kind, when, how Mitch, and k What re ;lationship: Moore (11$) repOrted that readi-ness to discriminate amongspeech sounds is not coniplete with all Childrenat the dose of grade One, but that this ability, ,-3-7is measurable and developmental. Cordts (97),Ilildreth 00(i), and others have emphasizedrepeatedly the need for teaching soundsthey occur within words from the very begin-,.ning and not in isolation.' Hildreth (l0) has ;

again pointed out In her new book On reactingthat the phonic skills: needed for reading irejust-the opposite of those that serve -,;?..;;;1

itig. The task of the reader is to recognize the ,sounds of the letters and letter combinations asthey recur in printed words. In Spelling,: thewriter must call to mind the letters that tepee. I ._

sent the sounds in the words which he wishesto write. The first process is an analytic one;the second is synthetic. Horn (110) has pointedto the probleats children face in spelling thesounds whey hear in words. lie believes theyshould learn the way:, clot the way, ln whicheach sound is spelled. He makes, a plea-for em- _

phasis on word patterns, syllables, word po-sition, meanings, the adding of suffixes, andadjacent influencifig sounds that show con--siderable consistency., Furthermore, Childrenshould grow in ability to draw generalization* --regarding these characters for themselves.

The advisability of using the teststudymethod or the study-test method with young


children has been a cause of concern to Pita-gerakl (100) and students of Horn, namelyHi lber (105), Montgomery (117) and Shub-laik (129), Art ley (93) would lead its to theapplication of principles In the improvementof spelling ability.

Summary of Conclusions andNeeded Research

Research has brought about rapid progressin the last two decades In teaching primarygrade children to express themselves in writ-ing. There appears to be a keen interest at thepresent time in exploring the worth of unify-ing and individualizing instruction in the lan-guage arts. Results of studies on Interrelation-ships among the language arts should be ex-amined separately for children in grades oneand two as they seem to be at variance withstudies in the higher grades where high intercorrelations among the language skills havebeen reported in numerous studies. Investiga-tors are, therefore, recommending that carefulplanning of experiences for young childrenshould include both integrated experiences andseparate teaching of the basic skills, at leastuntil mote facts are known. In approachingIndividualized instruction in language teach-ing, opencnindedness accompanied by a knowl-edge of the research now available should opennew vistas.

Obviously, children in the primary gradesare seriously handicapped by the mechanicalaspects of writing. Ample provision for ex-periences in dictating and in picture writinghave been advocated for all children to ac-company those in written composition. Ingeneral, boys appear to be more in need of as-sistance than girls even when they have moreideas to express. In the light of research andnew developments, some cherished beliefs maywell be subjected to further study. Research isneeded in the following areas:

1. Variability. among individual growth pat-terns of first-grade children points to

15

the need to experiment further vithways of Introducing children to the studyof tanguage. It could be that very vocalchildren, including many boys, might sp-proach language study by much talkingabout things about them, books realto them, and pictures seen. Anotherchild's approach might be through writ-ing something from a book which some-one has read to him: Still another childmight have an insatiable desire to learnto read from the time he comes to school.The evidence of research is not as con-vincing as was assumed that allboysand girlsshould go through the readi-ness exercises of

goand talking

before reading and through a set blockof reading experiences before writing. Isthe sequence of "listening, speaking. read-ing, and writing" to be applied in thelearning of all children in primarygrades regardless of their background?

2. New trends in the production of in-stnictional materials and materials forremedial purposes could do more thananything else to hasten the process ofimproving language teaching In primarygrades. For yearS there has been greatconcern about the vertical oranization ofeach facet of language teaching with rel-atively little concern about relating thework of authors of speech materials,reading, writing, and spelling, at specific'grade levels. The teacher deals more withthe horizontal organization than with thevertical organization of curriculum. Shemust plan listenin?, speaking, reading,and writing activities in relation to thechild's needs. If reading texts have notdealt with words that appear,in the spell-ing book, she must teach the child toread the words as well as spell them.Certainly more attention should, be givento an examination of the relatedness ofinstructional materials used at a givengrade level and to the values inherent inthe picture dictionary as a bask textin a language program. The use of a common language symbol in the fotmmanuscript type for reading and spell-ing has been suggested as one way tofacilitate the young child's learning.

3. The use of television, films, tapes, andrecordings as means of stimulating chil-

16 ELEM BNTARY ENGLISH

dren to write and as ways of improvingexpression are still relatively unexplored.What purposes can be served by thesematerials in contrast to those served byfirsthand experientes and books? Howcan materials on wheels be made to serveeach classroom more effectively, namelycalifone, tape recorder, dictaphone,noiseless typewriter, and projectors ofvarious kinds?

4. Longitudinal studies of the writing ofthe same children over a period of yearswould produce .widence of the growingmaturity of expression under known con-ditions.

5. Thought aspects of language developmerit should be studied apart from thoseaspects which are more primarily con-cerned with motor skills. Examinationof compositions in respect to conceptsof time, space, and number resultingfrom different instructional situationswould be worthy of further study.

6 The best practices used by teachers fordeveloping and maintaining standardsof written expression with deep respectfor child personalities should be exploredin greater detail.

7. Sortie studies should be made in the fieldof handwriting: (a) to determine moreconclusiveli the relative merits of manu-script and cursive writing in grade threeand above with respect to speed and theadvisability of teaching CU/Sive writing,(b) to explore ways of simplifying thechange from manuscript to cursive writ-ing, and (c) to determine the best de-sign of an adequate writing instrumentfor young children as well as the pre-ferred value of one over another at aparticular rime.

8. More complete evidence is needed onthe principal ways in which each soundis spelled in various word positions, onerrors made by children in spelling eachsound, on phonetic rules which mightbe practicable to teach, and on the ef-feet of teaching any kind or amount ofphonics .on spelling efficiency (111).

9. Parents and teachers need to work closelytogether in behalf of children in the pri-mary grades. What should parents knowabout how children are being taught towrite so that they work cooperatively

with schools? What practices are yield-ing L results?

10. Many -chers are confused concerningwhat tI y are to do in integrated situadons and what separate teaching ofskills should be done in a good langualtprogram. Effort should be made to darianswers to this question more construc-tively.

11. Some gains have been made In establish-ing language sequences in terms of childgrowth and development to replace ar-bitrary grade placement standards. Moreresearch is needed In this area immedi-ately or the progress which has beenmade thus far will be lost.

12. Every, investigator in handwriting isfaced with several ways of ritakin$theletters of the alphabet. If some decisionscould be made nationally to standardizea few routine items of this kind, stepswould be taken toward the simplificationof materials used ir, this classroom andby parents at home with their children.

13. The relation of emotion and attitudestoward the learning process needs muchexploration at the primary grade level,

14. The establishment of the dictionary habitin relation to written expression cannow be begun in the early grades owingto the introduction of the pichwe clic-tionaty. Intensive research in the effec-tive use of this important book is longoverdue.Additional problems for research havebeen summarized by Hildreth (2), Parke(41), Heffernan (52), Beery (69))Artley (134), Labrant, Marcus, andSteinberg (135), Spathe (136).

SELECTED REFERliNCESInterrelationshiPs among the LanguageArts, Total Curriculum,and Experiences

I. Andrus, Ruth and Associates. CrirekalamGait's, foe readetr of Six, Seven, and Eight.Year-Old Children. Albany: University of theState of New York Press, 1941.

2. Artley, A. Smr1; 1-fildreth, Gertrude; Towns.end, Agatha; Beery, Althea; and Dawson,Mildred. Initerelationrhipr among the Len.cradle Arts: A Research Bulletin of theNational Council of Teachers of English, 1954.

3. Biber, Barbara and others. Child life inSrbool. A Study of a SevenYear-Old Group.New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1942.


.t 13:town, Dorothy 14-. and Butterfield; Margot-Urchin: zistimemiti Pdffility Grades.

New York Mean! Ian WY; 194_1. ,5, California to 'Department of Education,

leeches' Os so Chad Dees, for sheMosel Teaches/ e sAfeisse4k4its Eretty- boa. ,SaamerSIO:went 13{1 956..Cfrithituttl $41004. The Primer, Men-*4:- Teachers.-quicif-KWetotteo andOradea "One, TWO akd three. Cdochmatl,OW: Publle Scl:ools," 1942.

7. :Cole; Nakille, Ads in She ehusfeeni, New- York I' The John, Dar Company, -1940.-

Commi1s:4W on -An English CurticvluM ofthe National Council Of ,Teichers" of English.lCex Or /Or' ToridA ebilfirei, New

--YOrk:1+01000,-Centirf-Crafta; Int.r 1954,. Tsithing $a

04-2. YOnketi, New Yorks World, Book Compiitiy; 1949, ,Rev_,

D01011i Kicked, tdtbilie 1:41Mkti is sheG'redes.- NO York: World Book Convoy,1951;- 1957,

11.- Department of Elorientary School-Principals.Loriisrege i1rJ i, theiElemensary School.Twentieth Yeitbook- of the Department,Washington: The National Education Assort.attots,'1941.-

12, Forest, Ilse, Early Yuri as School. New York:McGraw-Hill,- 1949.

13. Gans, Itomit, and Others. Teecbing YountChildren to Haw*. School, Kindergarten 40/04

s Printery Grad,. New York: World Bookny, 1952,

14. ride", essie. E. The Languess Piogrem:Credo dne to Three. Neer York': Charles E.1k4ertil-1 Company,' 1936.

15. Hatfield, Wilbur W., Editor. An ExperienceCorriceluoi in Englisb. Chicago: The NationalCouncil of Teachers of English, 1935.Hildreth, Gertrude. Leerniug the ThreeMilwaukee: Educational Publishers, 1947.

17. tifitireth, deritude. fte,rdirrat for School Be.ginne r% New York: World Book Company,

950.18. Heffernan, Helen. Guiding she Young Child.

Boston -s Heath; 1951.19. Herrick; Virgil E. and Jacobs, Leland B,

Children end the Iaragaate Arts. New York:Prentice-Hall, 1955.

20. Martin, Clyde. "Developmental Interrelation.ships among Language Variables in Childrenof the First Grade." Elemantery Enghib, 32:167.171, March 1955.

21. McKee, Paul. Langarage In the ElementarySchool. New York: Houghton Mifflin Corn-pray, 1939._mutton, I. Cayce. The Activity Pretreat:Crottkelens ExPerimens. Report of e Surveyof the New York State Department of Edu-cation, Albany: The State Department of Mu-cation, 1941.

23. National Society for the Study of Education.Teaching Language in lb* Elementery School.

P.

17

Forty-third Yearbook, Part II, Cilktso: TheUniversity of Chicago gear, 1944.

24. New York City Board of Education, Bureauof Educational Research. Exploring PhilGrade Coorriolorm, Etooklitki New Yorks TheBurton, 1947._

25. New York City Board of Education: ilelpitigOar-Young Child en to _Lion. DrO0k116, NewYork: The Board Of Educ#060,,19A...

26. New York City Board of Education, MOOk174New York: Otowsk oki_poolopoTu io th;Unmet. Ilits 1944. -sPractices iimd iroOkras io iir1ifiwriarai'194/.Seisatil Referogrr on CrorkerintX Omsk*:mites lit lorgisate Ark for Elementery'Schoois,

itlina dies A, B, dud C svith Mesita, los-ExPefltnenlellon with Spelling au 4, B, sadC, tY50.tie/pins Develap._PoitItt of Silk'Expretsion Tbroagb Writing, 1952:Totvord Better Speech/ 1954. !'reechirst" OW, of Slay andMoosiol, 1954.Syllabics be Intrtneit Ads for ElsmthlSchools 19f5.

27. Parke,' brogart optc.,010.kits They Are Ars-Unpublished z Project.- New , Yorks,Teachers College, Univerilty;"1945:

28. 8)10.4. Emme Dickson. The" ilivtt and Stiti '-Co to $0601..1401 York;- Henry an<IConvoy, 1954, '

29. Sheer, Lorraine. Their' Pint Year! is-1939.

School,_'-Angeles: 1-1. A; ,Miller Company

8tricklend, Ruth. Odds for Teechi4: Eng-lirb Is Olt' Unglue; atit44 1' end 2. Boston:

C. Heathl-and Company/1950.31. Strickland, Ruth' and MOS.-A OW kiri

School. intliaoePolisi Slats, Indiatitmen of Public Instivttioni 1944, =

32. Strickland, Ruth. The Latiguegs ,Arts in theElement School. Boston: b. C." HeathCompany, 191. '

33. Tidyman, Willard F. and Butterfield, Ma.r.gterite. Te.rhing lb. LeaguesYork: McGraw-Hill Book Co. , 1951. -=

34. Winter, ClotlIcia. interitiatiOnshIps' amVariables in Children of the First andGrades," El* monsery English, 34:108-113iFebruary 1937,

35. Wright, Lulu. A First Grads or Work. ANon-Reeding ,Currickisim. New York; Bureau -of PlblicatIons, Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity, 1932.

The Picture DictionaryAs a Promising Textfor Language Instruction

36, Breitenstein Helen Elizabeth. A DictioneryReadiness itogram for Grades I, II end III,Unpublished Master's Thesis. Lousville, Ken-tucky; The University of Louisville, 1957.

37, Buiwell, G. T. "New -Dictionary for Chil-dren." Vernon:m.1 School kernel, 48:246-247, January, 1948.

18

38. punier, A. "Pretty Dictionaries Are an Aidto Writing and Spelling." Grade Towbar,68:37, February, 1951.

39. Eakin, M. K. and Brooks, A. R. "PictureDictionary?! Elementary School 49:260-261,- January, 1949.

40. Hi ldreth, Gertrude. "A Comparison of theDale, Dotch, and Rios land Word Lists." TheJournal of Educational Psychology, 39:40.46,January,' 1948.

41. arke, Margaret B. "Picture Dictionaries."Elementary enhiiih, 32:519.524, December,1955; Education Digest, 21:34.36, February,1956

42. Taylor, Fart and Frackenpohl, Helen. BasicVocabulary for a New Education: Reading,Writing, ,Spealing. New York; Washington

uare Reading Center, 1951.43. '(tatters, Garnette and Counts, Stuart. The

Picture Dictionary for Childron. New York:Grosset and Dunlap, 1939, 1945, 1948.

44. Whitney, 0. B. "Using a Picture Dictionary."humidor, 60:69, November, 1950.

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

Teaching Children to Express TheirThoughts in Writing45. Association for Childhood Education Inter-

national. When Children Write. MembershipService' Bulletin No. 95, 1954: Washington,D. C.: The Association, 1955.

46 Applegate, Mauree. Helping Children Write.Evaniton, Illinois: kow Peterson and Com-pany, 1954.

47. Bear, Meta. "Children's Growth in the Useof Written Language?' Elementary EnglishReview, 16:312.319, December, 1939.

48. Betzner, Jean Content and Porm of OriginalCompositions Dictated by Children fromFive to Eight Years of Age. New York: Tea-chers College, Columbia University, 1930.

49 Burrows, Alvina T.; Ferebee, June D.; Jack-son, Dorothy C.; and Saunders, Dorothy O.They All Want to Write, New York:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1952.

50. Fitzgerald J. and Geoghegan, "CompositionErrors in Letters Written by Children Out-side the school." Elementary Wool jOkrnel,35:768.775, June, 1935.

51. Gullet, Walter S. ''Improving Ability toPunctuate." Elementary English Review, 7 :219-222. November, 1930.

52. Heffernan, Helen. "Readiness for Oral andWritten Language." Readiners for Readingand Related Ltnguage Arts. A Research Bul-letin of the National Conference on Researchin English. Chicago: The National Councilof Teachers of English, 1950.

53 Howell, Miriam. The Control of Mochaiicsof Expression end the Qihdisy of. PrecedintExperiences as DIM tHfliteint Patton eta Cm.-Cer-tain Aspects of Compositions of Seven -Year.Olds. Unpublished Doctor's Di110141100. Universify of Wisconsin, 1935.

54. Hughes, Marie M. and Cox, Vivian K. "TheLanguage of First Grade Children." Elmer.

tary English, 26:373-380, November, 1949;468-474, December, 1949.

55. Humphreys, Phil*. "A Supervisory Programin Written Composition." Elementary SchoolJournal, 35:505.510, Mitch, 1935.

56. Kidd, Mora. "A Digest of Approaches toCreative Writing with Primary Children."Elementary English, 25:47.53, January, 1948.

57. Mackintosh, Helen K. and Hill, 'SX7i4seintins.How Children Learn to Write. Bulletin, No.2. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Office of Mu.cation, 1953.

58. New York City Board of Education. Develop-.ins Children', Power of Self.ExPwrionthrough Writing. Curriculum Bulletin 1952-53, Series No. 2, Brooklyn, New York:Board of Education, 1953.

59. Oftedal, Laura. "Picture Writing." Elsner,.tary School Journal, 49:37.46, September,1948.

60. Seashore, Robert II. and Eckerson, L. D."The Measurement of Individual Differencesin General English Vocabularies." Journal o)Educational Psychology, 31:14.38, January,1940.

61. Shaw, Ruth Faison. "Out of the Mouths ofBabes: A New Way to Teach the Young."Atlantic Monthly, 44: 154.166, July, 1934.

62. Smith, M. E. An Investigation of she Develop-ment of the Sentence and the Evens of Vo-cabulary in Young Children. University ofIowa Studies in Child Welfare, Vol. III, No.5, 1926.

63. Smith, M. K. "Measurement of the She ofGeneral English Vocabulary through the Ele.mentary Grades and High School." GeneticPsychology MonograPh.t, 24:311.345, 1941.

61. Wheeler, Awille. "A Study to Determine theErrors that Appear lit Written Work ofRural and Urban Pupils in Certain SchoolSystems in Kentucky." Journal of Experimen-tal Education, 8:385-398, June, 1940.

65. Wilson, Lillian ScOtt. "Creative Writing in aFirst Grade." Elementary English, 26 :241-249, May, 1949.

66. Witty, Paul and Martin, William. "An Anal-ysis of Children's Compositions Written inResponse to a Film.' Elententity English,34:158-163, March, 1957.

67. Zirbes, Laura. "Why Write?" When ChildrenWrite. Washington 5, D. C.: Associationfor Childhood Education International,

Handwriting68. Ames, L. B. and lig, P. L. "Developmental

Trends in Writing Behavior." Pe4gogkalSeminary and journal of Genetic Psychology,79:29-46, September, 1951.

69. Beery., Althea. "Readiness for Han` (larking."Reamers for Reeding end Related LengsegsArts. A Research Bulletin of the NationalConference on Research in English. C.hicajorThe National Council of Teacher, of English,1950.

COMPOSITION IN

70, Boma, Harold 0. "P raphic Analysis ofCertain Utter Forms wi Respect to SpeedChanges and Stability." Journal of Experimats.fel Education, 20:87.96, September, 1951.

71, Contra, Edith Underwood. Trends in Mow-script Writing. Hew York: Bureau of Publi.cations, Teachers College, Columbia Univer.thy, 1936.

72. Conard, Edith Underwood. Teacher's Guide-Show Me How so Writs, New York: A. N.Palmer Conape.ay, 1940.

73. Covert, Sidney J. An Evaluation of Hand.writing in Certain Iowa Schools. Doctor'sThesis. Iowa City: State University of lowa.1953. Abstract: Dittertation Abstracts, 13:730, No. 5, 1953.

74. Durrell, 3. and Others. The Development ofFunctional Handwriting. Trenton, New jersey:New Jersey Education Association, 1941.

75. Freeman, Frank N. Survey of ManuscriptWriting in the Public School:. Columbus,Ohio: The Zaner-Bloser Comenny) .1946.

76. Freeman, Frank. Teaching Handwriting. WhatResearch Says to the Teacher, No. 4. Wash-ington, D. C.: Department of Classroom Tea-

. chers and American Educational ResearchAssociation, 1954.

77. Gates, A. 1. and Taylor, Grace A. "The Acquisition' of Motor Control In Writing byYoung Children.' Teacher, College Record,24:459-468) Novelaber, 1923,

78. Hetrick, Virgil E. and Others. Handwritingin Wisconsin: A Survey of Elementary SchoolPractices. Madison: School of Education, Uni-versity of Wisconsin, -1951.

79. Hertzberg, a C. A Comparative Study of DO.fermi Methods Used in Teaching Beginner:to Write. Teachers College Contributions toEducation, No. 214. New York: ColumbiaUniversity, 1926.

80. Hildreth, Gertrude 11. "Cooing Manuscriptand Cursive Writing." Childhood Educations13:127. 128, 142, November, 1936.

81. Hildreth, Gertrude. "Should Manuscript Writ-ing be Continued in the Upper Grades?"The Elementery School Journal, 45:85-93,October, 1944.

82, Instructor. "Just Where Do We Stand inHandwriting?" instructor, 63:57, January,1954

83. International Bureau of Education. The Teach-ing of Handwriting. Eleventh Conference onPublic Education No. 103. Paris: Unesco,1948.

81, Newland, T. Ernest. "An Analytical Study ofthe Development of Illegibilines from LowerGrades to Adulthood." Journal of EducationalResearch, 26;249458, December 1932,

85. Parke, M, B. and Bristow, W. H. Practicesand Problems in Handwriting. New York:Board of Education, 1947.

86. Polkinghorn, Ada R. "Current Practices inTeaching Handwriting." Elementary Schoolfourths', 47:218.224, December 1946.

87. Pressty, S. L. and Pressey, L. C. "Analysis of3000 Illegibilittes in the Handwriting of

PRIMARY GRADES 19

Children and Adults." Educational ResearchBulletin, 6;270-273, 1927.

$8. Swenson, Liza. An Anson:WI Study of IllegiNiftiest in At Handwriting of Third GradsChildren during the Transition Period fromManuscript co Cursive, Master's Thesis. UMversity of TeXas, 1956.

89. Washburne, Carleton and Morphett, MabelV. "Manuscript Writing-Some Recent In.vestigations." Elementary School Journal,37:517, March 1937.West, Paul V. "Handwriting." Ettcyrioperlioof Erineetionni. ReteezA pp. 524.529. Re-vised Edition. Edited by Walter S. Monroe.New York: Macmillan Co., 1950.

91. Wiles, Marion Elizabeth. Th. Effect of Dif-ferent Size: of Tool: upon the Handwritingof Beginners. Doctor's Thesis. Cambridgb,Mass.: Harvard University, 1940.

92. Voorhis, Thelma G. The Relative Merits ofCOlfii14 and Manuscript Writing. New York:Teachers College, Columbia University, 1931,

Spelling93. Artley, A. Steil. "Princ1ples Applying to the

Improvement of Spelliqg Elemen-tary School Journal, 49:137.148, November1948.

94. Bens,. Emmett, Editor. "Spelling Number."Education, 76:267.325, January 1956.

95. Blitz, Theodore. "An Experiment in Indi-vidualized Spelling." Elementary English,31:403-407, November 1954.

96. Burrows, Alvina T. "Sequence of Learningin Spelling." Viewpoints on Educational

and Problems, pp. 131.136. Schoolmen'sWeek Proceedings, 1952. Philadelphia: Uni-versity of Pennsylvania, 1952.

97. Cordts Anna D. "And It's All Known asPhonics." Elementary English, 32:376-378,Octotx:r 1955.

98. Fitzgerald, James A. The Teaching of Spelling,Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company,1951.

99. Fitzgerald, Jana A. "The Teaching of Spell.ing." Elementary English, 30:79.85, February1953.

100. Fitegerald, J. A. "Research in Spelling andHandwriting." Resiew of Educational Re-search, 22:89.95, April 1952.

101, Gates, Arthur I. A List of Spelling Milieu'.tier in 3876 Words. New York: Bureau ofPublications, Teachers College, Columbia Uni-versity, 1937.

102. Gunderson, Agnes G. "Writing Vocabulariesof SevenYear-Olds." Elementary School Jour.nat. 43:590-600, June 1943.

103. Greene, Harry A. The New loue SpellingScale. Iowa City: State University of lows,1934.

104. Hanson, Bernice Wyant. A Functional SecondGrade yelling Program Based on the Needsof Chi ren. Master's Thesis. Palo Alto: Le-land Stanford. Junior University, 1949.Hibler, Gladys. The Effect of Tess -Study as.

90.

IM

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

Sten iyTot on Spelling is Grade 'two. StudyMAStee# VAlversity of Texas, 1956.

106. Hitdreth, Gertrude: "The Contrast betweenPhonics for Reading and Spelling." TeachingROOM: 148. New York; Henry Holt andty6, 398.

101. 11$1,140; Gertrude. "New Light on the Spell-Ptoblem," Eletsit.torry Englitb, 25;201

207 APril 1948.108. Iliicheth, Gertrude. TeighiNg Spelling. New

York; Henry Holt and Co, 1955.109.- HoPitins, Celia. "Spelling and the Language

Vey:tansy Englisb; 34:98-101, Februail, .1957.

'110 Horn, Ernest, "Phonetic's and Spelling."mentor) School journal, 57:424.432, May1957.

Ill. Horn Ernest. Teething Spelling. What Re-seurci Says to the Testier, No, 3, Wash1:1810%D. C.: Department of Classroom Teachersand American Ecluottional Research Associ.*don, National Education Association, 1954.

112. Horn, Thomas D. and Otto, Henry 1. spell-ing intamaiont A Cssaiettlatts.Wsrle Ap-proach. Austin: University of Texas, 1954,

113 Howell, Miriam. "Spelling through WrittenExpression." Elementary School Journal,52:207.214,- December 1951.

114 Lorge, Irving. Semantic Count of the Englishtowage. New York: Institute of EducationalReseastch, Teachers College, Columbia Unl.versity, 1938.

115. Madison, Wisconsin, Public Schools. The ltnpavement of Spelling. Madison: CurriculumDePatiment, The Madison Public Schools,1949.

116. Marshall. Gertrude W. "On Our Oan inSpelling." Elementary English, 34:543.544,December 1957.

117, Montgomery, Margaret. The Effect of TO-Stagy st. StudyT'ett on Spelling in Grade-Two. Study II. Master's Thesis. University ofTexas, 1956.

118. Moore, James T. Phonetic Element; Appear-ing in a Thai-Thousand Word Spelling Vo.rabulan. Doctor's Thesis. Stanford, California:Stanford University. 1951.

119. National Education Association TeachingSpelling. Washington, D. C.. Department ofClassroom Teachers, National Education Al.salaam, 1934.

120. New York City Board of Education, Brooklyn,New York. Spelling Liss A. B, C., 1950.A Manual to Guide Experimentation withSpelling Lists B, and C, 1951,Teething Spelling: COAfFIS of Study and Man-ual, 1954.

121. Parke, Margaret B "Let's Help Children toSpell." instructor, 63:27+, October 1954.

122. Poke, Margaret B. "Of Course We TeachSpellIng."- Childhood Education, 31:227.234,January 1955; The Education Digest, -20:38'41, April 19)5.

123. Parke, Margaret B. "New Loolt at Spelling."Elementary English, 32:101.109, February1955.

124. Pieters, Esther. The Improvement of Spsliingin Written Expression. Master's Thesis, Unl-versity of Wyoming, 1956.

125., Richmond, A. E. "Children's Spelling Needsand the Implications of Research." ElementaryEnglish, 33:500.503, December 1956.

1-26. Rinstand, Henry D. A Basic VoctsholarY ofElementary School Children. New York: TheMacmillan Company, 1945.

127. Rudisill, Mabel F. "Interrelations of FunctionalPhonic Knowledge, Reading, Spelling, andMental Age.' Elementary School Journal,57:264.261, February 1957.

128. Salisbury, Ethel I. "The Weekly SpellingList." Elementary English,- 25:208.211, April1948

129. Shubnik, Helen Maria. An Experimental Corn-Poiron of the Ten-Study and the Study-TMMethods of Teaching Spelling is the ThirdGrade. Master's Thesis. New Yorkl.FordhsersUniversity, 1951.

130. Stauffer, Russell G. "Research In Spilling andHandwriting." Review of Educational Rematch,19:118.124, Apri1,1949.

131. Strickland, R. G. "Utilizing Spelling Re.search." Childhood Education, 32:69.76, Oc-tober 1955.

132. Wagner, Rosemary, "A Check List for the Co.operative Evaluation of Practices in the Teach-ing of , Spelling.' -Corrirodurra,ond Moduliof the Board of Education of the City of NewYork, 7:2:6-9, November 1932.

133. Zedler, Empress X. "Meet of Phonic Train-ing on Speech Sound Discrimination andSpelling Performance." Journal of Speech andHosing Disorder', 21:245.250, June 1156.

Needed Research(34. Attley, A. Sterl. "Research Concerning Inter-

relationships among the Language Arts". Elementsry English, 27:527.537, December 1950.

135 LaBrant, Lou; Marcus, Fred; and Steinberg,Erwin R. "Needed Research in Language Ex.passion." Areas of Reset:m.5 interest. A Re-search Bulletin of the National Conference onResearch in English. Chicago: National Coun.cil of Teachers of English, 1953.

136. Spache, George. "New Approaches to Researchin Language Aug." Elements') EngMb,34:374.377, October 1951.

NEAL It EDMUND

Writing in the Intermediate GradesAn examination of the literature of research

concerning writing in the intermediate gradesreveals results which are, to some extent, con.flitting and inconclusive. Though a considerableamount of research has been done in the totalarea of writing, comparatively little of it hasdealt with elementary school children. A goodpOrtion of that done is limited in terms ofmajor generalizations which can be derivedfrom it. There are, however, a number ofstudies about writing in the intermediate gradescontributing significantly to instructional improvement.

The literature reveals that most of the investigations in writing tend to group themselvesaround the following major areas:

1. Writing as a way of identifying andmotivating gifted pupils

2, Experiences forming the bases for chit-dren's stories

3. Pupil interests and the sektion ofwriting topics

4. Methods and materials appropriatefor teaching writing

5. Writing and total personaldevelopment

During the first half of the twentieth cen-tury there has been an almost overwhelmingshift of communication from writing to oralforms of language, through the use of the tele-phone, radio, and television. At the same time,rapid changes have taken place in other facetsof modern living. It would seem that becauseof these vast changes, there is an increased needfor writing as a permanent form of communi-cation. Writing ideas down makes it easier toexamine, criticize, and correct them. Carefulwriting might be looked upon by some as adevice for teaching careful reading, but it is al-so infinitely more both for aurtior and reader.

'Writing as a Way of Identifying andMotivating Gifted Children

A recent study by Witty and Martin (24)has dealt with the potential of silent films inbuilding interest and motivation for creativeexpression. Witty especially, noted the qualityof the compositions written by gifted pupils ofthe sample and pointed out that compositionsthemselves are a significant means of Identify-ing the gifted pupil.

Using a film to build interest and to createa reservoir of feeling is one thing, but to usefilms to predetermine children's writing content is another. Perhaps this question is per-tinent to the procedure used in Witty andMartin's study.

More than 2,000 pupils were shown thefilm, The Minter end the Forest. Although theeight-minute film has no dialogue, it does in-clude a musical inckground and sound effectsmarking the appearance, of birds and animals.

The film was introduced as "a story without words." At the end of the film, the milswere asked to write their own stories aboutthe film experience. A film guide developed.especially for teachers suggested related lan-guage experiences and guided teachers in help-ing the children write.

Criteria for judging the children's compo-sitions are as follows:

1. The expression of genuine feeling2. Sensitivity of particular words, phrases,

and larger language units in express-ing their feelings

3. Response to the film maker's intentand to the materials presented

4. Use of correct and appropriateEnglish

Dr. Edmund is Associate Professor of Educa-tion at The State University College forTeachers, Buffalo, New York.

21

4tiELEMNTMW 1311941SH

Although -tittre was no graciOrgratle`brealcowl with regard to quality, atlito$17-mateiy 60 _ per cent of the children Were re-t.eiried -i.,V1* it ten effettive. pro* or0001.-'1,en: per cent of the -tOtiti number of046400* tete- rated Outstatiditii-Another,189 or nine i*Aeitt of the group were rated

and )20,-16 pet cent, were wised poor.-Stories and poems written E.y interniedi.

ate._ grade chi, ren were described by Wittyand Martin 'as more derailed and, hns$1eatliethan ihOse`dorie primary .gradea,-Accerding-

J.-44 Witty Martin, many the pupils haddefinitely, mastered the basic writing skills aexpresiag themselves" dearly and artistically

.4 the end of :the sixth grade. In the fourth-

grade, pupils .wrote longer compositions thandid these* the earlier grades', their productswâe of a more imaginative nature and In.chided a greater amount of poetry. The fourthgrade pupils frequently attempted to pass judg.went upon_ the actions of the main character.The writing of the fifth and sixth grade pupilswas reported to be distinctly superior to that

- of the lower grades-Although the sixth grade pupils were said

to have acquired the necessary skills -to expressthemselves clearly and creatively, their COIX1P0'SitiOOS varied In length OM short paragraphsto five and six pages. Sixth also reactedMore frequently to the lism of the filmand tended more often than pupils in the earlier'grades to Interpret the film. Finally, they more

. often used unique expression and originalityIn fo'im; "greater use of metaphor and originalfresh language of a humorous type" character.ire their work.

,These findings, reported in Witty and1.: Martin's study, demonstrate that the silent

film is a valuable instrument for stimulatingcreative expression, and consequently for Idea--tifying pupils who show outstanding talentt their compositions.

The high correlation between intelligence

and language development was cited tha Siuidoi_of an exceptionally gifted pipH by_Witty :_

Blumenthal (23). Creative written expressienis an area in *WO) the gifted child can findcoritlnuous eh alt é n g e and satisfaction ofachievement.

Bierieticea Forming the Bases forChi ldren's Stories

In general agreement with VVitty's findingsthat children write well from vicatiouper fences are those of Edmund (7 ) .- The latter:analyzed the stories of a weenie eof 90 seVenth--T,-grade 'pupils selected Et ranJoin to determinethe relationship brxween their ^prior experiencesand the quality of their creative writog.

Creative quality was defined in terms oforiginality,- wealth,- and value :of ideas in a °story, and the facility of the writing. Experience ,

was dichotomized into direct and derived.reCt experience included that -which actuallyand directly involved the writerpeopleand places he had known first-hand. Derivedexperiences were those acquired through books,radio, television, films, and other vicarious:- ..:means. Statistical analysis of the stodearestilted:'_-_in a rather high relationship between derivedexperience and cq-ative quality, In fact, the ie -1Iationship was significant beyond the .01 level .

of confidence. Derived experience-based storiescontained a significantly greater number of :words and descriptive words than did direct.experience stories. The two groups of*Titers did not differ in their desire to writescores nor in the number written during theschool year; nor did they differ in intelligence.

In order to determine the variations of thederived-experience-creative-quality relationshipbetween grades, Edmund (10) studied thestories of fifth-graders and ninth-graders, emplaying the same design and procedures aspreviously used with seventh-graders. At thefifth grade level, the findings were substantiallythe same as in the case of the seventh grade.However, at the ninth grade level, the relation.

WRITINCI IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES

ship between derived experience" and creativetrialitY was not significant at the Al nor .05leVels of confidence (9). That is to say; pupilswriting lrOm direct experience wrote stories ofapproximately -the same quality as did thosewriting from secondary experiences:

What do' the above findings mean? Therearea number of interpretations; for example,ynting.,childten of our culture have a seemingp erance of derived experienCes.- It be-comes easier tO. Imitate Or project- then selves410*,the kkast,torini, ands styles of 'writingthey have read and enJoyed than -to master

e ,appropriate for expressing their day-04-day-experiences. Secondly, direct 'ape/lc-wemay reilialfe a gestation period before becominguseful in creative writing.. Too often childrenareencouraged to catalogue events with

andor 'no eig,hasis, given to understanding and de--scribing them._ Finally, fifth and seventh gradepupilS_Iiave not learned to observe, to under-stank and to think creatively about what theyhave experienced first-hand.

It Is entirely probable that the idea of writ-ing about their' Wn problems, failures:, and, stk.cases does, not readily occur to intermediategrade children. They need to feel that others

.would be interested in their aspirations andanxieties, and that writing about these personalConcerns is a healthy and creative thing to do.At the same time, it is quite likely that too fewelementary teachers encourage children to writeabout their experiences, choosing freely topicsof their own interest. Edmund (12) found in arecent survey that more than half the childrenin the sample never had had the opportunitynorresponlif,iiity for choosing their own writ-ing topic.

Children not only lack the proper encour-agement about their problems, they actuallylack adequate experiences. In a study of 127seventh-graders of central New York, thewriter discovered that the average number ofstories written during a school year was less

*23

than four, -3.98, to be precise (11), The survey -was designed to deterMine the attitude 6-f'seventh grade children toward writing stories:and obtaining information about their story.writing behavior, _ _

A story wa$ defined, in the,above study, to _.

include a narration of paSt events, an accountof some incident, a report or statement, (indote, and narratives in prose tit verse. --

Seventythree pi the 127;1 fifty-eight percent of the pupils, stated _that they _liked .rb.write stories. -The ,mean number, of si011es)Vrit;,ten by this group Was 4.63 for -the SchoOlThirty-two- of the- seventy- three, had 'Written; --

one of more stories outside of 'school.

Potty -three or thirty-two per cent of die-total group stated that they did nor like towrite, The -mean number of stories' for this,group, was 2.08 for the school year: IkOsi oftheir stories'weie written, ih School', with niceMembers reporting that ,they hid written, oneor more stores outside of dais assignment.

If the findings of this study are indicativeof the emphasis currently placed on' writingexperiences-of children, it appears_ obvious- that,:'more attention is necessary. That writing ft.important is unquestioned, yet the main reasonwhy our children do not and cannot write,may mean simply that we haven't taught them.Four compositions per year would hardly Seen)...adequate to do the job.

Pupil Interests and the Selection ofWriting Topics

Sofeir (21) made a study in 1929, in whichshe attempted to determine if children's com-positions based on self-chosen topics were _

superior in writing mechanics, organization, andliterary quality to compositions based on as-signed topics. Three hundred and four children,grades 4-6, from three Pittsburgh Schoolswrote five compositions In a rotated manner.That is, the first, third, and fifth compositionswere assigned and the second and fourth were"self.chosen." Two weeks elapsed between the


writing of each composition, with the studytunnin,3 from April 19 to June 14, 1929.

The subjects assigned were as follows:

1. 'What Can 1 Do to Promote Safety?2. A Narrow Escape3. How I Should Like to Spend My

Vacation.

Thirty minutes were allotted for writing,and teachers gave no assistance to individualpupils, except. in spelling words. The instrucdons to pupils differed only with regard tothose concerning the topic. In one instance, thetopic was assigned, but in the other the teacherstated that it was more fun to write about sub-jects of one's own interest,

The 1-lillegas Scale" was used to rate thecompositions. The averages made on all com-positions written on self - chosen subjects werebetter than the averages made on all compo-sitions of imposed subjects. However, she notedthat the lower grades seemed to profit morefrom betas allowed to choose their own sub-jects 'than the intermediate grades. The inves-tigator pointed out also that assigned subjectsof high interest value brought higher scoresthan uninteresting subjects, and that pupilsshowed a wide range of interests.

A more recent study of the effect of chil-dren's interests on their creative writing wasthat done by Edmund in 1958 (8). The investi-gator asked a sample of sixty -three fifth gradepupils to make a list of activities, ideas, obijects, people and/or anmals in which they wereInterested. One week after the lists were col-lected, each pupil was asked to write a storyon any topic that interested him.

Pupil interests varied widely, with somepupils listing as many as fifteen different ones.However, the number of interests listed rangedfrom zero to fifteen. The mean number was63. Swimming appeared moseftequently, withbaseball, football, and basketball appearingnext in order. Reading, horses, and horse-backriding, collecting, and dancing also ranked near

the top of the list, It is interesting that read-ing ranked among the top activities in interestvalue. However, the more formal classroom sub-jects rated considerably lower than reading.Spelling was lilted by nine pupils, social studiesby three, arithmetic by two and English by one.Writing was listed by none.

The findings of Edmund's study showedthat less than one third of the sample wroteabout their stated personal interests, yet all thepupils participating were permitted to choosetheir writing topics. Why did pupils not selecttopics of personal Interest?

In attempting to answer the question, theinvestigator has suggested two reasons whyfifth grade pupils do not base their stories ongenuine personal interests. First, they have notbeen taught to do so. Children, like adults, gene-rally reveal their personal thoughts and feelingsonly to persons they trust completely. It be-comes necessary for teachers to develop goodrelationships between teacher and pupil, andpupil and pupil.

Secondly, knd equally important, childrenare not always-able td identify their interests.While capitalizing on interests helps to de-velop written expression, written expression isa good way of helping children identify anddevelop interests, including an interest in goodliterature.

Methods and Materials forTeaching Writing

Various kinds of motivating techniqueshave been centered around books. Rideout (19)reported a study in which a group of fifty-sevenseventh-graders wrote books, bound them, dis-played them at the public library and discussedthem from the local radio station. As a resultof the book binding project, Rideout enumer-ates several possible learnings derived from it:

Pride in work well done, how to cooperatewith each other, appreciation for home andcommunity with power of words, thatwriting is good leisure time activity, andthat it helps improve usage.

WRITING IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES

In 1943, Smith (20) made an extensivestudy of procedures for encouraging creativewriting. The investigation involved a popu-lation of 17,941 pupils and 508 teachers selec-ted from 40 elementary school systems. Pupilswere heterogeneously grouped with respect togeneral ability and ,thnic background. Tenthousand four hundred forty-seven pupils and342 teachers from eleven of the 40 schoolsystems were selected for detailed study.

Smith defined creative writing as any writ-ing in which the pupil is free to choose thetime of composing, the subject matter, and thelength and form of the composition. She an-alyzed teacher responses to questionnaires, ob-served writing in the classroom, interviewedteachers, pupils, and administrators, and ana-lyzed the creative writing of the children.

Ninety-five per cent of the sample, ac-cording to the investigator, achieved successfulresult:. Findings of the study indicate the fol-lowing procedures were most useful in en-

couraging aeatin writing:

1. providing attractive classrooms, richin materials

2. encouraging pupils to write fromtheir own interests and needs

3. providing rich experiences aboutwhich a child can express himself

4. developing sensivity to good writingwhich in turn helps a child improvehis own experience

5. using real needs of children or help.ing them develop new ones

6. providing freedom from fear andhelping pupils gain confidence intheir ability to create

7. providing abundant time and oppor-tunity for writing in many areas andin many forms

8. developing skill in mechanics with-out sacrificing spontaneity

9. sharing the end products of writing10. evaluating the writing in terms of

the total growth of the child

&min reported several other procedureswhich were considered controversial in nature.

25

For example, slightly more than half of theteachers questioned or reported negatively onthese techniques: (1) encouraging pupils toplan and think through what they have to ex-press before writing, (2) guidance thioughdictating or writing, (3) encouraging 'pupilseto check content and mechanics of their writing, (4) experimentation with colorful 'words;(5) experimenting with words or other vocabu-lary study, (6) publishing children's writingin the school newspaper, and (7) encouragngchildren to evaluate their creative products.

Three approaches to creative writing arediscussed by Creed (6). The fitst one requirespreparing yourself for writing. Pick a favoriteword, and explore its meaning. Secondly, ex-plore what to write about, and third, keep atit. Creative thinking is a requirement, shestated, but she thinks it is possible to "trainyourself to write in your mind.'"

Listening is one area of the language artswhich has received comparatively little atten-tion, Certainly it has not been widely consideredas a means of developing ability. However,Burrows (2) has strongly emphasized the inter-relationship between writing and listening.There are two recent studies supporting Bur-rows' view.

Treanor (22) described an approach whichinvolved listening before writing. The pupilslisted and discussed sounds they would expectto hear in familiar situations, for example, inthe circus. Twenty-minute oral lessons were heldthree times a week. Treanor did not report thenumber of pupils in his study nor did he makeany statistical estimate of the method's effec-tiveness. He did, however, state that listeningexperience as described, contributes to "ideas"for composition, and implied that fourthgraders in his selection found the method help-ful in their writing. Perhaps Treanor's hypo-thesis will be tested more rigorously in futurestudies.

Another study in listening with significant

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH.

Implications for writing is that or Moyer (17)A control group and an experimental group ofseVenty=three _ pupils each, from grades four,six ancl eight received ear training through theuse of ..tape recorders for two sixteenweekPeriods:- No -written exercises Were used. In-

-atpictiot% periods were given to recording and'analyzing the effectiveness of the language inthe stork., reports and so, on.

At the end of the experiment, pupils of the.---experimental group from each grade level made

greater prOgress than did those of the control,language 'usage. Other results reported were

the high motivating vahie of ear trainingthrough the use of the tape recordings, the im-provement of attitudes about language as atool, and the improvement of speech h-dlits.

Moyer concluded that where ear trainingis used as a method for improving oral corn.munication, it might be combined with writtenInstruction based on the needs of pupils towere about their own feelings, ideas, and'experiences.

In 1906, Colvin and Meyer (5) reported astudy done to obtain data on the growth of the

_ Imagination In school children and its relationto other elements in children's mental life, Theyanalyzed 3,000 compositions of pupils in gradesfour through twelve to determine their imagi-native content. Pupils from these grades wroteon one of the following topics:

A Funny Story I Have Read or HeardWhat I See On My Way to SchoolHow the Flowers Were ColoredA Fairy StoryA Good Joke

High school put:Is had a slightly widerchoke, as noted in the following topics:

A Voyage in an Airship in the Year 2000How the Flowers Got Their ColorsWhat I Can See With My Eyes ShutMy First Visit to the TheaterAdventures of a School DeskDisplays in the Shop WindowsA Laughable Story

A Poor FamilyA Comical ,CharacterThe Woods in AutumnJokes I Have Played

Subjects participating in the study receivedno help from teachers regarding content or Itstreatment. The assignment was handled as apart of the pupils' regular, work,.

A record was made of the visual, auditory,tactile, pain, olfactory, gustatory, organic, andmuscular images. These were assessed_ as themore simple forms of imagery and termed the -_"lower 'types." The mote complex types Werecategorized as scientific, fairy story, nature myth;heroic, dramatic, religious, and melancholic-images. They were labeled "higher types."

The science category Included machines anddevices, uses for electricity, and other naturalforces. The fairy story and nature myth includedpixies, goblins and so on, In the heroic wimp-ing were stories concerning virtues as self-forgetfullness, courage, and devotion, whilestriking situations and stirring climaxes Char-acterized the dramatic. The religious involvedthe supernatural and devotional. Melancholicimages were concerned with feelings of sadness and depression.

The Investigators concluded that in general,imagination of school children showed a de-cline duirng the years studied. While they statedthe possibility that the decline in children's im-agination might be due, to some degree, to thereticence of adolescent youth to express theirvital feelings, Colvin and Meyer suggested thatthe decline was probably due to the lack ofeducational effort to cultivate imagination inchildren. In fact, they suggested that schoolinfluence toward the development of imagi-nation was negative rather than positive.

Visual imagination was the only kind ortype showing growth throughout the gradsand the investigators report that it was largelydevitalized and mechanical. At the onset ofpuberty there was a tendency for the "lower'

WRITING IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES 27

" of -Itnagery to disappear and for the:''higher types" to come into prominence. Thistendency,- however, was slight and not con-sitl$ud-tigrilfIcant. Growth of feeling was re-patted to be constant, and formal correctnessimproved thought.

A final- interesting conclusion was thatthere Stetted to be little room _for humor InpOtOOl work---4hat` humor tended to decline(OW grade to grade. The schools placed a14,01441 on mechanical exactness and formal'cettettness and ignored, if not actually hindered,eicOressfok Of the 'deeper self." Though theabove-study was repOrted hi 1906, this writerbelieVes sthif the questions it his raised arestill sufficiently -significant to be carefully con-Sidered today.

'Several investigators have attempted tocheck-the responses of pupils' through variouskinds- Of- writing situations. Clark°. taughtthirty-six sixth grade children an hour a dayfor one school year. He presented them withtwenty-one different kinds of writing situa-tions which evolved as the class went along,and in addition the children wrote several comepositions voluntarily. The situations rangedfrom topics such as "A Stitch in Time," andletters to pen pals in Japan to reactions to plc -titres on a bulletin board, and highly personalcompositions. The only criteria for writingwere; Does your composition adequately ex-press your feelings? Dbes it say what you wouldPike It to say? Does it satisfy you? The findingsappear below:

1. Children wrote longer sentences andused more dependent clauses in theirhighly personal writings.

2. A subjective analysis of the writingdone led the investigator to believethat when children wrote about them-selvestheir feelings and emotionsthey responded freely and usually ach-ieved highest quality and interests.

3. Better writing was done on impersonalsubjects when the writer told how hefelt about it.

4. Children responded best to situationswhich were highly personal.

The investigator concluded that the greaterpercentage of a child's writing should be con.cerned with his personal experiences.

Clark's conclusion represents the thinkingof a number of writers in the creative Writingfield. for example, the authors of a recent texton language arts for elementary school childrenstate that "Motivation is stronger when a childcan express his own ideas and experiences. Thelanguage is more colorful and vivid (18).

Three methods of developing imaginationin pupils' writing are reported by Littwin (15).He worked with equated groups of seventh andeighth graders wk. were tested on two tom'. _

positions, one at the beginning and one at theend of a ten week period. The methods consis-ted of picture study, study of literary models,and sense training. The procedure wasdescribed as follows:

1. The pupils looked at a picture, de.scribed it together, then each pupiltook one look at it and wrote fot tenminutes.

2. The pupils studied picturemakingwords, wrote them and discussed howthe author made pictures, and thenwrote for a ten minute period.

3. Pupils were giv41 visual and audiopreparation; for example. they tooka piece of fruit, felt it, smelled it,looked At it, tapped and tasted it.Then they were asked to describe itin ten minutes.

The stories were rated on the Van Wagesnen scale. The best results were obtainedthrough developing power in imagination byWe of sense training, next by models, and leastby picture study. The experimenter concludedthat first-hand experiences are more effectiveIn developing imagination than experiences ofa vicarious or second-hand nature. Note thatLittwin's findings are somewhat in conflict withthose-of Edmund, wth regard to the quality ofcreative writing based on direct experiences

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

Otte tly fifth and seventh grade chikirr.Girbe (13) reported a study done in 1930,

In which she found that sixth grade pupils cot!-outing English compositions with content sub-

, jests showed a marked growth in fluency of ex--- PressiOn, as indicated by three criteria: the

nuMber of words used in the initial and finalatifiposition, the number of compositions writ-

, ten, and the reduction In the percentage of::errors between the initial and final cativo-

As a result of the investigation, Cubeconcluded :that children may be expected towrite freely when encouraged to 4o so. Shestated that some increase in the number oferrors is likely as the form becomes more corn-plex. However, she suggested that the rulesof grammar be taught as a means of improvingthe communication of the writer's ideas. Al-thotigh-Garbe expressed concern for the cre-ative aspects of children's writing, her evalu-ation appears to be preoccupied with writingmechanics.

Leonard (14) reported a study by Willingand Whitman done at the Lincoln School, Co-lumbia University in 1926, involving twogroups of 19 eighth grade pupils equated onthe basis of composition correctness and in re-lated matters. Whitman taught one group bymeans of weekly assigned themes written inclass, checked by him outside, and then readand criticized by pupils in class. Approximately100 minutes per week was devoted to writtenwork. The other group, taught by Willing, wasgiven 20 minutes drill daily in proofreading,"individualized according to preliminary diag-nosis of needs." No writing was required. BothWhitman and Willing conducted all aspects ofwriting: other than proofreading drill, in exactlythe same way. The experiment ran from No.vember 1 to April 1. The stories of pupilsgiven 20 minutes daily drill, according toLeonard, were superior to the one-composition-a-week group In reducing errors in composition.

Lyman (16) directed a study employing 31

leachers working with 1,039 pupils of grades6, 7, 8, and 9, Ira 20 junior high School and inelementary schools located in the vicinity ofChicago to determine the extent junior highschool age children 'could be taught to discoverand correct language errors in their own Coin'positions. Secondly, he sought to determine theextent to which a limited number of ,expert-:axes in composition can establish work par-terns, and finally, to determine the 'effects ,offive consecutive weeks-of laboratory work uponthe quality of children's compositions.

Pupils of the sample wrote seven compo-sitions, beginning with one written on the as-signed topic, "When I Got What I Deserved,"and designated the "pretest." Following the pre-test, compositions 14, inclusive, were writtenin the order listed:

Composition 1. My Favorite SportComposition 2. The Class I Like Best in

SchoolComposition 3. A Good Playmate, Play-

thing or Pet'A Kind Deed I Tried To

Do (choice of one)How I Did an Errand

Composition 4. My Funny Experience asa Carpenter, Cook, AHousekeeper or Repair-man. (choice of One)

Things I Would Do With$500

Funny Mistakes I HaveMade

Composition 5. Mischief My Kid Brother(or Sister) Get Into

(choice of one)Some Things I Knowabout Birds (or ----any noun substituted forbirds)

During the class period on Monday, thetopic was assigned and a plan in the form ofa diagram was made by each pupil. On Tuesday,each using his own plan, wrote the firsc,draftof his composition. He carefully examined hisfirst draft on Wednesday, attempted to 4is.

WRITING IN THE IN

cover and correct all errors, and made otherchanges which he believed would improve thecompOsition. This usually required about 15minutes, Each pupil copied his composition onThursday, observng his own corrections, withthe idea of turning in the finished copy.

Teachers 4CtictoN1 pupils in discovering errorson composition 1 only. Compcuitions 1-5 werefollowed by the "final test," a composition writ-ten on the assigned topic: "What I Like toDo on A Holiday." Pupils were permitted touse portions of class time for four days orwrite the composition all at once. They wereallowed to follow or not follow a plan, as theysaw fit.

Patterns for planning compositions in theform of a series of diagrammatic tepresenta-dons of wholes made up of parts, were intro-duced In composition 2. For example, Lymanreported that a story about a Ford car mightfollow this chainlink pattern: It is cheap; italways goes; it is easy to drive. Each statementwould be contained in a chain link, and eachpupil wrote his composition, corrected and rd-wrote it as described above.

Lyman reported that results of the "finaltest" showed that pupils of the sample dis-covered and corrected threefifths of their ownerrors. Though no objective evidence was re-portedly derived from the experiment to in-dicate the degree to which the "Compositioncycle" was established as a pattern of work,teachers stated that all but a few pupils separa-ted the work of composition into the fivestages described above.

One hundred eighty-three sixth grade pupilsshowed a median gain of .50 in compositiongrowth, as measured by the "Wisconsin Scalefor the Judgment of Composition Quality."This amount of growth is regarded as the nor-mal for one year by junior high pupils. Neitherthe 283 seventh graders nor the 259 eighthgraders were reported to have made appreciableimprovement. The investigator made no at-

TERMEDIATE GRADES 29

tempt to explain the significant gains of thesixth graders as compared with the other gradesrepresented in the study.

Creative Writing andPersonality Development

cote stressed the value of having childrenwrite about their problems. She stated that theyfeel a teal need for writing about their ownproblems and that something good is learnedfrom writing about thern. Coles conclusion isbased upon her success in helping thirty-fivechildren with behavior problems. Writing hisa therapeutic value for all children, concludedCole, whether they have behavior problems ornot.

Burrows (1) and Cole (4) have pointedout that children will be able to meet theirdaily problems to the extent that we can helpthem communicate, successfully. Children'sstories often reveal that they do have numerousconflicts. Food and clothing and sometimes boy-girl relations:lips are examples of how every-day concerns CM become major problems forsome children.

Creative writing, according to Burrows, (2)is more than an art form. She has stated:

It offers opportunities for the projectionof personal power to a sympathetic lis-tener. The interaction of writer and stud!ence is reciprocal, active, releasing. Im-aginative, subjective expression, it wouldseem, can serve emotional needs as a stabi-lizing, constructing force. But other kindsof written expression also serve personalitydevelopment.

No careful reader can seriously doubt theexistence of a strong relationship between writ-ten expression and personality development,after examining the case studies presented inchapter six of Burrow's extraordinary book anchildren's writing. While she and her co-workers made no attempt to measure specificsof writing in any statistically rigorous manner,the samples of children's writings from the fouryear on-the-job study, offer unmistakable evi-

30 ELOMI3NTARY ENGLISH

deuce of personality development and writing. The selections of writing, the

ures outlined, and the principles derived frointhe Burrows study, provide an excellent back-ground for those Interested In furthering re-search in children's writing. Determining cause-and-effect relatonships between personality de-velopment and such art forms as writing seemsto this writer to be an especially fruitful areafor further research.

SummaryWitty has pointed out that identifying

gifted pupils through their writing is both practical and profitable. Witty and Bitmenthal dis-cussed the high relationship between intelligence and language ability. Obviously creativewriting grows out of all kinds of experienceand is an activity calling for high order mentalbehavor. However, it can be both challenging.to the gifted child and satisfying to the slowlearner, where in the one case quality of theend product is stressed to a high degree andin the other, the major emphasis is placed uponthe enjoyment of the creative process.

The findings of Edmund showed that highquality creative writing results from sourcesof derived experience. However, the relation-ship between the quality of creative writingand derived experience ceased to be statisticallysignificant by the ninth grade level.

Solidi suggested permitting pupils tochoose their own writing topics as a means ofreducing errors of usage and improving lite-rary quality. Edmund's work indicated that in-termediate grade pupils are not frequently al-lowed to choose their own topics for writing,and less than a third of them select topics ofpersonal interest when permitted to select topicsindependently.

Methods described by Rideout, Creed, Col-vin and Meyer, Clark and Littwin, Garbe,Leonard, and Lyman and others were discussed.In general, methods outlined by these writers

appear to be consistent, and to reinforce eachother.

The work of Burrows, Perebee, Jackson andSaunders, though not designed as a formalstudy, is extensive compared to that of anyother Individual or group working within thearea of children's writing. Their work touchesupon all aspects of writing herein discussed andgoes far beyond. .

This examination t..; the research in writingof intermediate grade children discloses seem-ingly few conflicting findings regarding writ.ing and effective methods for producing it on a'high quality level. Those conflicts occurringmay well be due to failure in rigorously apply.ing scientific methods. In other instances, thecasual factor may have been ascribed to whatmay be only a partial cause. Some conflicts ofopinion Inevitably arise when conclusion andhigh order abstractions go beyond the facts bfthe data obtained.

Careful readers will note that much of thework reported in this chapter does not meet thecriteria for rigorous research. Comparativelylittle research has been done in creative writ-ing, especially in the intermediate grades. It ishoped that this discussion has raised significantquestions in the minds of readers, which maybe answered through better designed research.

References1. Burrows, A. T. "Writing as Therapy'

Elementary Englith. 29:136, March, 1952.2. Burrows, A. T., et al. They All Want to

Write. p. 118, 136. Englewood Cliffs:Prentice -Hall, 1955.

3. Clark, G. R. "Writing Situations to WhichChildren Respond?' Elemeniary English.31:150.155, March, 1954.

4. Cole, N. "Creative Writing as Therapy?'Elementary English Review. 20:14January, 1945.

5. Colvin, S. S. and Meyer, I. P. "Imaginative Elements in Written Work of Chil-dren." Pedagogical Seminary. 15:84-93,March, 1906.

9

WRITINQ IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES

6. Creed, B. D. "What'll We Write About?"Elementary English. 33:24.28, January,1956.

7. Edmund, N. R. "A Study of the Relation-ship Between Prior Experience and theQuality of Creative Writing Done bySeventh-Grade Pupils." Journal of Edurational Research. 51;481.492, Mardi,1955,

8. Edmund, N. R. "Do Fifth Grade PupilsWrite Stories Based on Personal Inter-ests?" Peabody Journal of Education. 36:151.158, November, 1958.

9. Edmund, N. R. "Quality of Creative Writ-ing Based on Direct Experiences." TheClearing Nouse. 33:163-164, November,1958.

10. Edmund, N. R. ''Relationship BetweenPrior Experiences and the Creative (hangof Stories of Fifth Grade Children."' Ede,mental English. 35:248.249, April, 1958. 21.

11. Edmund, N. R. "Story Writing in theSeienth Grade." Elementary English. 34:-305.306, May, 1957.

12. Edmund, N. R., "What Seventh GradersWrite About." Elementary School Journal.58:129, December, 1957.

13. Garbe, C. H. "An Experiment in Corre-lating English Composition whIi ContentSubjects." Elementary School Journal. 30:96.110, October, 1930.

14. Leonard, S. A. "Dependability of Our Eng.lish Mear,ues." Journal of EducationalMethod. pp. 449-450, June, 1927.

15. Littwin, M. F. "Three Methods of De-veloping Imagination in Pupil Writing."

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

22.

23.

24.

31

English Journal. 24:654.661, Occuber,..

Lyman, R. L. "A Cooperative Experimentin Junior High School Composition."School Review. 39:748.757, December,1931.Moyer, H. O. "Does Ear Training Help?'Research in the Three R's. pp. 312-346.New York: Hasp& and Brothets.National Council of Teachers of English.Language Arts for Today's Children.. p;211. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts,1954.Rideout, I. "Writing is Fun for SeventhGraders." Elementary English. 27:386.388,

°"Smith, B.950

for Encouraging,Creative Writing in the EleMentatySchool." An unpublished doctoral dissertatlon, Northwestern University,' 1943:Soffell, Comparison of the Use ofImposed with Self- Chosen Subjects .inComposition of Elementary Children."Master's thesis, School of Education, Uni.versify of Pittsburgh, 1929.Treanor, H. H. "Listen Before WritinS,."Elementary English. 30:207.209, April,1953.Witty, P. and Blumenthal, R. "The Lim.gunge Development of an ExceptionallyGifted Pupil." Elementary English. 54:214.217, April, 1957.Witty, P. and Martin, W. "An Analysisof Children's Compositions Written inResponse to a Film.' Elementary English.34:158.163, March, 1957.

y-J

Grammar in Language Teachingfn medieval times, grammar was one of the

three "inferior studies`' of the Seven LiberalAitS.:Even in those days, mathematics andastronomy enjoyed a high priority in the aca-demic hierarchy. in this respect the times havenot changed a great dealthe humanities arestill among the "inferior" studies in comparison'with, the space age sciences, Rockets andmissiles have a grammar of their own.

Earthbound -teachers of English, however,must still concern themselves with questionsabout the teaching of grammar. Does the studyof grammar improve speaking and writingability? If so, how much and what grammarshould be taught, and to whom? In what stageof the learning process and by what methodsshould it be taught? If grammar is of little usein the improvement of language skill, should itbe taught at all? How much of the new"structural" grammar should be included in theinstruction? How much of the vocabulary ofgrammar is needed by all American youth? Thefollowing discussion is intended to reviewsome of the attempts 0) answer these questions.

Is Grammar Necessary?From time to time, doubts have been ex-

pressed about the usefulness of grammar studyIn the secondary school. Indeed, there is a wide-spread impression that the teaching of grammaris disapproved of In contemporary educationalrhought. Thus in a tecent publication a Britishauthor states, 'Those who have failed to ex-plore the possibilities and to persevere in ex-periment can hardly be blamed, becsuse thevalue of teaching grammar has been frequentlyquestioned, and at times it has been vigorouslydenied in print, at conferences and at refreshercourses (25)."

Nothwithstanding this general impression,which certainly prevails in many American layand professional circles, it is difficult to find

exAmples of specific statements by responsiblewriters which would give support to the 'alaination of grammar from the prograra in gen-eral education. Perhaps the discussions of the -..kind of grammar which is commonly taughthave given rise to the erroneous belief that theeducational profession has discouraged theteaching of all grammar.

Certainly the nature of grammar instructionin American high schoc's has been subjectedto vigorous criticism. A typical example of suchcriticism is found in an article by Professor'-'Fred G. Walcott of the University of Michigan:

in visiting English classrooms and talkingwith teachers of English, one is impressed withthe persistence of their faith in a knowledge of -

forma'. granntnar and in the drill-book exerciseby v.hicti formal rules ate supposedly appliedautomatically to the self-expression of thepupils. One is impressed, coo, by the extent towhich this formal learning and formal drillstill dominate the classroom activity, and stillsupplant the true exercise of the self-expressionto wych they are supposed to contribute (58)."

Criticisms ..uch as these could' be multipliedindefinitely. They generally stem from two beliefs: (1) that the kind of grammar taught Isnot in harmony with current linguistic science;_-and (2) that the methods used contradict ourbest present knowledge of how language is,learned. The first of these beliefs is justified byevidence that many textbook rules are un-supported by the reports of trained observers ofour language. The second belief rests uponskepticism about the transfer value of memo-fixing rules and performing isolated grammarexercises. Stated positively, the criticisms of

Dr. Defloer is Professor of Education at theUniversity of Illinois, Past President of theNational Council of Teachers of English, andeditor of Elementary Englith.

GRAMMAR IN LAN

'gra' ling instruction In grammar Ircip ly (1)that the gramentir taught should be in hardionywith the scientific observation of the facts ofPOW 04 *tit* tits* today; and (2) that

.be taught directly in cortnet

the ..itnitation needs of students..1Mpli'hother that the student is to gain

SOultie maal#1,4:4 the language as lt,is; and intbir'P_ by one -method or another, he

uirca familiarity with the grammar of the

csifientPracticesWhsktevtr the theorists may advocate, it Is

certain that-,the School's are demonstrating a-strong belief in the efficacy of grammar, chiefly(Ohne! grammar. Surveys of torrent :practicesIn' NeivAroik (52), Wisconsin (42), Mots

-(17),-and_ Georgia '(19) have revealed thatteachers:6f English preftilingly emphasize

_ gran 4E110160 analySis and _terminology -hi theirInStruction: Moreover, the most recent' of thesurveys of teachers': attitudestoward grammar(0) shows ,that the op* of grammar preferredby teachers is formal, systematic, and normative.

'Analyses of current textbooks and courses ofstudy Made by Pooley (40) confirm thisconclusion.

Pooley also conducted a poll of twenty ex-perienced teachers of English from variousparts of the United States, including chairmenof English departments in high schools, super.visors'of English, and preserAt and past officersof the National, Council of Teachers of English,in an effort to secure their estimates of teachers'attitudes toward grammar, as reflected in class -room practices. His major conclusion is significant enough to quote in full:

"In the high schools of 1956, in a samplingcovering representative centers of the wholeUnited States, the majority of teachers hold theview that 'Grammar is the means to improvedspeech and' writing. Because it explains usage,grammar must be learned to support usage in.struction. Grammar skills are best gained bylearning the parts of speech, the elements of

GGAGE TEACHING 11

the sentence, and, the kinds of sentences. Theseskills are usually all taught before the end ofthe ninth fear._ Drill and practice from terbooks and Workbooks establishes gramtuatWhich will diets function' in _composition(40:51).4

If it is true that the results of instruction inEnglish writing are disappointing, It appearS.:- .

that most teachers, are applying more 'of theremedy that has been unsuccessful in the' first'place.

,dirit Current Practices Sound?The resistance of so_niant teachers of Enk

lish in the elementary. and' high school to therecommendations of linguists,and '49catOrswith regaidtO the teaching of gianunir justifiperiodic re- examination of the evidenteOli the-subjeti..Thli,ayldence'Most be dertVedtwo sources: ( 1 ), our knowledge' of hOst,thil.---dren learn hafiguage;- and' (2) e?(Oerielefst4studies of the effectiveness of instruction ,Informal grammar, Neither of these sourcesgIvessupport to -prevailing practices in _the' usegrammar for the improvement of speaking in4

It Is clear that the basic patterns of na.dye language are not learned by means of theabstract principles' or the definitions of forii)al e.

grammar. As 13obb;tt points, out, "By the timea _

child is six years of age, and before he ,irisbegun to read, he has as good a knowledge 61,grammar as he has of vocabulary or proquicla;lion; and this is very considerable. Vet, he can.not define a sentence. He has never heard of theparts of speech. He has not met the terminology,of technical grammar. But he has as tboiougha knowledge of its fundamentals as he has ofanything (6)." Moreover, it is dbubtftilwhether the average person or even the profes-sional writer or the orator fashions his sentenceseither consciously or unconsciously with the aidof grammatical generalizations. The SO- ,(subjectverb-object) pattern 'is a description,not a prescription. The child uses declarative,interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative sera.

- --2

ces_ long befope he 4( heard Of these teams, conducted by the pioneer in 'eductitienal re-oUe shideriti`,iihntise cOmPcitussl. . starch-, rtice.'- He estarnirted 9,300 ,chil;

=

-

*'t complex sentences do not know the meaning oftht-jelitl;re clause It is not 114 to be a'i1ngi to use language, or even to use it- -effectively. -

In Allis viewohe--functional;value of gram-ar is-Clileflyrentedial and, editorial, largely in

0-xiniCtiOtt with writing. To many stOents, thegrammar of English Is a fascinating Study- for

MOreovei, the terminology of4 1einentstry grammar is part- of the vocabulary

most cultivated people. Radio_ancl,televlsion...-annOunceri and commentators who insist on

'whom" when "who" is correct by normativeatandards could profit from the study of

grammar. But for the basic Improvementof young peoples speaking and writing, the.study of systematic grammar does not appear tobe the most effective Instrument.

The experimental evidence on this questionhas been frequently summarized. A much-quoted article by Smith (51) represents anearly effort, to generalize from available find-logs? 1-eban (33) in a lacer article cites studies'which deal with the role of grammar in theimprovement of English and lista a number of

-`1. conclusions based on those studies. Similar con-based on more numerous

tions, are drawn by Greene in a still more re-cent report (24). Other summaries are foundsn special issues of the Review of EducationalResearch (16, 47). While certain studies arementioned in all of these summaries, we haveben :

unable to find in one place a listing of allthe pertinent investigations. The followingp ioapaphs bring together the various researchreports in the order of their publication, from

-1903 to 1957. They include only those dealingdirectly With' the relation between grammarteaching and children's language expression,omitting abets Which might throw light on thekobletti Indlrrctly. The statements of findingsare necessarily brief, and for that reason In

.ii, t'_,aorrie instances perhaps oversimplified.Probably the earliest published study was

don in 22 schools in 9.cities, From their work:he selected for intensife study **le'ptipers,-: Which - ev,-aluated- .-bstifi'"models" that anticipated the Composition 'scuteiof two decades later. Among hIs observationsIs !tie following: ail the schnOli in *whichthe pupils had ,displayed a high, degree-9f ltv,`telligende In arithmetic also f4ocitice4creditable work In that great intelletWal'ha4"rometer, English composition, whiló timix?'",sition was frequently at a very- Low ebb Wherethe pupils ytete apparently well versed in "gram._mar_ (45).":'

Hoyt tested 200 ninth-grade pupils 'lit In....dianapolls in grarnmar, cOmpositiOn, sinclto interpret a poem. 1113-ointiosion:: 'Mereabout the same relationship existing' between'grammar and composition and grammar and in-terpretation as exists betwen any two totallydifferent subjects, as grammar and geography(28)." Rapeer drew the same conclusion' froma study of ninth-grade pupils in Minneapolis(44). Briggs identified nine typical claims forthe disciplinary value of formal grammar andtested these claims in experiments with twoseventh-grade classes in Horace Mann 'Schooland with pupils in five Illinois schools. lie re-ported, "These particular children after theamount of formal grammar that they had, donot, as measured by the means employed, Ans./.in any of the abilities tested improvement that

*This was conducted in 1903, the year in whichaice, thtough The POMO, foun49:1 the SOcietyof Educational Research.-ItiCe's work antedatedby about twenty years the 4o-calledmovement" in education: In The 'oW forJuly, 1903, he declared, ". .it is becoming --

quite generally appreciated that the results 01.OW various educational experiments should berecorded and systethatized In acc, 01.40 withthe dictates of icier**, SO that practical schoolpeople might be able td formulate their .

of Instruction Uptick -a- morethan that Of mere opinion" (0. I18).' 11perhaps better known Mr hit earlierarticle, "The Futility of the Spelling Grind."

GRAMMAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

may be attributed to their training in formalgrammar (9) ."

In a 'study of children's errors in oral Eng-lish, Sears and Diebel found more mistakes inthe use of pronouns in the eighth, grade thanIn the lower grades. They asked, "Is the presentteaching of pronouns leading to a more con-fused state of mind in the eighth-grade childthan existed when he was in the third gradeand was entirely unconscious of the rules ofgrammar governing the use of such words(48)?" The question is a fait one, but it shouldbe noted that the older children use more corn-plicated sentences and therefore have more op-portunities to make mistakes. Like Hoyt andRapeer, Boraas found little relatinoship be-tween knowledge of grammar and ability inEnglish composition. Indeed, he found a higher`correlation between knowledge of grammar andknowledge of history and arithmetic than be-tween knowledge of grammar and ability towrite (7). Asker reported similar results (2).So also Segel and Barr declared, after compar-ing high school students' performance on for.mal and applied grammar tests, "...no morerelationship exists between the two sorts ofgrammar than there is on the average betweenany two of the high-school subjects of any cur-riculum (49:402)."

Numerous investigations of the problemwere made in the decade of the thirties.Symonds found that drill on the right andwrong usages was twice as effective as grammarin improving pupils' writing. He observed thatonly the very bright pupils can successfullytransfer grariur :dal knowledge to real lan-guage situations (57). Low relationship be-tween grammatical knowledge and ability tocorrect sentence errors was also found byCatherwood (11). Cutright compared the ef-fectiveness of six methods of improving Ian-guage usage among uppergrade elementaryschool children. She got best results with drillon right pr. wrong forms followed by oralrepetition of right forms (14). Ash found it

more effeCtive to emphasize clarity of thoughtand elements of style independently of faunalgrammar (1). The value of oral drill was deoi-.°nitrated in a study of seventh-grade childrenby Crawford and Royer, who found this ap-proach as effective as grammar (13). Cather-wood's findings were confirmed in a Universityof Iowa thesis by. Benfer, who found a low re-lationship between knowledge of grammar andability to correct sentences for lack of complete-nessjr is of particular interest to note thatJnBenfer'S study a special effort was made toteach the application of the grammatical' primciples to speechand writing (5).

Progner:coriapared two methods of improve:ing sentence structure, using 47 pairs of .ninthgrade pupils and 60 pairs of eleventhgradepupils in Minneapolis and.Beibidji, Minnesota."The aim was to compare the improvementmade by pupils who were directed to apptoachproblems of sentence structure entirely (Rimthe standpoint of the adequate expression ofthought with the Improvement made by pupilswho, besides having their attention directed tothe clear expression of thought, were also giventhe drill needed to ensure an understanding ofthe grammatical construction of the sentence."Although the "thought" approach required only80 percent of the time required by the gram-mar method, it was definitely superior in ef-fectiveness with' pupils of 105 IQ and below,and just as effective with superior students(22).

The usefulness of grammar in improvingpupils' ability to punctuate correctly wasstudied by Evans. He conducted an experimentwith 831 pupils in 19 city school systems ofthe Middle West, and discovered that signifi-cantly superior results in punctuation couldbe obtained by teaching punctuation directlyas an aid to comprehension on the part of thereader (18). Barghahn experimented withequated groups of high school students in aneffort to find out the value of diagraming sentences as a means of improving English usage

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

o*r reading ,confprehensiott.- Again the. resultswere negativepractice in diagraming im-proved only the ability to dragram (5). Dia-yarning proved useless also in soMewhat moredetailed studies by Barnett (4) and by Stewart(54). Butterfield followed up Stewatt's study,with similar results (10).,Greene summarizedand Interpreted the I3arghahn, Barnett, Stewart,Butterfield, and Evans studies at Iowa in awidely quoted article (23).

The most recent investigation of methodsof teaching sentence structure that has come toour attention Is the study made by Kraus of therelative merits of three methods of dealing withthe problem. In her first procedure five unitsof sentence structure were logically presentedand taught according to the thought approach.Students did no original writing. The secondprocedure was the same, except that studentswere assigned weekly themes which were notdiscussed after their return. In the third pro-cedure all sentence structure items were taughtonly as the result of errors made in weeklythemes which students wrote in connectionwith a literature unit. Kraus found that thethird method was superior in nearly all respects,and that it required only one-third of the timerequired by the other methods. In her judg-ment, sentence structure can best be taught by"the explanation of sentence structure accord-ins to the relationship of the idea to be ex-pressed rather than according to grammaticalrule (31)."

The foregoing descriptions of the studiesof the relation between the teaching of formalgrammar and the improvement of pupils' speak-ing and writing, extending over a period offifty-five years, representing many parts of thecountry, and covering both the elementary andhigh school levels, exhibit a degree of unani-mity that is rare in the field of educational re-search. The findings dramatically confirm theviews of modern psychologists as to the wayin which language is learned. Language learn-Mg is a complex task, and it requires abundant

and constant practice in meaningful, supervisedcommunication.

It must be admitted 'hit the total numberof studies published or cited in publicationsover this lone period is small compared to thenumber reported for other problems perhapsno more important, such as the teaching ofreading. Moreover, a close examination ofsome of the reports of investigations of theeffectiveness of grammar instruction might re-veal flaws In research design or conclusions notfully warranted by the evidence. The impressivefact Is, however, that in all these studies, carriedout in places and at times far removed fromeach other, often by highly experienced anddisinterested investigators, the results have beenconsistently negative so far as the value ofgrammar In the improvement of language ex-pression is concerned. Surely there is no justi-fication in the available evidence for the greatexpenditure of time and effort still being de-voted to formal grammar in American schools,

It has been suggested that the resultsmight have been different if the grammar badbeen properly taught. Pulliam, for example,raises the question "whether generalizationsabout the English language can be taught insuch a way that ordinary pupils will apply,themto their speech and writing (43)." The debateover transfer of training was still fresh at thetime he wrote, and he felt that in the light ofthe then current research in the psychology oflearning, grammar teaching might be more ef-fective if there were a more conscious attemptat application. But in the later studies a specialpoint was made, especially by Benfer and Frogner, to teach the grammar functionally, and theresults remained negative.

In assessing the significance of the researchon the teaching of grammar, we must keep inmind a number of related considerations. First,there are reasons other than the improvementof speaking and writing for teaching somegrammatical concepts and terminology, at leastto superior pupils. Second, the,findingt of the

GRAM MAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING 37

studies are based on average scores. Averagesand to:relation coefficients are revealing, butthey may also conceal factors that are operatingin a learning situation. Thus it is quite likelythat some pupils under some conditions aregreatly helped by the conscious application ofgrammatical generalizations. Generalizationsabout grammar may play only a small part inlanguage learning, but there are occasions whenthat small part is important. Bobbitt was per.haps not unduly evasive when he wrote:"Should our schools help pupils to a knowledgeof technical grammar? The obvious answer is,there should be a great deal of it for those whoneed a great deal, a moderate amount for thosewho need a moderate amount, and little forthose who need little. Differences among per-sons in the need of looking after the technicalniceties of expression are large (6)."

How Much and WAat Grammar?The grammar with which the studies descri.

bed in the preceding paragraphs were con-cerned was traditional, conventional, formal,systematic, prescriptive, normative grammar.During the. period in which these studies wereundertaken, particularly in the last three de.cades, there have been three major develop-ments with respect to the recommended contentof the grammar to be taught in school.

The first of these developments was therestriction of grammar content to functionalitems. Thus, for example, the distinction be.tween a gerund and a present participle is important in grammatical theory, but of very littleuse in the teaching of speaking and writing.Efforts have accordingly been made to discoverthe specific items of grammar and usage whichgive trouble in children's language expression.Error counts were used for the purpose of de-termining what elements in grammar may beconsidered "functional." Typical of suchstudies were those made by Charters and Miller(11), O'Rourke (39), and Stormzand andO'Shea (55). The last -named contributed avaluable device called the "error quotient," the

ratio of the total number of errors on a specificitem to the number of opportunities for mak-ing the error. On the basis of such studies,various writers have made recommendations asto points of emphasis in usage at the successivegrade levels (31, 41:194.195) .

For the elementary school teacher, the significant generalization to be drawn from theselists is that grammar and usage below theseventh grade should be taught informally andthe items stressed should 1)4 those most tom.monly encountered in children's speech andwriting. Textbooks treating language in theelementary school (15, 26, 56, 9) stress thispoint. Burrows, for example, declares, "Nor isrecourse to teaching 'grammar' any less waste.ful. For in the first place, real grammar canenot be taught to children in the elementaryschool. A few may learn to identify nouns,verbs, and even the other parts of speechlargely by repetitive examples. But this isfar cry from understanding and applying thescience of language relationships (9:152)."

The second development has been the sub-stitution of descriptive for prescriptive scan-dards for determining what is "right" and"wrong" in grammar and usage. The notionthat prevailing language practice rather thana priori principles of language form and reelationships determines correctness has slowlybut steadily influenced the writers of schooltextbooks. Indeed, a very few of the newertextbooks are based ent , ly on the descriptiseapproach. The National "-council of Teachersof English has been especially helpful in mak.ing available the findings of modern languageresearch. Among its publications in this fieldare studies by Leonard (33), Marckwardt andWalcott (38), Kennedy (30), Pooley (41),and Fries (20).

The descriptive approach encouragesteachers to accept the English language as itis, rather than fight a losing battle in behalf offorms and constructions which may have hadacademic sanction but are not characteristic of

ELSIONTAlkir ENGLISH

tonteinporary speech or writing. Thus it teens-11.1ZeS.tbe fact that word inflection has sharplydeclined in English, While variations in mean-ing- are increasingly expressed by means klf

,ivord order and function words. Arbitrary rulessuch as -those against splitting an 'infinitive ofendinj a sentence with a preposition are givingway to more accurate descriptions of currentlanguage standards.

_

The descriptive approach to grammar andUsage does not imply a deterioration of stand-ards of "good" English. it implies rather the sub-stitution of fact for fiction in the determinationof what "good" English really is. Learning thefacts about the real language is fully asrigorous a process as diagraming sentences. Itcalls for wide reading, perceptive listening, andfine discrimination with respect to the socialsituation 10 which language is used. 'Substan-dard.' English is no more acceptable in Englishclasses following the descriptive approach thanin those dominated by the traditional grammar.And by concentrating on those items which areby general agreement illiterate usages, theteacher of descriptive grammar is more likelyto be successful in vomoting mastery of stan-dard English.

The third development has been the emer-gence of what is known as "structural"grammar. In his American P.prglish Grammar(20) Fries had emphasized the importance ofword order in modern English as a device fr,rexpress:ng meanings. Later, in his Siffailife 01English, he developed this concept by examin.ing In greater detail the characteristic patternsof the_English sentence, and the "word classes"that make up the parts of these patterns (21).Other linguists, notably Whitehall (59), Smithand Trager (55), Hill (27), Lloyd and Warfel(34), and Roberts (46) have followed in pio-neering studies'of the basic forms and patternsAi'- speech. Structural linguists are primarilyconcerned with formal clues and signals ratherthan with "lexical" meanings. They hold thatthe new approach will avoid what they regard

as confusions and contradictions in the oldgrammar. One writer even hind that thi newgrammar would be more effective than the oldin improving composition: "Arguments basedon current experience are irrelevant, for the:grammar has not been English grammar, (29)."

That structural linguistics represents a new,fresh, exciting, even revolutionary phut in the'study of the English language cannot be denied..It is clear also that the movement is spreadingrapidly. A recent study reveals that fully one-fourth of college language classes for prosper-the teachers of English are based on the new _

developments in structural grammar (50).Whether the neW approach will provide a soyJudos) to the problem of teaching standardEnglish is, however, quite another question. -

The rapid growth of structural grammar Inthe teacher education curricula gives somegrOund for believing that many elementary andsecondary schools may soon follow. There Isroom for debate whether the time is ripe forthe introduction of the "new grammar" Intothe common school classroom, except for op-tional study by superior pupils in advancedhigh school classes. The foundations of whatmust be regarded as an essentially new scienceare only now being laid. Terminology as usedby different writers is not yet uniform, althoughefforts are being made to overcome this dif-ficulty. Quite possibly the elementary and thehigh schools, which for the most part have notyet caught up with the usage principle, canafford to wait until the experts and the pops)lathers have had opportunity to offer a systemand a method which the classroom teacher andthe textbook writers can manage,

As to whether the new grammar will bemore effective than the old in raising the levelof literate expression, evidence is as yet otos-wily lacking. Marckwardt, for one, is skeptical:"Nevertheless, as long as we continue to educatean ever-increasing proportion of out youth, weshall be dealing with students who come fromhomes where standard English is not habitually

GRAMMAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

spoken. With them, part of our responsibilityamounts to teaching them to substitute a par-ticular prestige dialect of English for that whichthey normally employ, for Standard English iscurrently a social dialect and historkally a re-gional one .... Among other things, we mustrecognize that language habits can be changedonly through constant drill, and that the num-ber of new habitual responses which can befirmly established within a given period isvery small indeed (37)."

For the teaching of English idiom and thestandard use of the remaining inflections inthe language, neither the old nor the new stun-mar is likely to be a very efficient tool. Forthe most part grammar must remain an areaof study valuable for its own sake to those whocan understand its intricacies. For such Iona-nate ones, it can be a fascinating realm of

thought and discovery.

References1. Ash, Irvin O., "An Experimenttal Evaluation of

the Stylistic Approach in Teaching WrittenComposition in the Junior High School," Jour-nal of Experimental Education, 4 (September,1935), 54'62.

2. Asker, William, "Does Knowledge of FormalGrammar Function?" School and Society, 17(January 27, 1923), 109-111.

3. Barghahn, Kenneth C., The Effects of Sentence_Diagraming on English Usage end Reading Com-prehension, Master's Thesis, the University ofIowa, 1940.

4. Barnett, Waiter. W., A Study of she Effects ofSentence Diagraming on English Correctnessand Silent Reading Ability. Master's Thesis, theUniversity of Iowa, 1942.

5. Beau, Mabel C., Sentence Sense in Relation soSubject and Predicate. Master's Thesis, the Uni-versi7 of Iowa? 1935.

6. Bobbitt, Franklin, The Curriculum of ModernEducation, p. 258. New York: McGraw-HillBook Co.. 1941.

7. Bonus, Julius, Formal English GraMmar andshe Practical Mastery of English. Doctor's Thesis,the University of Minnesota, 1917.

8. Briggs, Thomas H., "Formal English GrammarAS a Discipline," Teacher, College Record, 14(September, 1913), 251.343.

9. Burrows, Alvin* T., Teaching Children In theMiddle Grade,, p. 152. Boston: D. C. Heathand Co., 1952.

10. Butterfield, Claire J., The Effect of Diagramingon Certain Skills English Composition.tor's Thesis. University of lowa, 1945.

11. Catherwood, Catherine, *RelatiOnship IMMOKnowledge of Roles and Ability to Correct

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

39

Grammatical &m1. Master's Thesis, the Uni-versity of Minnesota, 1932.Chatters, W. W., and Edith Miller, "A Courseof Study In Grammar Based upon the Gram-matical Errors of School Children of KansasCity, Missouti," University of Missouri Bulletin,16 (Education Seties No. 9, 1915), 1-45.Crawford, C. C., and Madie Royer, "OralDrill vs. Grammar .Study," Elementary SchoolJournal, 36 (October, 1935), 116-119.Cutright, Prudence, "A Comparison ofMethods of Securing Correct LanguageUsage," Elementary School Journal, 39 (May,1934), 681-690.Dawson, Mildred A., and Marion Zollinger,Guldit g Imsgsusgt Learning, p. 490. Yonkers -on'Hudson: World. Book Co., 1957.DeBoer, John J., "Oral and Written Language,"Review of Educational Research, 25 (April,1953), 107-120.DeBoer, John and Jean Ruth Jones, "SomeCurrent Practices English in Illinois HighSchools," Illinois English Bulletin, 36 (May,1949)t 1.26.Evans, James W. The Social Impotence ottdshe Poi) Control of Certain Punctuationat4r. Doctot's Thesis, the University of Iowa,1939.Partner, Paul, and Bernice Freemen, The Teach-ing of English in Georgia, Atlanta: The GeorgiaCouncil of. Teachers of English, 1952.Frits, Charles C. American English Grammar.New Yotk: Appleton-Centuty-Crofts, 1940.Fries, Charles C., The Structure of English. NewYork: Harcourt, Bute and Co., 1952.Frostier, Ellen, "Grammar vs. Thought Approachin Teaching Sentence Structure," English lour.nal, 28 (September, 1939), 518-526.Greene, Harry A., "Direct vs. Formal Methollsin Elementary English," Elementary English,24 (May, 1947), 273.285.Greene, Harry A., "Enflish-Language, Gram-mar, and Composition,' Encyclopedie of Edu.calional Research pp. 383.396. Wafter S. Monroe. editor. Revised edition. New York: TheMacmillan Co,. 1950.Gurrey, P., Teaching the Mother Tongue inSecondary Schools, p. 102. London: Longmans,Green and Co., 1958.1-fatchett, Ethel I.:, and Donald H. Hughes,Teaching &Moos Arts in Elementary Schools.New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1956.Hilt, A. A., Introduction to Linguistic Strutrarer: From Sorrnd to Sentence in English. NewYork: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1958.Hoyt, Franklin S., "The Place of Grammar inthe Elementary CurriculumP Teachers CollegeRecord, 7 (November, 1906), 467-500.Ives, Sumner, "Linguistics in the Classroom,"College English, 17 (December, 1955), 170.Kennedy, Arthur G., English Usage. New York:Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1942.Kraus, Silvy, "A Comparison of Three Methodsof Teaching Sentence Structure," English Jour-nal, 46 (May, 1957), 275.285, 311.Leonard, J. Paul, "Functional Grammar --What

ELEMENTARY

and Vaster' English fournel, 22 (November,1933), 729-735.

33. Leonard, Sterling A. Corson English Wags.Champaign, la.: The National Council ofTeachers of English, 1932.

34. LIOYd, P., and H. Warfei, Americas Est nth ishi CNN:4 Seising. New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 056.

35. 'lobar, alter "Srudies of Language WhichAssist the Teacher," The English Joursol, 36(December, 1947), 518.523.

36. Lyman, R. L., Summary of Invessigesiotosso Grommer, Lesgstoge, end Composition,

pp. 21.31, Supplementary Educational Mono-graphs, No. 36. Chicago: The University ofC.hscsgo Press, 1929.

37. Mandcwardt, Albert H., "Grammar and Lin-da" in the Teaching of English," Illinois

4oglisbBastiss, 46, No 1 (October, 1958),

38. biarckward Albert H., and Fred C. Walcott,Feat abosa Carrsns Usage. New York: Appleton -Century- Crofts, 1938.

39. O'Rourke, L. 1, Rebuilding the English-WestCierksilkos to losers Greeter Mimicry of Bum-doh. Washington, D. C.: Psychological Insti-tute, 1934.

40. PooIe', Robert C., Touching English Grommet,no 41-48, New York; Appleton-Century-Crofts,1957.

41. Pooley, Robert C. Teaching English Usage. NewYork: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1946.

41 Pooley, Robert C, and Robert D. Williams,The Teething of English in Wiscossin. Madison:The University of Wisconsin Press, 1948.

43. Pulliam, Rc4coe, "Should Formal Grammar BeDiscarded?" English Journal, 20 (October,1931), 639,

44. Rapeer, Louts W., "The Problem of FormalGrammar in Elementary Education," formal ofEduce:imps, Psychology, 4 (March, 1913), 125137.

43. Rim, J. M, "English (Continued). The Needof a New Basis in Education," The Foram, 35(January, 1904), 431.The quotadon from Rice in the January, 1904article refers to his report In the October, 1903,issue of The Foram, pp. 269-293.

46. Roberts, Paul, Patterns of English. New York:

ENGLISH

Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1956.47. Schmieder Fred J., "English COmPosilionl

Wilting-2S' riling,' Review of Educational Rs.

48. Sears, Isabel, and Amelia Nebel, "A Study ofthe Common MistakJourIn Pupils' Otal English,"Elms:wry School sl, 17 (September,1916), 4444.

49. Segel, David, and Nona B Bats, "Relation ofAchievement in Forms! Grammar to AthleVemen? in Applied Grammar," looms' of Esisat-tionel Research, 14 (December, 1926), 401.2.

50. Slothower, R., ENtliSb4.4fleagi Prq4-rstio0 Required of Prospective readers tirghSchool English In American College: anoi (Isi-versirks. Doctor's Thesis, University of Illinois,1959.

51. Smith, Dora V., "English Grammar Agaial"Tos English journal, 27 (December, 1938),643.649.

52. Smith, Dora V., Evaluesiog lostructios in Strom.duty School English. English Mono h No. 11.Champaign, Ill.; The Nations aril of.Teachers of F:nglish, 1941.

53. Sat, icb. Lne Jr, and George L. TtIL.get,CIIIVe2 Ssr#aere. Studies in Lin

gulsdcs: Occasional Papers, No. 3. NOMAD,Oklahoma: Batteaberg Press, 1951,Stewart, James Reece The Effscs Diagraming

Thesis, the University of Iowa 1941.55. Storms:1d, M. 1., and O'Shes, M. V. BOO

Ahab English Grammar? New York: W'arsvidr -and York, 1924.

36. Strickland, Ruth, The laingssegs Ails is theElms:wry School. Boston: D. C. Heath andCo., 1951.

57. Symonds, Percival M., "Practice vs.in the Learning of Correct Usage, Journal oEslocatiosal Psychology, 22 (February, 1931),81.96,

58. Walcott, Fred G., "The Limitations of Gram.mar," University of Afichiges School of Educa-tion Balletis, 19 (January, 1949), 49.

59. Whitehall, Harold, Strsctorel Essentials ofEioglish. New York; Hartoun, Brace and Co,1956.

60. Womack, Thurston, "Teachers' Attitudes towardCurrent Usage" The &gilds foursal, 48 (April,1959), ies-19o.

search, 28 Aprli, 1958), 117426,

on Cart os Shills is kostish Consimiskm. Ph.D.

VIRGIL E. HI RRICK

Handwriting and Children's CompositionResearch in handwriting in America has

been directed at problems of the efficient andlegible formation of letters and words withina given language structure. In Europe, muchmore attention has been paid to the study ofhandwriting as an expressive act which revealsthe character, temperament, eJucation, vocation,and sex of the individual doing the writing. Upto the present, however, little attention hasbeen paid in any country to the effect thewriter's perception of the various cognitive,social, and personal dimensions of his writingtask has on his handwriting and conversely, noone has paid much attention to the relationshipthe writer's perception of his handwritingitsform, standard of quality, physical and physio-logical limitations, etc., has on his willingnessto write, his style, and his form and control ofwriting.

In this review of the research in handwrit-ing, therefore, little attention will be paid tothe numerous surveys of instructional practicesin handwriting or to the extensive Europeanand American research in graphology. For ex-cellent reviews of present practice in the teach-ing of handwriting, the interested reader is re.toted to the following references (31, 57, 18,38). For representative references to graph-ology see (62, 24, 26, 36, 14). An attempt ismade here to confine attention to the studieswhich bear as directly as possible on the natureand function of handwriting in written Ian-guagz.

Handwriting Has To Do With A GivenLam:nolo and Its Conventions ofLetter Formation

One of the hard facts of handwriting is thatits form and capacity to communicate is deter-mined by the nature and structure of the par-

titular language being used. Think, for ex-ample, what would happen if one would tryto transpose the left to tight movement, con-nected script, letter and word spacing andfinger-arm movements necessary to English tothe writing of Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, orGerman script.

In America (23) English has been thecommon language and the cursive and manu-script letter styles have been the context with.in which writing development of children tookplace. Of course great variation has existedin cursive styles. Handwriting remains a per-sonzl act. Owens (56) pointed out thatintra-individual differences were greater whenthe motor performances of the same personwere compared than when inter-individual dif-ferences were compared among the perform-ances of different persons on the same motorperformance. This suggests that the differentphases of writing performance in the sameperson may show greater variability than com-parisons of different individuals on the samewriting phase. Owens showed further that vari-ations between repetitions of the same motoract by the same person would be one-seventhto one-eighth the magnitude of individual dif-ferences. This discussion and subsequent re-searches show that one important learning taskin the development of handwriting is the in-ternalizing of the normative limits withinwhich an individual will control the variationof his own handwriting performance. This de-velopment is not likely to be the product of asingle writing style or of the efforts of a singleteacher or school year. Three aspects of per-ception seem to be important in this process

41

Dr. Herrick is Professor of Education at theUniversity of Wisconsin.

EI,11N01111ititle ENGLISH

,OO ;Of, (km,' perct ion of iimitS =oftiafe control In form, Ap.(101.01)tic44 of a

kvei of "PIO" little resea,Ch '(44) hashen done on this phase of handwriting.

Bolit* (10) in-`studYint-the, 1ntra ;graph-04141- dIf ferenter In the

*arcing; Of 200 men could account 'for- themonly on the basis of 1) the principle of specialaffinities' lot certain moda of expression, 2)

7: -die PrIntiple of the significance of die situationfor the. indivicial, and 3) the principle of thespecific eipressIonia part of the woe expies-

_sion-conspleit,-DOrothy teggitt: (49) proposed;=:_-t*learning to write Is the general adaptation

ofhè handwriting movement to a gradually:developing perception of form and showed inhet study that training in the recognition ofblssic 'stroke characters in letter. formation-proved the handwriting of 15 Junior high-school remedial writing cases. Treanor (69)showed the effect of establishing a self definedlevel of writing aspiration on the compositions

_ of an English class. Cole (15) based her whole4, program of writing instruction on the process

of "self-analysis."

The point of the above studies Is furtherunderscored by Crider (20) who showed that

-," handwriting is a language and that it is In-fluenced by physiological, psychological, andpersonality factors. Birge (6) and Wells (22)point our, however, that while the into-variations of an individual's handwriting cannot_ ,

expla.kned purely on the basis of differencesin a motor skill and that personality, percep-tions of aspirational norms, and psychologicalfactors do contribute to them. The corollary ofthis conclusionnamely that handwriting candifferentiate personal histories and personalitytraitsis not necessarily true. Bracken, (9)through comparing the writing behavior. (pits-Aire) c twins (identical and fraternal) showedthat there was no greater similarity between thewriting of identical pairs of twins than therewere between Don.identkal mini He COtl,

crudes that his study- does not support the

)

inheritance of the -charKteristicV of writingGirth (33, 34) through_ his'itudiesfoCth::handWriting of Negroes and 1fansshoirtkwhen age and school wade are ectuattl,`Negto and Indian children.wilie'a$ legibly andas rapidly is do white c_hildten. These groupsof studies suggest that we place leSS eniphasjson heredity and ethnic factors and -mOre_on-thecognitive, aspirstional, and perception aspectsof learning In the task of learning to *the and zIn the use of penmanship tt,s,a cool for writing,

Little A:reorient on Wags telte_r:s,Are to be Formed

The ways, in-Which' children areratightO-'use to form words, phrases, and sititences Oafan important role In a child's* writing :and inprograms of writing instruction. MO peopleassurry.: that all programs of _InatttiCtionuniversally agreed on the way upper case, lowercase, and numerals are formed in both 'mants-sCript and cursive systems.of handwriting. Mostpeople assume also that there Is ample evidence _.

supporting advocated letter symbols. Unfor.tunately both assumptions have little foundationin fact.

The concept that handwriting is primarilya tool of communication and that legibilityshould be the major criterion has resulted Ina trend ttmard simplicity in letter and numeral ."forms. In most cases "simple" is defined as theform most appropriate to the development ofchildren. How this was determined is seldom -

if ever made dear. It Is probable that most sym .bol forms were determined primarily by adult =

logical analysis of what seemed to be the easiestmethod of producing a given letter or num-era The answer to the question, 'Should corn ,mon letters and numerals be taught?" is, there-fore, in doubt. If simplicity is to be the cri-terion of choice, the question becomes: "simple .

to whom?" What Is simple to one child may_

clearly be far from simple' to another,Surveys of practice and contrasting studies =4.

of good and poor handwriting using legibilityas a major criterion have identified three major

t-`

HANDWRITING AND CHILDREN'S COMPOSITION 43

groups of factors which seem to differentiategood and poor writing: 1) quality and economyof letter formation (speed while always a lac-tor here is considered least important); 2)the relationships and uniformity of letter andword formation (size of letters, alignment, linequality, proportion, spacings, beginnings andendings); and 3) the relationship of the po-sition of the individual to the act of writing andhis writing behavior 73, 32, 3. (pp. 22.30),These findings and those which follow, whilerevealing the importance of "proper" letter for-mationsand alignment, also show that no singleelement in writing behavior is sufficient in

itself to differentiate individual samples ofwriting. The totality of the writing act is clearlymore than the simple sum of its parts.

The studies by Pressey,(58), Newland(53, 52), Boraas (8) of the illegibilities in thewriting of children and adults offer furtherinformation on problems of she formation ofwriting symbols. Pressey's analysis of 3,000 it.legibilities found that 12 per cent of them in-volvd the letter r. Seven letters, r, u, e, a, 0, 1and t, accounted for over half of the difficultiesin reading. Five malformationsn like u, r like

e closed, d like c/, c like a, accounted for one-fourth of these difficulties. Newiand found chat3, 0, 2; a, e, r, and t; and writing e like i causedmost of the illegibilities of writing. Four typesof difficulties in letters caused over one-halfof all illegibilities: a) failure to close letters,b) dosing looped strokes, c) looping nonlooped strokes, and d) straight up rather thanrounded strokes. Boraas' study shows why thecurved letters with no distinguishing character-istic cause most of the illegibilities. All agreethat letters r, e, and a are the major troublemakers (65, 60).

Other Factors and Conditions in theWriting Act

The anatomy and physiology of the handhas naturally come in for its share of attentionin the study of handwriting. Callewaert (13)in analysis of the anatomy of the hand and its

movement identifies two bask movementsnecessary for writing: 1) movements of the hi.dex finger, thumb, and the middle finger informing the single letter (inscriptive function)and 2) the movement of the hand along theline (cursive function). Good handwriting,then, according to Callewaert, grows out of thecoordination of the inscriptive function andthe cursive function of the fingers and forearmthus insuring good formation of letters, naturalslant, and flow of the writing along the lineUnfortunately the studies by Woodworth (78)and Myers (51) are not supportive of Calle-waett or of each other. Meyers measured thevarious dimensions of the hand and found itsvolume by inserting the subject's hand intoa calibrated container partially filled withwater. While he claimed a "ino:e or less fixedrelationship between writing quality and handmeasurement," careful examination of his databy the author revealed little or no support forthis conclusion. There is no research known tothe author which demonstrates any factor re-lated to the physiology or anatomy of the handwhich is critical in good writing other than thatany normal hand and arm is necessary in the actof writing.

Rowley (61) followed this general line ofinquiry and examined the role of low musclecoordination in the production of slow crampedillegible handwriting. Measures of tapping,horizontal and vertical arm movements, andfinger movements as measures of muscle co-ordination showed that slow-cramped hand-writing was not the result of low muscle co-ordination but more likely due to training.Ames (1) in studying the postural and placement orientations of young children showedthat the place of their initial writing on thepaper moves from lower right to center, totop center, to top left. The passive hand movesfrom bottom left (2.3 yrs.) to center left (4yrs.) to top left (5.6 yrs.) to center left (7yrs.) to bottom left or off paper (8 -10 yrs.).

Brogden (11) shows that the most efficient


angle of pursuit lies between 1356-160°. Themost difficult is 45°to 70°. This finding, sup,-porting slanted handwriting, agrees with otherstudies.

It is likely from this that given a healthychild and the opportunity for him to make intelligent adaptations in his orientations to thewriting act, goocl handwriting is a matter oflearning and not simply one of motor coordi-nation and psychology.

Townsend (68) realizing that the begin-ning handwriting of young children is drawingand copying before it becomes a smooth co.ordinated means for the expression of ideasstudied the copying ability in children. Hispopulation was 287 New York school childrenaged six years one month to nine years threemonths. His tests were copying tests of geo-metric figures, form perception tests, andvarious tests of motor behavior. He concludedthat copying skill was closely related to chronological and mental age up to the age 7 and 8,then copying showed errors which were notattributable to differences in these variables,but rather to individuals, and different writingtasks. This suggests that unless comprehen-sion and purpc.-4e of the writing soon becomesan important part of writing instruction, thechild's ability to copy will not carry him muchbeyond the writing tasks of the first grade,

Surveys of instructional practice reveal thatthe experience of teachers with children hasagreed with Townsend's finding. Floyd (28) inhis survey found that seventy per cent of thesampled teachers, provide many opportunitiesfor every child to write in ways that are pur-poseful.

The problem of how to move from copy.ing to rapid efficient writing has been relatedduring the past half century to the three com-ponents of the velocity or speed of the writingmovement, the kind of written stroke (ver-tical, slanted, horizontal, up-down,' left-right,right-left, curved, etc.), and the pressure phe.nomena. Binet and Courtier (5) in 1893 using

unusually modern methods concluded that thevelocity of the hand is modified by four prirkcipai factorssize of letter, combination of theletters, the nature of the stroke being made, andthe direction of the stroke. One specific con-elusion of importance to the question of thenature and role of rhythm in handwriting isBinet's observation that one cannot voluntarilyforce one's hand to move with uniform velocity.

Kircher (48) examined the nature of hand-writing development over the eight gradeschool years with special attention to the firstyear. Some of his conclusions are importantand correspond with recent studies. Maturityin handwriting expresses itself in less and moreeven pressure (41, 40); the velocity of move-ment (travel time per millimeter) becomesalmost constant with considerable practice; thegreater part of writing time is consumed inpauses; and greatest pressure is exerted in thelast down stroke.

Dietrick (22) examined carefully the sixcharacteristics of size of letters, width of letters,length difference of letters, way in which lettersand words are joined, degree to which lettersand words are joined, and angle of slant to seeif they are related to each other according tocertain laws.

He found that the size of letters is the mostimportant characteristic in regularly occurringrelation with other characteristics. Size, width,and angle are closely related. There is no re-lation between size and the way letters arejoined together. Pauses between letters causelarger, narrower, and slower writing. If a per-son writes fast, he is more likely to have a con-sistent relation between these six factors; ifhe writes slowly, the writing is more likely tobe unnatural and more under the influence of acertain model. All this suggests the importanceof helping the child to move beyond copyingto the development of his own patterning orstyle of the Writing actan act which becomesan integrated complex of form, speed, and relationships in letters, words, and spate. The

HANDWRITING AND CHILDREN'S COMPOSITION4$

unifying element must be meaning, sinceneither letters, strokes, nor words have a com-mon unifori: velocity or rhythm.

Rhythm In HokiteritingThe introduction c-k* cursive handwriting in

our elementary schools usually follows a de-finite system of procedures. The only outstand-ing chatacteristic which is common to all is

the dependence upon rhythm and the rhythmiccount. The three most frequently used systemsPalmer Method, ZanerBloser, and the NewLaurel-all recommend counting and havingpractice in "correct rhythm." It is common prac-tice to develop a series of melodies or rhythmicsayings to aid in the practice of handwriting.It seems important to review the research onwhat seems to be a universal practice in hand-writing instruction.

Dreyer (25), using apparatus devised byJudd, made one of the early studies of the mech-anism of the writing act. Using grip pressureas his referent, he found rhythm was absentfrom the child's early writing and appears aboutage eleven. In adults, the rhythm is extremelyregular. "The writing has ceased to be drawingrhythmical point pressures correspond torhythmical variations in grip pressureandare analogous to a certain extent to the rhythmof speech." Rhythm here is not the rhythm oftime but a rhythm or regularity of pressure ex-erted on point and grip of the writing instru-ment.

Studies by Nutt (54) and West (74) tendto accept the presence of a timed rhythm in

handwriting and attempt to discover its rela-tion to age (Nutt) and how it can be in-fluenced by timing (West). It is hard to deter-mine what is called rhythm by each author.West suggests his definition when he says,"... good writers among adults made less vari-ation from their average length of time bothon the up stroke and down stroke as well as onthe total of both than poor writers, but verypoor writers may show better natural rhythmthan most good writers." While this statement

helps suggest his criterion of what constitutesrhythm, his conclusion about its presence ingood and poor writing is confusing to say theleast.

The best study on the problem is the onemade by Irish (47) in 1948. She measured theactual writing time of each letter, as well as themost frequently used letter combinations, inorder to discover whether a rhythmic countwould emerge from the timing. Adults wereused in order to insure the presence of any pos-sible rhythm pattern. She argued that if hand-writing is rhythmical then the time recorded forsingle letters will vary definitely from letter toletter in accordance with the length of thestroke, the direction of the strokes and the num-ber of strokes. The time recorded for lettersin combination or context will remain fairlyconstant with the time recorded for single let-

ters. Her findings do not show a rhythmic pat-tern or timing in handwriting. The time forwriting any single letter is very close to thetime for writing any other. There is a greaterrange between various measures taken of thesame letter in different situations than there is

between the measures of different letters. Sheconcludes that the time of writing does notvary, to a degree with the length of stroke, thedirection of stroke, or with the number ofstrokes which would justify a rhythmic countas a teaching procedure. Apparently. our in-structional procedures are not in harmony withour research findings.

The ManuscriptCursive ProblemMost elementary schools in America teach

both manuscript and cursive writing. Less thanone in twenty-five schools teach either one ex-elusively. Most schools introduced manuscriptwriting between the years of 1935 and 1949,with the general practice of starting, the insttuc-tion of handwriting using manuscript and thenbetween the second half of the second gradeand the last half of the fourth grade changingto cursive writing. Thus most children in

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

America are taught two kinds of letter symbolsand two forms of writing.

The arguments for using manuscript sym-bolstest on three propositions:

First, the straight line, the circle, and spac-ing forms of the manuscript writing are morein line with the motor and eye-hand-artn co-ordinations of the young child than are thecomplex movements and formations of thecursive system. There is plenty of empiricalevidence to show that five and six year oldscan be taught to write manuscript symbols.There is also some research evidence to supportthis contention (46, 68, 37).

The second argument bears on the corres-pondence between the printed symbols the childis learning to read and the manuscript writingsymbols often called printscript. Hence thechild will not have to learn to read two formsof written language when he is already over-whelmed with the magnitude and complexityof his total learning task. This argument makessense and facilitates the ease with which allforms of language can be used to support andrelate to every other. Most schools whichchanged to manuscript writing in the primarygrades were able to observe a significant in-crease in the child's story writing when com-pared with their previous experience with cursive writing.

The third argument in favor of manuscriptwriting is that it is more legiblean argumentwell supported by research (70, 30).

The objections to manuscript revolvearound five main arguments. First, the commonsocially accepted form of handwriting is cur-sive; therefore why teach the child somethinghe will have to change anyway? This duplica-tion is claimed to be wasteful of the child'stime in school. The social acceptance of cursivewriting, is a social value and cannot be judgedby research. If duplication is bad, then whyteach cursive at all?

Second, there is the claim that manuscriptwriting is slower and more cramping (tension

producing) than cursive (77, 19, 63, 71, 45).Conrad and Woman concluded that the factormaking manuscript writing less fast was thenumber of pauses. Increased speed in manu-script was accomplished by curling down thetime of pauses. Winch in examining the dataof his six experimehts would not take a po-sition that print scrip was more or less facilethan cursive. Hildreth, on the other hand, foundthat eighth grade pupils copied the unjoinedstrokes faster than they copied the joined, andconcluded that manuscript writing can be asfast as, if not faster than, joined letter writing.The "Correspondent" found the speed de-cisively la favor of the unjo:led hand. Wash-burne and Morphett (91) found cursive a littlefaster than manuscript up to the junior highschool period when manuscript becomes some-what faster. Thus the evidence on comparativespeed seems to be inconclusive. One is aboutas fast as the other. Under extreme increases inspeed, the quality of the manuscript writingdeteriorates less rapidly than cursive.

Third, the evidence on cramping and in-creased tension in handwriting is meager andcompletely inadequate. No one has been ableto devise a good measure of tension or cramp-ing.

Fourth, there is the claim that the manu-script signature is not legal. Manuscript sig-natures are legal in most ststes if it is theusual signature of the individual concerned.

Fifth, manuscript writing has been criti-cized because of its lack of individuality andcharacter. There are many samples of individualand artistic writing using manuscript symbolsboth in England and America. On the otherhand, it is probably much easier to get consis-tency, and uniformity, in manuscript, and thushigh legibility.

A recent comparative study by Temp lin(66) of three different writing styles of 434high school graduates in 1946 from twentycommunities located on the eastern seaboardgave promise of shedding light on the effect

_, 13ANDIVittiNG AND CHILDitEN'S CoMPO'SITIOSI 47: 4_

thitdi(ferent Writink styles have on the nature nature a the instructional program, the can.and 'qUilitiref- adult writing, ,UnfOttunately a venience of teachers, and the convictions of 'the: -::

micrOfilni of the thesii could not be obtained teaching staff and community -rather than fac-. -

ixt her abstract had to be used for review put- tors in the development and learning of thil-.__:----MO On the ,bass of her ithstrita,- the two clan,

,...,_..- -,- '. ,

Major ItYpOthesec, '1) that the 'legibility of . ' The suggestions (64) for teachers trying -,

iclukhandwriting may be affected significantly to help children make this transition are 1)hy_th{"extent to which handwriting is used, by help children understand and practice what theythe sex Of the Writer, and by occupation held are trying td dd. 2) do nit let joining spoil ther-'7!:(.by the wrket and 2) that manuscript writing clear simplicity of letters,- 3) 40 'Packing"-

14nit fife is niok legible thin cursive hand- of letters close and in general) 4) 'avoid loops.=

Ouldnot be SUI)stantiated. Perhaps inadult life, the handwriting' style: itself is not The Leh Handed Child- -particularly

,impottiiiii,Thejdtkmay make his The left-handed child", faces many 0100

own Writing style 'cle whatever he wants to ac- difficulties in learning to write. The Wiscrinsirt,-.1Y4eomplish with it. Perhaps more can be done _ Survey showed that 62 per cent of all schoolswith thi problem: studied reported that no abecial Pr9v15.106$

, were 'made for the left-handed child: Of the.

-:-T45 Transition of Manuscript that did, only one procedure was common to a, --- , -:-.1to Cursive , large numberthat of allowing writing= to -;-. --.:--1-

As has been indicated, most elementary slant to the left Other procedures Mentle44 'school children change from manuscript to cur- were reversed lighting, special Manuals, 40040

--- sive somewhere between the second and fourth position and grip, and stub pen:points::/ngrade. It -is important, therefore, to determine general, five groups of suggestions were madethe effect of early training on later writing as to wars to provide for left-handed writers: ----.4(21, 35), the most effective time for change 1) body position, 2) use of equipment, 3)(2), and the procedure which assists in the special aid In letter formation, 4) special Seat.

, transition (12). Goetsch and Crider agree ins arrangement, and 5) special equipmint. ),with the previous studies of Washburne and The lack of help given the left-handed writerMorphett that children can easily make the is further confirmed by the New York study

..-', shift from either cursive to manuscript and vice (7), ,;'

. - ..,- versa. Learning of one assists in the learning of Guilford (39) confirms what is the general.the other. Arnold, on the basis of records of observationleft handed children do not rank -,students in the Germantown Friends School on par, in quality and speed, with those usingkept Over an eight year period, concluded that the right hand. The comment is made that athe fourth grade was about the best time to school situation planned for right-handed _make the change. No tables or other data are writers and the general inability of right-presented to show the basis and evidence for handed teachers to demonstrate a left-handedthis conclusion. technique may have had an important role in

Again, the author of this review could find producing the result.

no adequate research on the problem of when Cole (16, 17) has written extensively aboutto make the transition; no adequate criterion the problems of left-handed writers and makesis presented which would allow the statement many suggestions, based on her analysis of thethat the second, fourth, and sixth grade is best. problem, for their help.The best time is probably determined by the The most recent and perhaps the most come

48ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

prehensive study of the use of the left hand inhandwriting has been done by Enstrom (27).He studied 1,103 left- handed writers in gradesfive through eight. The left-handed writerswere classed into two general groups: 1) thosewho kept the writing hand below the line ofwriting, and 2) those who kept the writinghand above (wrist hooked). Fifteen differentadjustment positions here identified andstudied from the point of view of their relativeefficiency to produce legible, efficient (speed),and non-smeared handwriting. For those whowrote below the line, three positions provedsuperiorPosition IEPaper is turned toright (clockwise) more than the reverse ofright-handed placement, usually between 60°and 70° with front edge of desk; the angle be-tween axis of forearm and paper ruling isgreater than 90° usually 110°; the slant isgenerally forward. Position 113--Paper place.ment is reverse of that used by right-handedwriters, approximately 30° turn to right; axisof forearm makes 900 angle with paper ruling.Position IFPaper ruling is 90° with frontedge of desk, angle between forearm axis andpaper ruling is approximately 130°, / is gen-erally forward. For those who kept hand aboveline of writing (wrist hooked) only one adjust-ment proved good (highest in quality but withsmearing possibilities). Position IIAAPaperis turned leftward (counterclockwise) as forright-handed writers. Angle with front edge ofdesk is usually 30°, there is pronounced hook-ing of wrist and writing hand above line ofwriting, wrist is turned on edge, movement ispredominantly wrist flexing with some fingeraction.

This study gives us the first real evidenceon the nature of desirable positions for the left-handed writer. The three superior positionsidentified by Enstrom suggest that the trendof practice of recent years is in the tight direc-tion and that the further exploration of the re-lationships of arm, wrist, writing instrument,and paper marked out by Enstrorn will graclu.

ally remedy the present injustices being cloneto left-handed children.

Handwriting Instruments and MaterialsDown through the ages (50) handwriting

has been tied up intimately with the develop.ment of writing surfaces, instruments, andmedia. Relatively speaking, astonishingly littlecomparative progress has been made in writinginstrumentation and materials, Man's writinginstruments and materials are not too differentfrom what they were 100 years ago.

The Wisconsin Survey (3) (page 39) ofthe specific instruments used in handwritingprograms found the following in Indicatedorder: adult pencil, beginner pencil, fountainpen, chalk, crayon, ball point pen, pen andholder, and the mechanical pencil.

The adult pencil is most frequently used,with fountain and ball point pens increasing inuse. The least used Instruments ere the median'.cal pencil and the pen holder and steel nib. Ina study of instrument preference, Herrick (42)found that the preferred writing instrumentswere, fountain pen, ball point pen, and adultpencil. Otto (55) found that in 1948, themajority of large city school systems still restricted the initial use of ink to the pen holderand steel pen. In slightly more than one-halfof the schools, however, permissive use offountain pens was given. Wiles (76) showedthat there is no evidence to support the use ofthe beginner's pencil as an initial writing in-strument for children. What evidence there isfavors the size of the adult pencil. Whittaker(75) in his study of the efficiency of steel pensand fountain pens found that fountain pensproduced writing of higher quality and werepreferred by children as writing instruments.The evidence seems to support the use of foun-tain and ball point pens in programs of writinginstruction.

Herrick (43) in a study of the essentialcharacteristics of writing instrument design(shape, thickness, weight, center of gravity,

HANDWRITING AND CHILDREN'S CON1POSITION 49

point of grip, and angles of inclination and ro-tation) for both children and adults showedthat human preferences indicated a round in-strument slightly less than half an inch in di-ameter, a weight of approximately 18.5 grams,center of gravity between two to three inchesfrom writing tip, point of grip averaged 1.22inches from point of instrument and that thereWas little or no difference in sex preferences.

Three sizes of paper are generally used inhandwriting periods, the half size or extra largewith one inch and one-half inch spacing inkindergarten and grades one and two and theregular size (8%x11) with 3/8 inch spacingfor all upper grades. Newsprint, easels, andblackboards are commonly used in writing inthe primary grades.

There is considerable evidence that adulttype writing instruments and materials suitablyadapted to their use by children will be incommon use in schools. It is probably more im-portant that the writing instrument be efficientand of suitable length than that it represent aunique size or shape.

This Matter of QualityThe common scales for evaluating hand-

writing are the Ayres (4), Freeman (29),and West (73, 67) scales all developed overtwenty years ago. Yet the need to develop amore effective means for helping the childand his teacher to evaluate his handwritingstill remains before ui Thorndike emphasized

the value of a total judgment of the generalgoodness or merit of a sample of handwritinga composite of such factors as legibility,beauty, character, etc. Ayres emphasized thepoint that the major purpose for handwritingis to be read and stressed legibility (reada-bility). Freeman wanted scales to help a teacheror pupil to analyze their handwriting in termsof letter formation, spacing, quality of align-ment, and uniformity of slant. Quant (59)used eye movement photography to study thereadability of handwriting samples when Free-man's five factors were systematically varied.

He found compactness in spacing and regu-larity of slant were the ones favoring legibility.

It sterns true that no simple single factorof handwriting distinguishes between samplesof good and bad handwriting alone. There isplenty of evidence, however, that one can dis-tinguish between two samples of handwritingas to legibility and, recognize which is better,As yet it is not possible to point to the singlefactor essential in this difference. This suggeststhe importance of more research in this areaand the increasing need for means which willenable the child to make constructive evalua-tions of his own writing. It is in this directionthat the greatest promise for the future in hand-writing development seems to lie.

Bibliography1. Ames, Louise Bates "Postural and Placement

Orientations In Writing and Block Behavior:Developmental Trends from Infancy to AteTen," joterexal o/ Genetic Psychology, 73 (1948),pp. 45.52.

2. Arnold, Esther Whitaire, "The Transition fromManuscript to Cursive Writing," ElementarySchool Jokresal, Vol. 33 (April 1933), 616-620.

3. Arnold, Gwen F., Paul W. Eberman, TheodoreI.. Harris, and Virgil E. Herrick, Ilandwritingin Wisconsin. Madison, Wisconsin: S-hoof ofEducation, University of Wisconsin, 1951.

4. Ayres, Leonard P., A Scale for Worsting sheQualisy of Handwriting of School Children. NewYork: Russell Sage Foundation, 1912.

5. Binet, A. and J. Courtier, "Sur la vitesse desmouvenents graphiques," Res,ve Philosophlisede Is Prance es de l'Etrenger, 35 (1893),664.671.

6. Birge, W. R., "Experimental Inquiry into theMeasurable Handwriting Correlates of FivePersonality Traits," 'mond! of Personality, 23(Dec., 1954), 215.223.

7. Board of Education, City of New York, Prdakesand Problems in Mendwritins, Bulletin of theBureau of Reference, Research and Statistics,New York: Ilektrd of Education, (1947), P. 63.

8. Boraas, Harold O., "Photographic Analysis ofCertain Letter Forms with Respect tu SpeedChanges and Stability," blond of ExperimentalUric-talon, 20 (Sept, 1951), 87.96.

9. Bracken, H. V., "Untersuchungen am Zwillin-gen Uber die quantitativen and qualitativenMerkmate des Schreibdrucks," Zeittchrift firAnseuwidse Ps ye holo,eie, 58 0940), pp.367.384.

10. Breitkopf, A., "Grossbewgungen and Kleinbe-wegungen. Ein Beitrag Zu Einer VergleichendenAusdruckstehre, "Zeisscbrift far An As u.n di*Ps)cbologle, 58 (1939), 1.92.

4,141I11TA,RV 132401,1SH

-11'664°., ,Wolf Trlionomett(c: Jteta.if hips of Preioci:un Angie of Linear Put.

.:Anterit.sor Ptytbo gy,( 19$3)i 4S46.

12, Burke, j "CtitaiR Wtiting: Transitionfrom Manusctik Grade Teacher.(Apt, 1947), 38-39' and 8443.

13.- Colletvaett, Psyslologie PEtriture Cursive,Purls: Device, de Btoufier & Cie (1937),

14. CostelnUova-T 'Peters "A Study Of the Re-lationship Between tindwriting PersonalityVariables," Genetic Psychology Monograph, Vol.37. (May, 1948), 167.220,

13. Cole, Luelli, "Heresy in Elemen-tary School loose!, Vol. 38 (1938 , 606.618.16. ----, "Instruction in Pentnitssh p for theLeftHinded Child," Elementary School /porno!,Vol. 39 0939)) 436-448.

1?. 'The Handwriting Problems of Left-Handed' Children," ilmerican Psychologist,(1946), p. 456,

18. Committee for Research in Handwriting, Heel.writing in Witconsin. Bulletin of the School ofEducation, University of Wisconsin, (1951),77 p.

19. Conrad, Edith U. and Elizabeth J. Offerman,"A Task of Speed and (uality, in ManuscriptWriting is Learned by Adults,' Teachers Col.lege Record, Vol. 31 (Feb., 1930), 449-467.

20. Crider, Blake, "Children Who Cannot Write,"Educational Adminiiiration and Supervision, 26(May, 1940), 363-371.

21. , "The Adaptability of Pupils to Manu-script Writing," Elementary School Journal, 32( Apr., 1932), 617.622.

22, Dietrich, W., "Statistische Untersuchungen uberden Zusamenhang von Schrifunerkmalen," NewsPsycbologiscbe Studien, 11 No. 2 (1937),77444.

23. Doughtery, M. L., "History of the Teaching ofHandwriting In America," Elementary SchoolJournal, 18 (1917), 280-286.

24. Downey, June F., Graphology and the Psychologyof Harsclieritiq, Educational Psychological Mono-graphs, Warwick and York, 1919.

25. Drever, bates,. "Experimental Study of the Mech.anism of Writing," Natiire, 95 (Apr., 1915),185-187.

26. Enke, W., Handscrift and Charakter in Enc.ten Versuch," Klinircbe Woebettukrift, 17, No.2 (1938), 1624.1627.

27. Ensttom, Eric Alfred, "The Extent of the Use ofthe Left Hind In Handwriting and the Deter-minations of the Relative Efficiency of theVatic, H a n d-W via t.AtinPaper Adjustments,"(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pitts-burgh, 1957).

28. Floyd, William Downing, "An Investigation ofHandwriting lnstrucr!on in Selected Oregon Etc-mentart Scivols," (unpublished Mastor's thesis,Oregon College of Education, 1935).

29. Freeman, Fronk N., "An Analytical Scale forJudging Handwriting," Elementary School Jour-nol. 13 (Apr., 1915), 432-441.30. -, Evaluation of Manuscript Writing,"Elementary School forestal, 36 (Feb., 1936),446-455.

Mot,t,osent. Of the t

31. ..7'14-nt 4litint104114 to Cutslye," BION00141English, 3V- (Oct.; 1938)$ 366372.

32. The flandieritike M0110001, MOO:UalferSity of Chicago PresS; 1918.

33. Garth; Thmas R. "Hondwriting"_of Indians,"16ktsoi FAleati004' Psychology,1931), 703409,

34. --_, Mary Mitchell, and Corrine Anthony,"The Handwriting of !step:0," Journalrational Psychology, 30 (Jan., 1939), pp. 69.73.

35. Goetsch, Walter R., "The Effect of Early Train-Mg In Handwriting on Later Writing and OnComposition," (unpublished Master's thesis,University of Chicago, June, 19)4),

36. Goodenough, Florence 'L., "Sex Diffeorkg- inJudging the Sei JournalSocial Psychology, 22 (1945); 61-68. '-

37. Gray, William H.; "An Eatkefigneigil C003 artton the Movem wents In mormsttipt Writingand titslie 'Wilting," hums) of Education",!Psychology, 21 (Apt., 193)); 259-272.

38. Gray, William S, The Teaching of RoadirigAnilWriting: An lniernatlonel Survey UNESCOMonographs on Fundamental Education No. ID.Scott Foresman and Company, Chicago, 1936,281 p.

39. Guilford, Will H., 'Left Handedness: Its EffectUpon the Quality And Speed of Writing OfPupils in the Fifth and Sixth Grades," (unpub-lished Master's thesis, College of Puget Sound,1936).

40. Harris, Theodore L, and G. Lawrence Rada,"'Problems of Pressure in Handwriting," Journalof Experimental Education, 26 (Dec., 1957),151.178.

41. -, "Relationships Between Legibility andHandwriting Pressure of Children and Adoles-cents," Journal of Experimental Education, 28(Sept., 1959).

42. Herrick, Virgil E., "Preferred Types of Hand.writing Instruments," (unpublished ResearchReport, University of Wisconsin, 1954, Dittoed,65 p).43. -, The Design of Handwriting lastrionenti,(unpublished Research Report, University ofWisconsin, 1954, 165p.).

44. --, and Theodore L. /fortis, Perceptions ofthe Writing Act by Bright, Normal and DellChildren. (Paper given nt AERA Meetings, At-lantic City, Feb. 17, 1959, D1ttoed).

45. Hitdreth, Gertrude, "Comparative Speed ofJoined and Unjoined Writing Strokes," Joiroolof Educes/omit Psychology, 36 (Feb., 1945),91.102.

46. -, "Copying Manuscript and CursiveWriting," Childboai Meeks, Vol. 13 (Nov..1936), 127.128, 142.

47. Irish, Elizabeth H, "The Principles of 'rime andMotion Applied to the Teaching of Hindwtit.ins," (un published Ph.11¢. MMUS tiOn, LelandStanford University, 1948).

48. Kircher, R. "Experimentelle Untersuchungender Entwicklung des Schreibens Wakrend derVolkschutzeit, Besondets In Ersten Schulllahr,"Archive he dis gongs Psycho ale, Vol. 54(1926), 313-334.

SZ

FIANDWIIITINO AND CHILDREN'S COMPOSITION

49. Legght, Dorothy, 'Perceptual Learning in Pen.tranship," Elementary School Journal, Vol. 40(June, 1940), 764-770.

50, Maire, Albert, "Materials Used to Write UponBefore the Invention of Printing," Smithsonianimams* Repots (Annual Report of the Boardof Regents) W,ishington: Government PrintingOffice, l905, pp. 639.658-

51. Meyers; Oscar L., "A Study of Handwriting andHand Mess u rem e n s," (unpublished Master'sthesis, Leland Stanford University, 1934).

52.- Newland, T. Ernest, "An Analytical Study ofthe Development of itlegibilities n Handwritingfrom Lower Glides to Adulthood" )0mm/ ofEdgrotiond Remoras, 26 (Dec., 1932), 249-258.----- "A Study of the Specific IllegibilitiesFound in the Writing of Arabic Numetah,"journal of Educational Reseercb, 21 (Mar.,

930), 177-185.54. Nutt:- H. W.t "Rhythm in Handwriting," Ele-

'Printery School bursa, 19 (Marl 1919),532-540.

55. Otto, Henry J., "Use of Ink and Fountain Pensin tjle Elementary School," Elementary SchoolJournal, 48 (Mar., 1948), 379-384.

56. Owens, William A. "lots - individual Differencesversus Intet.individual Differences in MototSkills," Educe:ions' end krychologkel Measure.mess, _(1942), 299-3114.Polkinghorn, Ada R.? "Current Practices inTeaching Handwriting,' Elementary School foe,.sal, 47 (1946), 218-225.

58. Pressey, S. L. and L. C. Pressey, "Analysis of3,000 Illegibilities In the Handwriting of Children and Adults," Educational Reseercb Brolletis,6 (1927), 270-273.

59. Quint, Leslie, "Factors Affecting the Legibilityof Handwriting" Journal of Experimental Els-calms, 14 (1946), 297-31 .

60. Rolliston, Donald H., "A Study of the Hand-writing of College Freshm'n, (unpublishedMaster's thesis, University of Iowa, 1949).Rowley, Florence, "Motor Coordination in theField of Handwriting," (unpublished Master'sthesis, Boston University, 19)8).

6.. Saudek, Robert, Experiments with Henlwriting.London: George Allen and Unken, 1928,395pp.

63. "Speed of Handuriting, Script or Cursive,"Anon. Correspondent, Times Educstionsi Supple-

, moo, 831 (Apr., 1931), 121.64. Stone, Ala M. and Ethel Irwin Smalley s "After

Manuscript, What Next?" Progressive Education,14 (Feb., 1937), 91-94.

37.

65. Swenson, Irma Monica, "An Analytical Study ofillegibilities in the Handwriting of Third GradeChildren During the Transition s'etioci fromManuscript to Cursive," (unpublished Master's'thesis in Education, University of Texas, 1956).Templin, Elaine Mildred, ''A Comparative Studyof the Legibility of Handwriting of 414 AdultsTrained in Three Handwriting Styles: All Manu-script, All Cursive, or Manuscript - Cursive," (un-published Ph.D. Dissertation, New York Uni-versity, I958).

67. Thorndike, Edward L., "Teacher Estimates ofthe Quality of Handwriting," Teachers CollegeRecord, 15 (1914), 1.13.

68. Townsend, Edward A. "A Study of CopyingAbility In Children," Gene& Psychology Alooro-graph, 43 (1951), 7.51.

66.

69. Treanor, 7. H., "Pen Points and Ink Spots,"Elementary English Review, 19 (Mar, 1912)0109-111.

70. Turner, Olive G., "The Comparative Legibilityand Speed of Manuscript and Cursive Hind-writing," Elementary School Journal, 30 (June,1930), 780-786.

7l. Washburne, Carlton W. and Mabel V, Morphett,"Manuscript Writing: Some Recent Investiga-tions," Elementary School Journal, 37 (Mar.,1937), 517.529.

72. Wells, P. L., "Personal History, Hiiidivrirligand Specific Behavior," loans: of Personality,14 (1946), 295.314,

73. West, Paul V., Handwriting: Elements of Dig.nails end Jugmete of liendwriting. Blooming-ton, Illinois: Public ,Ichool Publishing Company,1926.

74. -, "The Relation of Rhythm to the Hand-writing Movement," Journal of Edwretional Pty.ebology, 13 (Oct., 1922), 438-444.

75. Whittaker, Forrest Marion, "An ExperimentalStudy of the Relative Efficiency of Steel Pensand Fountain Pens in Teaching Penmanship,"(unublished Master's thesis, University ofSouthpern California, 19)4).

76. Wiles, Marian Elinbeth, "The Effect of Oil- ,ferent Sizes of Toots Upon the Handwriting ofBeginners," (Doctor's thesis, Harvard Univer-sity, 1940).

77. Winch, W. H., "Print-Script and Cursive-Scriptin Schools: An Investigation in Neuro-MuscularRe-adjustments," Forum of Edging:riot 4 (Juneand Nov., 1926), 123.138, 206-222.

78. Woodworth, R. S., "Best Movement for Hand-writing," Science, 10 (Nov., 1899), 679-681.

Research in SpellingThis report of spelling research is intended

to-provide, (1 ready reference for languageteachers to locate studies pertinent to areas offrequent interest and need. It is not a duplica-tion of the comprehensive reports of Horn(13), Fitzgerald (9), and others, but a selectedbibliographical listing of research, togetherwith an introductory reference section and adiscussion of research implications for the im-provement of modern spelling instruction. Amore comprehensive bibliography will be madeavailable In a National Conferente on Researchin English bulletin, to be published this yearby the National Council of Teachers of English.

IntroductionConant with spelling ability (25) and

achievenent is evident in the voluminous re-search completed during the past thirty years.Recognizing the fact that spelling is an integralpart of the writing (26)-reading (2, 27) andspeakinglistening (4, 29) facets of language,researchers have also interested themselves insocial and psychological interactions.

Research problems concerning perception(5) in terms of auditory-visual discrimination(5, 29) and imagery, also relate to such areasas generalizations; individual differences; 0:-thography; rules; phonetics (24, 27, 29);grouping of words; and retention (28). Con-siderable work has been done with regard toremedial teaching, including special attention

spellitt difficulty and superior pupils.Because spelling is an outgrowth of lan-

guage development (20), research has beendone with regard to speaking vocabularies (7)and writing vocabularies, with special attentionto adult vocabularies (3, 2, 19); child vocabu-larks (1); nonschool vocabularies; spelling

52

text vocabularies; and the overlap betweenchild and adult writing vocabularies (6)

Research involving methods of studyingspelling (9, 12, 13, 14) has been supplementedby research attention to such matters as: test...study vs. study-test (14 17, 21), the correctedtest (11, 17, 21), word presentation by listcontext, use of special equipment, homonyms,incidental teaching, syllabic presenta'lons andattention to syllables (15, 23), and word 'an-Oyes (23), including marking hard spots.'

Tied in with spelling methods IN studiesconcerning word lists and their use with coneelusions that are pro and con, time allotments,interest in spelling, motivation, and spellingneeds. Some interesting comparisons of itIttst:aortal materials with known research have beenmade for both spelling texts and workbooks.

Considerable research has also been comepleted relative to the evaluation of spelling(8). In connection with evaluation andmethods of instruction, significant work hasbeen completed with spelling scales (10),identification of difficult words, and spllingerrors (16), including initial errors.

some implications of research for theimprovement of i4oderto spellinglast :'action

Selection of words to be Itskiied: For thepurpose of security in most writing, a spellingprogram should be built around a central writ-ing core of from two to three thousand words(14). It is a waste of educational time to argue

over whether adult or child writing vocabu-laries should be the basis for the spelling courseof study; rather, the central core should In-

Dr. Horn is Professor of Education at theUniversity of Texas.

RESEARCH IN SPELLING

dude those high frequency words needed byboth children and adults (6). The extensionof individual writing vocabularies from thecentral core begins in the intermediate grades,at least, and continues throughoUt the student'sformal schooling (14). It is during this periodof extending and refining personal writingvocabularies that composition, creative writing,and such study skills as use of the dictionarymust carry, a major part of the instructionalload. The period of extending and refining isalso the time in which writing vocabulariesbecoMe more and more individualized, eventu-ally separating the fine writers from the medi-ocre ones (14).

Learning to spell: Recent surveys of spell-ing texts and workbooks indicate acceptanceand use of teaching methods which have beenshown to be inferior. One of the most wide-spread of such inferior methods is the contextual approach. Since Hawley and Galluppublished their early study, the list presentationof words has been shown to be more efficientthan contextual presentation (8).

The comprehensive study by Gates indi-cated the superiority of the test-study over thestudy-test method of spelling for the secondhalf of grade three and grades four throughsix. Subsequent studies completed more recentlyindicate the superiority of the teststudy ap.proach in grade two (11, 17, 21) and gradethree. Early objections to the test-study ap-proach on the basis of persistence of initialerrors proved to be unfounded.

As part of the test.study approach, the cor-rected test technique, in which each pupil cor-rects his own spelling test while the teacherspells each word orally, has been shown to bethe most efficient single procedure for learn-ing to spell (n, 17, 21). Other studies haveindicated the advantages of the corrected test,but not to the extent found in the studies justmentioned.

Syllabication seems to have some possibili.ties for improving spelling, though presenting

53

words visually in syllabified form or by sylla-bic pronunciation (15) seem to have no ad-vantage. As yet, the effect of a combined pre-sentation of visual syllabication and syllabicpronunciation has not been tested.

The most promising form of word analysisand use of spelling rules appears to relate tosuffixes (9). Marking the hard spots in wordshas little or no value.

Although some recent studies have exploredthe possibilities of teaching phonic generali-zations, it is clear that only those generalizationswhich have few exceptions and apply to manywords should be used There Is little doubt thatthe numerous soundto-letter relationships, with

. their consistencies and Inconsistencies, shouldbe a part of spelling instruction. However, therole of phonics In spelling instruction shouldbe supplemental to the direct study of neededwords, not as a substitute for direct study.

The many studies on relationships betweenreading and spelling, and investigations con-cerning incidental learning show that, for manypupils, a substantial number of words arelearned incidentally through reading. Unfor-tunately, the relationships have misled someeducators to conclude that each spelling wordshould be presented in a contextual setting,both for the visual impact and for purposes ofdeveloping meaning. While teachers mustcheck constantly for erroneous or inadequatelydeveloped meanings, the basic core of spellingwords has ordinarily been in the pupils speak.ing, understanding, and reading vocabulariesfor some time. It is through the use of theteststudy method, utilizing the corrected test,that words already known through incidentallearning are identified and pupil study is ap-plied only to those words which they do notknow how to spell (14).

Teachers have long noticed that childrenmay spell words correctly on tests, then mis-spell them in written work in other curricularareas. This is almost always a sign of poorly

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

developed spelling consciousness and con-science. Students must be shown that spelling1$ personally important to them, that the wordsthey are learning are those most likely to beneeded in both the present and the future,that the study methods being used are efficient,that spelling is important in practically all writ-ing situations and not just the spelling period,that they are making progress in spelling as aclass and as individuals and that satisfactionand pride in good spelling are worthwhile (14).No less important than pupil attitudes towardspelling are teacher attitudes. Dull, lackluster,perfunctory attention to spelling holds littlehope for satisfactory spelling achievement.

Eva Wolof; of spelling: Standardized testsprovide objective measures of spelling ability,are simple to administer, inexpensive in costand use of time, and the results lend themselvesto statistical analyses (14). Useful as standard-ized tests Lre, teachers should understand certaininherent issues, such as validity and reliabilityof the tests (8, 14). The use of spelling scales(10) should also be helpful if their limitationsare recognized (8, 14).

Teachers sometimes suggest that true evalu-ation of spelling ability lies in the generalwritings of children (14). Measurement ofthis kind does have validity in terms of spell.ing needs and does indicate to the students theimportance of spelling in all areas. However,adequate evaluation of the general writings ofchildren is extremely expensive in the use ofteacher time and the time required for ratherunwieldy tabulations. This method is not asprecise as others and the results are oftendifficult to Interpret (14).

A defensible solution to the problem ofadequate spelling evaluation is the use of astandardized testing program conducted an.nually, probably each January. This may thenbe supplemented by teacher and pupil attentionto correct spelling in other areas and consistentconcern with pupil, teacher, and parent stdtudes and reactions toward spelling (14).

Extended Bibliography on Spelling1. Aaron, Ira E., The Relationship "of Auditory.

Visual Discrimination to Spelling Ability.Doctor's thesis. University of Minnesota,1954.

2. Abbott, Edwina E., "On the Analysis of theFactor of Retail in the Learning Process."In Colvin, S. S. (ed.), Studies froin thePsychological Laboratory of the Universityof Illinois, Volume 1, Number 1 (159-177),Psychological Monographs, Volume 11, Num-ber 1 (1909).

3. Abbott, Edwina E., "On the Analysis of theMemory Consciousness in Orthography," InColvin, S. S. (ed.), Studies from the Psy.chological Laboratory of the Univers**, ofIllinois Volume 1, Number 1 (127-158),Psychological Monographs, Volume II,Number 1 (1909),

4. Acomb, Allan, A Study of the PsychologicalFactors in Reading Itnd Spelling. Master'sthesis. Boston University, 1936,Adkins, Margaret M., "Relationships Involv.ing Particular Syndrome FactorsRelated to School uccess," Physique, Per.sonality and Sch rship. Monographs ofthe Society for Research in Child Develop.ment, National Research Council, Volume8, Serial Number 34, Number 1 (1943),503-533; 583-638.

6. Alien, R. D., and others, MetropolitanAchtevement Tests. New York; World Book,1946.

7. American College Dictionary, Barnhart,Clarence L. (ed.). New York: RandomHouse, 1953.

8. Andersen, V. N., Determination of a Spell-ing Vocabulary Based upon Written Cor-respondence. University of Iowa Studies inEducation, Volume 2, Number 1 (1921).

9. Anderson, Marion, "Quality of the AdultWriting Vocabulary,' Elementary EnglishReview, 11 (May, 1934), 135-138.

10. Archer, C. P., "Shall NVe Teach Spellingby Rule?" Elementary English Review, 7(March, 1930), 61.63.Archer, C. P., Transfer of Training in Spell.tog. University of Iowa Studies in Edu-cation, Volume 5, Number 5 (1930).

12. Ashbaugh, E. J., The Iowa Spelling Scales.low Ednal of Educational Research MAO-WON. Number 3. Bloomington, Illinois:Public School Publishing ComPanY, 1922.

13. Ashbaugh, E. j., "Non- school English ofHigh School Students," Journal of Educa-tional Research, 15 (May, 1927). 307413.

14. Atkins, Samuel, The Learning indices andStudy Methods of School Children in Spell-ing. Master's thesis. University of Minnesota,100.

15. Ayer, F. C., A Study of High School Spell.ing Vocabulary. Austin, Turas: The SteckCom4arky, too.

5.

11.

16. Ayer, P. aC, "An Evaluation of High-SchoolS lli236ng,' School Review, 59 (April, 1931)

ROSEARCH IN $PBLLING

L. P., A'Aleaspring Scale for Ability 37,3Peillog.- New York: Rus.sell Sage Faun-

dation,' 1915.Ayers, L. P. The Spelling Vocabularies of

ersonal rind Business Leiters. New York: 38.OSsell , Sage' Po'undation 1913.

COO& alkit on Spaing4Achtepenieni. Masinalt Oleritt The influence. of atoll')

ter's ,t University of Iowa, 1949.Baker,'- J. Educational and,Cdie Stu 'tea in Reinedial Teachmg. 13loorn-

1111Oolsi Publi0 - 34601 Publishing _ConiPanY, 1929: 40

21.-%Beatiy, Dorothy -A 'Comparison Of .1Y0o'Methods_ of Teacing Doctor's'

VIIIVONtr= 10Wa 1W.!IMMO, L9utse, An Alphabetical Approach

' to thcreaching-ol Reading irt Crade One. 41.0i s -thesis, University of Iowa, 1954.

. its, . A.,:-"Inter-relationships of Read-ing and

ESpelling," Elementary English Re-

view, 22 (January; 1945), 13-23. 42.Betts, E. Second Spel/ing $tuditi NewYork: 'Arnedean Book Company 1 9.

25. Betts, E. A., Spelling Vocabulary Stu y. New 43.York: American Book Company, 1940.

26.: Nisi A, 0, General Experimental Psi/cholaf&4New York: Longman's, Green & Co, 44.

27. Blair', Glenn hi., Diagnostic and RemedialTeaching, Chapter 10. New York: Mae- 45.miller:, 1956.

28. Bloomer, Richard H., "Word L ongth andComplexity Variables in Spelling Difficulty"Journal of Educational Research, 49 (March,1950), 531 -535.Bond, C. A., Tenth-Grede gliiititS andAchievements. Contributions to .'?duration,No, 813. New York: Teachers Co-lumbia Universit 1940. 47.Bradford, HenryY F., "Oral-A rat, Differ.

among Basic Speech Lomas as aFactor in Spelling Beadiness,' Cowden 48.School Journal, 54 (February, 193-1), !)-54-3582

31. Breed, F. S., How to Teach Spelling. Dans-

panville,

N. Y.: F. A. Owen Publishing Com-y, 1930. .

32, Brittaln, Frances and J. A. Fitzgerald,49

"Vocabulary and Spelling Errors of Sec-ond-Crade Children s Themes, Elementary 50.gglish Review, 19 (February, 1942), 43-

33. Brody, D. S., "A Comparative Study ofDifferent Forms of Spelling Test," Journal ofEducational Psychology, 35 (March, 1944),129-144. 51.

34. Brown. Corinne B. "Teaching Spelling kitha Tachistoscope," English Journal, 40 (Feb-ruary, 1951 , 104.105.

35. Browning, ulia M., Writing Vocabularies;a Study Significant New Words in theUnited States Since 1928. Master's thesis.The University of 'texas, 1957. 52.

38. Bruecluier, L. J., and E. 0. Melby, Diag-nostic and Remedial Teaching, Chapter X.Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931. 53.

49.

29.

30,

48.

Biltking)ans, B. R. This Buckingham Extin!soon of the Ayres Spelling Seidel.ton, 111inois: Public School NblishinilCompany, 1918.Buckingham, B, R., Sfiellittg Ability, ItsAlcaiurcincni and Distribution, Contribu-dons to Education, Number 59. New Yak:Teaehgri College; Columbia Untversity,,1913, _

BurnhaM, H., "The Hygiene and Psy- '-chologY of Pedagoglea Semitiary,13 ( r,BurroWs" Alvjni: T., "St eettlence Learnt:44

hulls ar Problems, hiladelphialIn Yietopoints . On. Educational

men s Week P 'tags, University ofPennsylvania-a 1952.Calhoun, Robert -T., "A Comparison of a.-. -Typical anti n Intensive Method of Teich.ing Spelling, Eionentary: School Journal,55 (November, 1954); 154-157.Carey N.-"FactOrs in the Mental Processes,of ,Sefaiol Children,* British Journal of Pfol --chology, 7 ()March, -1914.1915),'' 45,3.490:Carmen, E. )Cute

Journal"The Cause 1>f Chronic

Bad Spelling.,u Of Pedagogy, 13(October, 1900), 88-91.Cat; Harvey, Distribution of Effort," Psy-c2ho8-logical Bulletin, 16 (January, 1919),

28.Carrell, James, and Kathleen PendergaSt,"An Experimental Study of the Possible Re-lat;c4o between Errors of Speech and Spell-ing, Journal of Speech and nearing Dis-orders, 19 (September, 1954), 327.334,Carroll, H. A., Generalizations of Bright andDull Children. Contributions to pcluctItioh,Number 439. New York: Teachers College,Columbia University' 1930.Chase, W. Linwood, "fu_bjeet Prefeteneqof Fifth-Grade Children," Elementary SchoolJournal, 50 (December, 1949), 204.7211._,Coast, Alice 11., Thg,Phonetro Background in -

Reading and Spelling in the First TwoGrades and Its Influent y upon Spelling inthe Third Guide. Master's thesis. Universityof Iowa, 1927.Cole, _Luella, Psychology of the ElementarySchool Subjects. New York: Farrar, Strausand Cudahy, 1934, 88-114.Columba, Sister M., A Study of the Interestsand Their Rotations to Other Factors ofAchievement in Elementary School Strli.lects. Catholic University of America, Edu-cational Research Bulletin, Volume 1, Num-ber 7, 1926.Colvin, S. S., and E. J. Meyers, "TheDevelopment of Imagination in School Chli-dren. in Colvin, S. S. (cd.), Studies fromthe Psi chologfeet Laboratory of the UM-versify of Minas Volume 1, Number 1(85-128). Psychological Monographs, Vol -fume 11, Number 1 (1909).Comerford, Joseph, Perceptual Abilitiesfn Spelling. Doctor's thesis. Boston Uni-versity, 1954.Cook, W, W., The Measurement of General

BLUMENTARY gNOLISH

Inv 404 Coriirolifd cos.potions Betwieen TechntqueS, triversityof Iowa Studies in Education, Volume 6,Number 8, 1932,

B4.;Itkelign.reibteirSissi tahritsci.

5. GleuVrittu' Pratelricel,44"49:147i-Print and Be.Wnning Reading and Elementary. ,Eaug, Eeoiete,_13, (April, 1936), 138441,

58. bai, Edgar, Biblia'graph y- of Vocabulariitudies. BureaU of Educational Research,

Ohio State University, 1949.57. 041ton, ?..f, :4 Visual of 50®

School Children, Journal of ducationalResearch, 37 (October 1843b. 1-04-

58, -Darngeard,'4heMia 14: Auditory Acuityand Discrimination as Factors in SpellingCompetence. Doctor's thesis. Stanford lint-versity, 1956.

59. Davis, Bennie Joe, A Study of the Vocal).ulary Overlap between Words Written byChildren and Words Written by Adults.Master's thesis. The University of Texas,1954.

60. Davis, Georgia, "Remeclial Work In Spell-ing," Elementary School Journal, 27 (Apr,),1921), 615-626.

81. Davis, Nom L. A Critical Analysis of Spa-in Textbooks Currently Used in the UnitedStates: Study II. Master's thesis. The Uni-versity ot Texas, 1955.

62. Deacon, Lawrence, "The Teaching of Spell-ing Can Become Too Individualized," Edu-cation, 76 (January, 1058), 300-302.

63. Delloer, John 'Oral and Written Lan-guage," Review of Educational Research, 25(April, 1955), 112.120.

64. Delacato, Cart H., "A Comparison of TwoMethods of Teaching Spelling. Elemer.targgnglish, 29 (January, 1952), 28-80,

65. Dickerson, Douglas 1', "Misleadings versusActualities In Spelling," American SchoolBoard Journal, 120 (February, 1950), 33-

68. Dillon, Bessie, The Writing Vocabulary ofFifth, Sixth, Seventh, and 'Eighth GradePupils. 'Master's thesis. University of Chi-cago, 1932.

67. Diserens, C. M., and James Vaughn, "TheExperimental Psychology of Motivation,"Psychologleat Bulletin, 28 (January, 1931),15-65.

88. Dobson, E. J., English eronunciation 1500-1700, Volume I, Chapters 2, 3, 4. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1957.

69. Doyle, Andrew M., "A Study of SpellingAchievement,' Catholic Educational Review,48 (March, 1050), 171-174.

70. Durrell, Donald I),, Improving Reading In-StrUCtiOt1 287-283: Tarrytown-on-Hudson,New Yolks World Book, 1956.

71. Duckworth, Roma Frances, Semantic De-velopment in Beginning Otal Languages: ACase Study. Master's thesis. The Universityof Texas, 1954.

' _

72. Edwards, Mary Attn IVO*, An t 0444660of Carts- Sas' Instructiorwl PrOBrorb

eftilasi Mu. ter s thesis. The _Unliersity- of

73. Elledge, ',or Eben, Adak,Writing nea era .,fruReaders 8 t -F te th

7957h8mitteg.in Master's--

74. Ettpyc edict Ikritandiefiti_Volinne -1,7;of Teta; 1955.

7/Q.. citgo,_ Illinois! Enc9clopaatatannicia,14., 1952

78. Evans, AMC Valk141i4:11 of SPCflifig sA Study o/ the SOCaVerlid 01 Watcrf cot-tamed in the .=Tests .and Spatet, Mastersthesis. University of Iowa; 1927',

76, Evans, -Edith ,- The Signi$cenee'nf ,Errors in Spelling. Mitter's thesis, Univeisityof Iowa; 1927.

77. Falrhuest, Susie S., "Psychological Analysis -iand Educational Method in Spelling,port, British- Association for the Advance-- _I-ment of Science, 83 (1$13);-302-304; -;_-

78. Farrar, Joe, "Are Spelling Needs Local?".Elementary English Review, 1 (June,143-145.

79. Fernald, Grace, "Report of ExperimentalWork with Poor Spellers and Non-Readerswith Applications to Normal Children," in -

14. M. Tema» and others, intelligence Testsmid School Reorganization, 103-109- rty-town-on-Hudson, New York: World DOM1923,

80. Fernald, Mabel R., The Diagnosis of Men-gal 1144$01/. PSVC1101010041 140.10graphl, ,

Volume 14, Number 1 (1912),81. Fitzgerald, James A., A Basic Life Spell; 4)7

ing Vocabulani. Milwaukee: Bruce Publish.

82. Fitzgerald, James A., 'Letters Written Out-.ing Company, 1951. .-side the Sc ool by Children of the Fourth

-

+-

Fifth, and Sixth Grades: A Study o)Vocabulary, Spelling Errors, and Situation.University of Iowa Studies in Education,Volume 9 Number 1, (1034), 7.50, _

83. Fitzgeraki, James A. "fiesenrob *it'ing and Handwriting " Review of Educe,-aortal Rematch, 22 (41.pril, 1952), 89-95,

84. Fitzgerald, James A., Spehing Words Difil-cult for Children In Grades 11-V," Elemen-tary School Journal, 53 (December, 1952),221-228.

85. Fitzgerald, James A., "The Teaching ofSpelling," Elementary English, 30 (Febru-ary, 1953), 79-85.

86. Fitzgerald, James A., The Teaching of Spell-ing. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Com-pany, 1951.

87. Fitzgerald, James A., _"The V,Nibulary andSpelling Errors of Third-Craue Children'sLife-Letters," Elementary, School Journal,38 (March, 1938) 518-527.

88. Fitzgerald, James A., "Words MisspelledMost Frequently by Children of the Piand Sixth Grade Levels in Life Outside

f!'s4' -,!

RBSBARCH IN

Journal ,o/ Educational Research;26 (November, 1932), 213-218.

tr,d, Hazel,- Cases of Spelling Disabilitk:left Diagnosis and Treatment. Masters

thesix, University. of Chicago, 1921,90. Forint, Tk O.; Th Psychology and Teaching

Spelling. WasklagtOn, D. O.: CatholichslutatiOn Press,

School91,, rcklano, Corge, bcnoot Learning wish, Van-.ous Afelhods Of Practice and newer , Con-tactile:is ;to Eclueation, Number 688. NewYorkt Teacher* College, Columbia Uni-ves1ty 1936, pp. 9-54.

= - O2.-'o, V, H. and M. T. Eaton Analysts ofthe Spelling Pncy of 82,433 Pupils inGrades 2 to n a 647 Teaching Units of the

. City SchoolsSiin indiana. Indiana UniversityBulletin of the School of Education, Vol-

: ume la, Number 2, 1946-93. Francis, May E. A Sitrtiew f0 Determine the

Writing Vocabulary and Spelling Ability in4,4f* Grades Two to Seven Inclusive. Doctor's

thesis. 'the University of Texas, 1934.94. Freeman, F. N. 'Survey of Manuscript

tVriting in the Public Schools," ElementarySchool Journal, 46 (March, 1940). 375-380.

= 95, Fry, (they, The School Vocabulary of FirstGrade Children. Master's thesis. Universityof Oklahoma, 1931.

96, Furness, Edna L. "Pink Pills for a PaleSpelling Situation," American School BoardJournal, 113 (July, 1956), 17-18.

97. Callaspy, Sibyl 'ancher, A Critical Analysisof Spelling Textbooks Currently Used in theUnited States. Master's thesis. The Universityof Tea', 1954.

98. Carriota, S. C., and Minnie T. Heard, "AnLsperimental Study of the Value of Pilo-

.- neties," Peabody Journal of Education, 9(July, 1931), 9-14.

99. (tato:, A. 1., "An Experimental Comparisonof the Study-Test and Test-Study Methodsin Spelling. Journal of Education 141/-elrology, 22 (January,. 1931), 1.19.

100. Cato:, A. I The Psychology of Reading andSnelling lath Special Reference to Disabilitv.Contributions to Education, Number 129.Nese York: Teachers College, Columbialiniver.ity, 1922.

101. Cates. A. I "A Study of the Role ofPerception, Intelligence, and Cer-

tain As...pciative Processes in Reading andJournal of Educational Psychology,

17 (October, 1928), 433-445.102. Cates, A. 1,, and Esther H. Chase, "Methods

and Theories of Learning to Spell Testedby Studies of Deaf Children" Journal ofMucational Psychology, 17 (May, 1928),289-300.

103. Cates, A. I., and others. Educational Psy-chology, Third Edition, Chapter 12. NewYork: Macmillan 1949.

104. Cate., A. I., and D. H. Russell, Diagnosticand Remedial Spelling Manual. New York:Teachers College, Columbia University,l97.

105.

106.

107.

108.

109.

Gilbert, I. C. "A Cenetic Study of GrowthIn Perceptual Habits in Spelling," Ele-mentary School Journal, 40 (Jannary, 1940)i346-357.Oilbert, L. C., "Effect of Reading. on Spell-ing in the Moth Crade,', School Rooky). 42(March, 1934)97-204 _

Gilbert, L. C. ", 1Effect

of.

Reading on $pell-ing in the Secondary Schools,' CaliforniaQuarter10 Secondary Education, 9 (April, -1934),,Gilbert L. C.,'.`Experirriental-lneestigatior:of a Flas1s:Card Method. of Teaching .5011-ing," Elementary School -journal, 32 (Jan..'.uary, 1932), 337-351,Gilbert, L. O., An Experimental Znoes.tigatiatt -of -Eye Movement in Learning to - SpellWords. Psychological Monographs,' Volume43, Number 3, 1.932. - "

110. Gilbert, L. C. 'A Study of tbe.Effec of- Reading on dpelling, journal- Of . e,duca-Research, 28 (April, loas)--srarro,

Gilbert, L. a, ano Doris W. GlIf)ert,Improvement of Spelling Through Reading,journal 01 Educational Research, 31 (Pebrit-ary, 1944), 458-463.Gilbert, L. C. and Doris W. Cilbert, Train- -

trig for Speed and Accitrac o Visual Per- =

tception in Learning to Spell. nlversity -ofCalifornia Publications In Education, Vol-ume 7, Number 5 1942, pp. 351-426.Green, H. A. and H. L. Bal)enger, IowaLanguage Abilities To, Tarryt own-on-f114-son, N. Y.: World Book, 1948.

114. Greene, Harry A. anl others, Meaciremenisand Evaluation in the Elementary School,439-448. New York: Longmans, Green andCo., 1953.

115. Greene, Harry A., The New Iowa SpellingScale. University of Iowa, 1954.

116. Greenwood, Forest, A Study of SpellingDtblculty on a High School Senior Level.Master's thesis. University of Iowa, 1929,

117. Cutler, W. S., "Primary-Grade Words Fre-quently Misspelled by Higher-Grade Pupils,'Elementary School Journal, 44 (January,1944), 295400.

118. Cutler. W. S., and C. A. Lease, "An Experi-mental Study of Methods of Instruction inSpelling," Elementary School Journal, 43(December, 1942), 234-238.

119. Hanna, Paul R and James T. Moore, Jr.,"Spelling-From Spoken Word to WrittenSymbol, Elementary School Journal, 53(February, 1953), 329-337.Hanson, Bernice Wyant, A Functional Sec-ond Grade Spelling Program Based on theNeeds of Children. Master's thesis. Stan-ford University, 1949.Harder, K. C., "The Relative Efficiency ofthe 'Separate' and 'Together' Methods ofTeaching Homonyms," Journal of Experi-mental Education, 6 (September, 1937), 7-23.

122. Harris, Oliver E., "An Investigation ofSpelling Achievements of Secondary-S:hool

120.

121.

ELIIMBNTARY ENGLISH

Pupils," Educational Administration andSuPervision_, 34 (April, 1048), 219.

and

HartMan, (.;. :W., "The Relative Influence of 141.Visual and Auditory Factors in SpellingActivity," Journal of Educational Nicholatm22 (DeeeMbet,`1931) 691-699. 142.

124. Hawley; W. V. and Jackson Gallup, "Thelist' vertu,' d ,lentenee Methods ofTeaching Spelling,' journal Of EducationalResearch, 5( April, 1922), 308-310.

125. Hays, Martha L. The Spelling Ability ofNoma; Training Students High School.Mastet's thesis, University of Iowa, 1930.

128. Henmen, V. A. C., ."The Relation between 143.Mode of Presentation and Retention," Psy-chologiccl Review, 19 (March, 1012), 79-

Henry,27. H Marjorie M., A Critical Analysis ofSpelling 'Workbooks Currently Used in theUnited States: I. Master's thesis. The Uni- 144.versity of Texas, 1953.

128. Hibler, Gladys H. The Test-Study Methodversus the Study-Test Method of Teaching 145.Spelling in Grade Two: Study I. Master'sthesis. The University of Texas, 1957.

129. Hildreth, Gertrude, "An Evaluation of 148.Spellinsi, Word Lists and VocabularyStudies, Elementary School Journal, 51filanua, 1051), 254-265.

130. ildreth,rY

Gertrude, Teaching Spelling. NewYork: Henry Holt, 1955. 147.

131. Hilcireth, Gertrude, "Word Frequency as aFactor in Learning to Read and Spell,' Jour-nal of Educational Research, 41 (February,1048), 487-471.

132. Hayfield, Elizabeth Scoggins Studies ofAdult Writing Vocabularies, V111: Lettersto the Editor In Forty-Four Copies of theNew York Times. January, 1954, to October,1954. Master's thosis. The University ofTexas, 1955.

133. Hollingworth, Leta S., The Psychology ofSpecial Disability in Spelling. Contributionsto Education, Number 88. New YorksTeachers College, Columbia University,1918.

134. Hollingworth, Leta S., Special Talents andDefects. New York: Macmillan, 1923.

135. Holmes, Jack A., "A Substrata Analysis ofSpelling Ability for dements of AuditoryImages,* Journal of Experimental Education,22 (june, 1954), 329-349.

138. Horn, Ernest, A Baste Writing Vocabulary.University of Iowa Monographs in Edu-cation, First Series, Number 4, 1928. 153.

137. Horn, Ernest, "The Child's Early Experi-ences with the Letter A," Journal of Edu-cational Psychology, 20 (March, 1929),161.168. 154.

138. Horn, Ernest, "The Incidental Teaching ofSpelling," Elementary English Review, 14(January, 1937), 3-5. 155.

139. Horn, Ernest, "Influence of Past Experiencesupon Spelling," journal of Educational Re-search, 19 (April, 1929), 283-288.

140.' Horn, Ernest, Phonetics and Spelling," Ele- 158.

148.

149.

150.

151.

152.

rnentary School Journal, 57 (May, 1957),424-432Horn, irnest, "Phonics and Spelling," Jour-nal of Education, 136 (May, 1954), 233-35, 246.Horn, Ernest, "Primary Spelling.", "Spellingfor the Intermediate Grades, "TeachingSpelling in the Junior High School," M M.B. Hillegas and T, H. Thomas, The' Clam.won Teacher, Volum; II pp, 539-500; Vol-ume VII, pp. 581 if Volume X, pp. 451470. Chicago: The Classroom Teacher; Inc.,1927,Horn, Ernest, "Principles of Method InTeaching Spellings as Derived from Scien-tific Investigation," Eighteenth Yearbook,National Society for the Study of Education,Part 1 52.77. Bloomington, Illinois: PublicSchool Publishing Company, 1919. :-Horn,- Ernest, "Research in Spelling," Ele-mentary English Review, 21 (January,1944). 8-13.Horn, Ernest, "Spelling," Encyclopedia ofEducational Research. Chester W. Harris,(ed.). New York: Macmillan, 1960.Horn, Ernest, "Teaching Spelling," WhatResearch Says to the Teacher, Departmentof Classroom Teachers and American Edu-cation Research Association, Washington,D. C., 1954.Horn, Ernest, "The Validity and Reliabilityof Adult Writing Vocabulary Lists," Ele-mentary English Review, 16 (April, 1939),129-134.Horn, Madeline (chairman), Slight ofthe Vocabulary of Children before Enteringthe First Grade. International KindergartenUnion, (now Association for ChildhoodEduce tion ) , 1928.Horn, Thomas , D., "How Syllables CanHelp in Spelling,' Education, 78 (January,1956), 291-295.Horn, Thomas D., "Learning to Spell asAffected by Syllabic Presentation of Words,"Elementary School Journal, 49 (January,1949), 263-272.Horn, Thomas 1)., "Some Issues in Learningto Spell,' Education, 79 (December, 1958),229 -233.Horn Thomas D., and Henry I. Otto Spell-ing -ing Instruction: A Curriculum-Wide *Ap-proach. The University of Texas, Bureauof Laboratory School Publication Number2, Austin, 1954.Horn, Thomas D. "The Effect of the Ctn.-rected Test on Learning to Spell,' Ele-mentary School Journal, 47 (January, /947),277.2WHorn, Thomas D. "What's New In WordsThese 1)0%1;5 Education, 79 (December,1958),Houser, J. D "An Investigation of theWriting Vocabularies of Representatives ofan Economic Class," Elementary SchoolJournal, 17 (June, 1917), 708-718.Hudson, Jess W. S., and Lola Toler, "Instrue-


tion in Auditory_ and Visual Discriminationas a Means of Improving Spelling,' Elemen-tary School Journal, 49 (April, 1949), 46°-469,

151. Humphrey, Marana 0, The Effect of aSyllabic Pronunciation of Words upon Learn-Mg to Spell. Master's thesis. The Univer-sity of Texas, 1954.

158. Hunter, W. S., "LearnIngt IV, ExperimentalStudies of Learning." In Carl MurchisonPed.) A Handbook of General Experimentalsychology, 497-570. Clark University Press,

159. lowa Tests of Basic Skills, (E. F. Lindquistand A. N. Hieronymus, general editorS).University of Iowa, published annually.

160. Jackson, Joseph, "The Influence If WordAnalysis upon Spellie;; Attainment,' Journalof Educational Research, 47 (October,1953), 107118.

161. jerde, W. J., Mastery of Basic LanguageSkills by One-Room Rural Teaches in Twoi01441 Counties. Master's thesis. Universityof Iowa, 1937.

162. Jesperson, Otto, Growth and Structure ofthe English Language. Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1930.

163. Johnson, Leslie \V. "One Hundred WordsMost Often Misspelled by Children in theElementary Grades,' Journal of EducationalResearch, 44 (October, 105), 154-155.

104. Jones, W. F., Concrete investigation of theMaterial of English Spelling. University ofSouth Dakota, 1915.

165. Kay, Marjorie E., "The Effect of Errors inPronunciation upon Spelling," ElementaryEnglish Review, 7 (March, 1930), 64-68.

166. Keele, Jewel Stanley, A Study of the Varia-tions and Misspellings of Anglo-Americanand Spanish-American Children. Master'sthesis. The University of Texas, 1953.

167, Kelley, Truman L., and others, StanfordAchievement Tests. Tarrytown-on-Hudson,New York: World Book, 1953.

168. Kenyon, J. S., American Pronunciation. AnnAibor, Michigan: Ceorge SVahr PublishingCompany 1950.

169. Kei yon, J. S., and T. A. Knott, A Pro-noureng Dictionary of American English.Springfield, Massachusetts: G. and C. Mer-riam, 1944.

170. Keyser, Margaret Lee, The Incidelttal Learn-ing of Spelling through Four Types of WordPresereation in Reading. Doctor's thesis.Boston University, 1948.

171. Killgallon, Patsy A., A Study of Relation-ships among Certain Pupil Adlustments inLanguage Situations. Doctor's thesis. Penn-sylvania State College, 1942.

172. Kilzer, L. R., "The Test-Study Methodversus the Study-Test Method in TeachingSpelling," School Review, 34 (Septembs r,1926), 521-525.

173. King, Luella M., Learning and ApplyingSpelling Rules in Grades Three to Eight.Contributions to Education, Number 517.

59

New York: Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity, 1932.

174. Knoell, Dorothy M. and Chester W. Harris,"A Factor Analysis of Spelling Ability;journal of Educational Research, 46 (Octo-ber, 1052), 9$411.

175. Krueger, W. C: F., "The Effect of Over-learning on Retention," Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 12 (February, 1929),71-78.

176. Kuratb, Hans (ed.), Linguistic Atlas ofNo, England, 3 volumes. Brown University,1939-43.

177. Kyte, George C. and Virginia M. Neel,"A Core of Spelling Words, ElementarySchool journal, 54 (September, 1953), 29-34.

178. Kyte, George C., "Maintaining Ability Croup-. ing in Snelling," Phi Delta Kappan, 30(.April, 1949), 301308,

179. Larson, Irene M., Time Allotment in theTeaching of Spelling. Master's thesis. Univer-sity of Iowa, 1945.

180. Ledbetter, Bernise IC., The Test-StudyMethod versus the Study-Test Method ofTeaching Spelling In Grade Two: Stud_v 111.Master's thesis. The University of Texas,1959.

181. Love, Virginia, A Critical Analysis of Spell-ing Workbooks Currently Used in theUnited States: 11. Master's thesis. The Uni-versity of Texas, 1953.

182. Ludes, Titus FL, A Survey of the SpellingErrors Found in the Undirected Writingsof Catholic Elementary and Secondary SchoolPupils in the United States. Doctors thesis.Fordham University, 1955.

183. Luh, C. W. The Conditions of Retention.Psychological Monographs, Volume 81, Num-ber 3 (1922).

184. McBroorn, Maude, The Course of Study inWritten Composition for the ElementaryGrades. University of Iowa Monographs inEducation, First Series, Number 10 (1020.

185. McCloskey, Frances. C. H., Adult Vv'ritingVocabukrie.s: An Analysis of Semantic Vaal.Bons between 1930-1958 of Words in CurrentUse, Study 111. Muster's thesis. The Univer-sity of Texas, 1959.

186. McCarthy, Dorothea "Language Develop-ment in Children." In Leonard Carmichael(ed.), Manual of Child Psychology, ChapterX. New York: John Wiley, 1946.

187, McCann, Letitia Smartt, Writing Vocabu-laries: A Comparison of the Nature, Extentsand Mobility of Child and Adult WritingNeeds. Master's thesis. The University ofTexas, 1955.

188. McCarthy, Dorothea, "Language Develop-ment in Children." In Leonard Carmichael(ed.), Manual of Child Psychology, ChapterIX. New York: John Wiley, 1954.

189. MeCreight, Russell W., A Study in theMeasurern.lit of Spelling. Doctor's thesis.University of Iowa, 1955.

190. McFarland, W. Ii., "Relation between Spell-

60ELEMENTARY ENGLISH

Mg Judgment and Spelling Abilit" Mid-land Schools, 31 (September, 1910 19-21.191, Mc Gooch, J. A., he Pnchology o Human

Learriing. New York: Longmans, Crcen,1942.

192. NieCovney, Margarita, 'Spelling Deficiencyin Children of Superior General Ability,"Elementary English Review, 7 (June, 1930),148-148.

193. McKee, Paul, Compilation of the Vocabu-lary of Children's Themes and Letters. Un-published study. Colorado State College ofEducation.

194. McKee, Paul, Teaching and Testing Spellingby Column and Context Form. Doctor's the-sis. University of Iowa, 1924.

195. McMahon, Nannette L., The Effect of Omit-ting the R Sound of Words in HabitualPronunciaiion upon the Spelling of ThoseWords. Master's thesis. University of Iowa,1931.

196. Mack, Esther, An Inxstigation of the Im-portance of Various Word Analysis Zhilitiesin Reading and Spelling A ',Ievement. Doc-tor's thesis. Boston Ilnivet .ty, 1953.

197. Martin, Sister Mary Elizabeth, A Comparisonof Sixth Grade Children's Ability to SpellStudied and Unstudied Words. Master'sthesis. University of Iowa, 1931.

198. Mason, Geoffrey P., "Word Discriminationand Spelling," Journal of Educational Re-search, 50 (April, 1957), 617-621.

199. Meredith, Cameron W., "Personality andSocial Development During Childhood andAdolescence," Review of Educational Re.seareh, 25 (December, 1955), 409-476.

200. Maude A., On the Relation of In-telligence to. Achievement in the Care ofitf fatly Retarded Children. ComparativePsy. hology Monographs, Volume 2, Number10 (1924).

201. Mitchell, P. S. The Writing Vocabulary/ ofChildren in the Southern States. Master'sthesi... University of Chicago, 1932.

202. Monroe, W. S. and M. D. Engelhart, Stim-ulating Learning Activity. University ofIllinois Bulletin, Volume 28, Number 1.Bureau of Educational Research Bulletin,Number 51 (1930).

203. Montgomery, Margret A., The Test-StudyMethod versus the Study-Test Method ofTeaching Spelling in Grade Two: Study11. Master's thesis. The University of Texas,1957.

204. Moore, James T. Phonetic Elements in aThree-Thousand 'Word Spelling Vocabulary.Doctor's thesis. Stanford University, 1951.

205, MONO; Maurine Ktrykendall, Studies ofAdult Writing Vocabularies, III: Letters tothe Editors in Forty-Two Copies of theLadies' Home journal September, 1050-June,1054. Masters thesis, The University ofTexas, 1955.

208. Morton, Myrtle O., A Study of the Plepara.tion Of Normal Training Students for Teach-Iry Certair Baste Skills. Master's thesis,University Of 1938,

207. Murray, Elsie, "3'he Spelling Ability offColiege

Students" of EducalottaiPsychology, 10 (October, 1919), 357-370.208. Nance, Bonnie Leo, Studies of Adult Writing

Vocabularies, I: Letters to the Editors, TheSaturday Everting Post, May 2, 1953, toApril 24, 1954. Mister's thesis. The Univer-sity of Texas, 1054.

209. National Conference on Research In Eng.;lash, J, Con-ad Seegers (chairman), "Vocabu--lary Problems in the Elementary School."Seventh Annual Research Bulletin. ChicagotScott, Foresman 1939.

210. National Education Association, Department = 1of Superintendents "A List of Spellingmons' for the junior High School," FifthYearbook, 1927, 114.120.

211. National Education Association, Departmentof Superintendents, Research in Constructingthe Elementary School Curriculum. ThirdYearbook, 1925.

212. National Education Association, ResearchDivision, The Three Ns Bold Their Own atMidcentury, 1951.213. National Society for the Study of Education,

Teaching Language in the ElementarySchool, Forty-third Yearbook, Part II, 1044.214. Nelson, Marion McFarland, Studies of AdultWriting Vocabularies V: Letters to theEditors in Seventy-Three Daily Copies ofthe San Francisco Chronicle August 18,1954-November 30, 1954. Masters thesis.The University of Texas 1955.

215. Nichols, Augusta M., The Analysis andCorrection of Spelling Difficulties," Elemen-tary School Journal, 50 (November, 1949),154-181.

216. Obermann, Margaret H., A Study of theDegree to Which the Written Vocabulary ofChildren Ilas Been Determined. Mastersthesis. University of Iowa, 1933.9,17. Orr, T. A.. A Study of Misspelled WordsInLetters Written by Sixth Grade Pupils,Master's thesis. Birmingham- Southern u014lege, 1935.

218. Osburn, Worth J., "Teaching Spelling byTeaching Syllables and Root Words," Ele"--memory School Journal, 55 (September,1954), 32-41.

210. Oswald, Roberta I. Adult Writing Vocabu-lades: An Analysis of Semantic Variationsbetween 1930-1950 of Words In CurrentUse,-Study 1. The University of Texas, 1959.220. Otterman, Lois M., file Value of TeachingPrefixes and Word Roots," Journal of Educa-tional Research, 48 (April, 1955), Ci11.014,221. Owen, Emerys H., Vocabulary 0/ Letters ofBenjamin Franklin. Master's thesis. Univer-sity of Iowa, 1939.

222. Palmer, Mary E. "Abilities P 1 by thoGood Speller" Elementary Eng ish' Act**,7 (June, 100), 149-150, 160.223. Parsons, Odessa Monette, Studies fn Adult

Writing VotabularieS, VII: Leiters to theEditors. LAIN 1953 (January S to December23, Inclusive.) Master's thesis. TheAUniver-sity of Texas, 1055.


224. Paull, Mabel A., Individual Differences inOral and Visual Learning with Suggestionson the Practkal Significance of imageMaster's thesis. Uniyersity of Iowa, I 18.

226. Peake, Nellie L., "Relations between SpegAbility and Reding Journal ofExperimental Education, 9 (Decem er,11)40), 102.193.

228. Perkins, N L., "Valise of Distributed Rep -etitions in Rote Learning," British Journal ofPsycholo,gy 7 (September, 1914), 253-201.

227., Petty,',NYakt t' T., An Analysis of CertainPhoned° Elements in a Selecte List ofliettisterstlit Diffictilt Spelling Words, Doe-tae thesis. University of Iowa, 1966.

228. Phelan, Sister M. B., Visual Perception inBe:atter* to Variance in Beading and Spelling.Dottoess thesis. Catholic University of Amer-ica; 1946,

229, Plntner, Rudolf, Jon Eivinsen, and MildredStanton, Mg Psychology of the PhysicallyHandicapped. New London, Connecticut:Arthur C. Croft Publications, 1945.

230. Po Rock, Thomas C., "Spelling Report,"It English, 18 (November, 1954), 102-

231. Prehm, E. A., Grouping of Words Accordingto Structure and Sound as a Factor in theTeaching. of Spelling. Master's thesis. Uni-versity of Iowa, 1929.

232. Prehm, Hazel, A Year's Crowth in SpellingAbility in Grade Four. Master's thesis, Uni-versity of Iowa, 1930.

233. Read, Allen W., The Spelling Bee: A Lin-- guistfo Institution. Publications of theModern Language Association of America,

(June, 1941), 495 -512.234. Richardson, Eva A. An Examination of the

Spelljng Ability iof Country Normal Studentsin Ohio. Master s thesis. University of Iowa,19.25,

235. Richmond, Arnie E. "Children's SpellingNeeds and the Implications of Research,Elementary500-505

English, 33 (December,- 1956),

23e. RI:Island, H. D., A Basic Vocabulary ofElementarti School Children. New York:The Macmillan Company, 1045,

237. Ripman, Walter, and William Archer, NewSpelling. New York: Pitman PublishingCorporation, 1940.

238. Robinson, E. S., "Memory," P.sythologlealBulletin, 21 (October, 1924), U9.594.

-239. Robinson,- E. S., "The Relative Ernciencesof Distributed and Concentrated Study inMemorizing,' Journal of Experimental Psy-chology,-4 (October, 1921), 327.343.

240. Rogers, P. C. Jr., Words in Spelling Gradefor Grade, That nil to Slick Master's the-sis. University of Iowa, 1924.

241, Rogness, Alton S., Grouping Spelling WordsAccording to the Rule. Doctoral Field StudyNUmber -2: Colorado State College of Edu-cation; MI

242. Ruck,: T. C., "Factors Inetiencisig the Reimlive Economy of Massed andl)htributal

61

Practice In Learning," Psychological Review,35 (January, 1928), 19.45.

243. Mabel F,, "Interrelations of Func-tional Phonic!, Knowledge, Reading, Spelling,

Oaryand Mental Age," Element School Journal,57 (February. 1957), 284-287.

244. Russell, I), H. Characteristics of Good andPoor Spellers.' Contributions to Education,Number 727. New Yorks Teachers College,Columbia University, 1931.

245. Russell, b. I-1.r Diagnostie Study ofSpelling Readiness,' Journal of EducationalResearch 37 (December; 1944), 27el-

240. Russell, 'D. H., "Interrelatiervips of t 0English, 30 (March, 1953 107.174.Language Arts and Elemerdary

247. Russell, D. H., "A Second tucly of Charac-teristics of C004 a'114 Poor Spellers," journalof Educational Psychology, 46 (biarcb,1955), 129.141.

248. Russell D. /1,, "Spelling Ability in Relation.to Reading and Vocabulary Achievement,"Elementary English Review, 23 (January,1996), 3247.

299. Russell Karlene V., The. Effect of WordAnalysis on Spelling Ability. tors thesis.Boston University, 1954.'

250. Sand, H. J., "An Evaluation- of the EffeCtsof Marks as Incentives to Pupil Crowth inSpelling Ability and of the ComparativeValues of Equated Scales and Informal Testsas Measurements of the Progress, Journalof Educationalucational Research, 31 (May, 1938),8'78-682,Sartoritts, Ina C., Geperalizotiors in Spelling.Contributions to Education, gpmber 472.New Yorks Teachers College, lumblit Uni-versity, 1931.

252. Schonel), F. J. Backwardness- In the BaSicSub! cis. Edinburgh; Scotland: Oliver- and

2,53. Schonell, 'p

e Relation betw.eers De-Boyd, 1142, XIV.

fective Speech ap Disability in Spelling,"British Journal of Educational PsyChology,4 (June, 1934_.), 123.139.

254. Sea ore, R.- HI, "How Many Words DoChildren Know-r' The Packet, 2 (1947; 3.17. Heath's Service Bulletin. Bestorfs D. 0,Heath and Company.

255. Serenius, C. A., An Analytical and EmpiricalStudy of Certain Techniques Employed inVocabulary Testing. Doctor's thesis, Univer'slip of IMO 1930.

256. Shane, Ilarold 0.-, Rescarels Helps to Teach.tag the Language-Arts, 98-56. Association forSupervision: and Curriculum Development,Washington, D. 0, 1955.

257. Shubik, Helen Maria, An Experimental Com-parison of the Tist-Study and the Study-TestMethods of Teaching Spelling in the-ThirdGrade. Master4 thesis. Fordhani University,1951.

258, Shisttlesworth, Bonnie Murray,' Studies InAdult Writing Voialtularies, Leiter*,Time, 1953 (January 6 to.PeceMber 28, 'il-eitis:Cc). Nlaster's thesis.-'140 UniveriltyTexas, 1054.-

_

62ELEMENTARY ENCUSU

259. Sifert, E. R., A Comparative Study of theAbilities of Eighth Grtde Children to SpellStudied and Unstudied Words. Master's the-sis. University of Iowa, 1926.

260. "Sixteen Spelling Scales,' Teacher's CollegeRecord, 21 (September, 1920), 337-391.

261. Sloan, Marbeth C., A Critical Analysis ofSpelling Workbooks Currently Used In theUnited States, Study III. Master's thesis,The University of Texas, 1955.

261. Smith, J. II., The Vocabulary of ChildrenBased on an Investigation of Written PapersSelected from Pupils Daily Work in VariousSubjects of the Curriculum. State TeachersCollege, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Bulletin, Vol-ume 29, Number 139, (1935), 24.

263. Smith, Maclorah E., An Investigation of theDevelopment of the Sentence and the Extentof Vocabulary in Young Children. Univer-sity of Iowa, Studies in Child Welfare, Vol-ume 3, Number 5, 1926.

264. Spathe, George, "A Critical Analysis ofVarious Methods of Classifying SpellingErrors, I," Journal of Educational Psychology,31 (February, 1940), 111-134.

265. Spache, George, "The Role of Visual 1.)e,-fects in Spelling and Reading Disabilities,'American journal of Orthopsychiatry, 10(April, 1940), 229.238.

266. Spache, George, "Spelling Disability Cor-relates I-Factors Probably Causal in Spell-ing Disability," Journal of Educational Re-search, 34 (April, 1941), 561-586.

267. Spache, George, "Spelling Disability Cor-relates 11-Factors That May be Related toSpelling Disability," Journal of EducationalResearch, 35 (October, 1941), 119-137.

268, Sparrow, Julia L., A Study of the Relation-ship between Spelling Ability and ReadingAbility. Doctor's thesis, University of Iowa,1951.

269. Standing, Ethel, The Effect of Reading fnthe Primary Grades upon Spelling. Master'sthesis. University of Iowa, 1929.

270. 'Stauffer, Russell C., "Research In Spellingand Handwriting," Review of EducationalResearch, 19 (April, 1949), 119-123.

271. Stauffer, Russell C., "Trends in Language,Smiling, and Handwriting" ElementaryKng/ish, 28 (December, 1951), 482-467.272. Steel, Velma Nicholas, Studies of Adult.Writing Vocabularies, IV: Letters to the"People's Open Forum" in Eighteen Copiesof the Des Moines Register, December, 1953.to September, 1954. Master's thesis. TheUniversity of Texas 1955.

273. St1111;erger, Evelyn 6., Individual Differencesof Achievement in Spelling. Masters thesis.UniVersity of Iowa, 1950.

274. Stoddard, Coral M., The Effect of the Pro-nunciation Exercise on Spelling. Master'sthesis. University of lowa, 1929.

275, Stroud, j, B.,_ Psychology in Education,Chapter XIII. New York: Loogmans, Greenand Convoy,-1956.

216. Swim.* G. C., The Relation of Visual Ins-pre.ssfailin General Reading to Spelling Per:-

jo923rmance. Master's thesis. University of Iowa,

277. Swenson, Esther) ., and Charles C. Caldwell,"Spellings in Children's Letters," Elementaryschool Journal, 49 (December, 1948), 224-

278. Swenson, !ma M., An Analytical Stud_y oflllegibilities in the Handwriting of ThirdGrade Children during the Transition Periodfrom Manuscript to Cursive. Master's thesis.The University of Texas, 1956.

279. Templin, Mildred C., "A Comparison of theSpelling Achievement of Normal and De-fective Hearing Subjects," Journal of Edw.cational Psychology, 39 (October, 1948),337-346.

280. Templin, Mildred C., "Phonic Knowledgeand Its Relation to the Spelling and ReddingAchievement of Fourth Crade Pupils,"Journal of Educational Research, 47 (Feb-ruary, 1954), 441-454.Terman, L. M., Mental and Physical Traitsof a Thousand Gifted Children. GeneticStudies of Genius, Volume I. Stanford Uni-versity Press, 1925, pp. 289-362.

282. Thomas, Charles /C., An introduction to thePhonetics of American English. New YorloThe Ronald Press, 1947.

283. Thomas, Roy Lee, The Effect of the Cor-rected Test on Learning to Spell: GradesFour, Five, and Six, Master's thesis. TheUniversity of Texas, 1954.

284. Thompson, R. S. The Effectiveness ofModern Spelling instruction. Contributionsto Education, Igumber 4'16. New York;Teachers College Columbia University, 1930.28$. Thornlike, E. L., Psychology of Wants,interests, and Attitudes. New Yorks Apple.ton-Century-Crofts, 1935.

286. Therndike E. L , The Teacher's Word Rook,New Yorks Teachers Collego, ColumbiaUniversity, 1921.

287. Thornd:ke, E. L., and Irvin, Lorge, TheTeacher's Word Book of 30 Obi Words NewYorkt Teachers College, dolumbla Univer-sity, 1944.

2.88. Therndiice, E. L., The Teachins of EnglishSuffixes. Contributions to Education, Num-ber 847, New York; Teachers College,Columbia University, 1941;

289.. . S. Determination of the Abilityof a Crimp of Sixth, Seventh, and EighthGrade Pupils to Proofread Their' WrittenWork for Errors in Spelling. Master's Oafs.University of Iowa, 1924.

290. Tireman, L. S., Value of Marking HardSpots in Spellirtg. University of Iowa Studiesin Education, VOlume 5, Number 4, 1930.

291. Townsend, Agatha, "An ofCertain Relationships of Spe with Read-Ing and Attdeinic e Mortal ofEducational Research, 40 (Petruark,"1047),465-471.

292. 'Traxler, 'ArthOr E., "Spelling In Colhige,"Journal of `11(glier Education, 10 (May,

_ 1048), 256-2*293. Trent, Bri's M., Vocabulary of Pint Oracle

204.


Children_ Outside of School. Master's thesis.University of Oklaham,A, 1931.Trout , Madge M evew., L'pment of the Writ-trig Vocabulary of aildrkn. Master's thesis,UniVersitrof Chicago, 1931.

-295. Tyler, 1. K. Spelling as a ,Secondary Learn-ing. Contributions to Education, Number7131. New York: Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity, 1939.

Ivernia M., Factors Contributing tothie Effectiveness o) the Corrected rest inpeltin. podors ths-is. University of Iowa,

297, Yallins Ceorge, Spellingg, with a chapter on"American Spelling," by John W. Clark.London: Andre Deutsch, Limited, 1954.

298. Varty, J. W., Manuscript Writing and Spell-ing Achievement, Contributions to Educa-tion, Number 749. New York: Teachers Col-lege, CoNmbia University, 1938.

299. Visitation, Sister Mary of the, Visual Per-ception In Reading and Spelling. CatholicUniversity of America, Educational ResearchBulletin, Volume 4, Number 1, 1929.

300. Von Eschen, Clarence, Teacher Performanceon the Iowa Every-Pupil Test of BasicSkills in Reading and Language for 1036.Master's thesis. University of Iowa, 1938.

301. Voorhis, Thelma C., The Relative Merits ofCursive and Manuscript Writing. New York:Teachers College, Columbia University,1931.

302. Wagner, C. A. An Experimental Study ofOrouping by Similarity as a Factor in theTeaching of Spelling. Doctor's thesis. Uni-versity of Pennsylvania 1912.

303, Weislogel, Mary H., The Relationship be-tween Visual Memory and SpellingDoctor's thesis. University of Pittsburgh,1954. Abstract :. Dissertation Abstracts 14;2398 Number 12. 1954.

004. Wesman, Alexander, "The Usefulness ofCorrectly Spelled Words in a Spelling Test,"Journal of Educational Psychology, 37(April, 1946) 242-248.

305, West, Paul and Frank N. Freeman,"Handwrit ing.' Walter S. Monroe ( ed. ),Encyclopedia of Educational Research. NewYork: Macmillan Company, 1950.

308. Wheat, L. B., "Pour Spelling Rules," Etc-

ysef _r

63

mentary School Journal, 32 (May, 1932),897-706.

307, Wheeler, Arvjlle, The Writing Vocabularyof Rural Chi/Oren. Master's thesis. 1.1niver.shy of Chicago, 1934.

308. Whitehead, L. C., "A Study of Visual andAural Memory Procsses,"Inch01081041 Re.view, 3 (May 1890, 258469.

309. Williamson, E, G., Ifentali Relatedto Learning to Spell,' Psychological Bulletin,30 (December, 1933) 743-101i

310. Villiamson E. G. 'The Relation of Learn-ing to Spelling Atiliv," Journal of Educa.Howl Psychology, 24 (April, 1033), 07265.

311. Witmarth, AIta L., The Vocabulary of ltutalChildren's Themes. Master's thesis. UJiver.city of Iowa, 1928.

312. Wilson, Donald Elmo, The DeveloPmeni ofSpelling In the Elementary School Curricyhim. Doctor's thesis. University of California at Los Angeles, 1951.

313. Wilson G. M., "The Purpose of a Stand.ardized Test in Spelling,Journal of Edu-cational Research, 20 (December, 1920,319-326.

314. Wilson, O. M., and A. IlebeCcaraq0na,-"Critical Examination of a Sta ardixedSpelling 'rest," Educational Administrationand Supervision, 15 (October, 1929), 494498.

315. Winch, W. H., "Additional ResearcheS onLearning to Spell," Journal of EducationalPsychology, 7 (February; 1918), 93-110.

318. Woodworth, R. S. and Harold osbelliExperimental Psychology. NeW Yor 1-lenHolt and Company, 1954 Chapter XIII.

317, WorcesterAP;A,, "Men)ory by byAudi nventatioti journal CIO*(Iowa Psychology, 16 (January, 1 ), la.27,

318. Wyld Henry C. in Encyclopedia Briton.ntca, Volume 8, 554-562. Chicago: SnoycIo-paedia Britarmica, IncorPoratecl, 1952.

319. Zedler, Empress Y., "Effect Of Phonic Train.ing on Speech Sound Discrimination andSpelling Performance," Journal of Speechand II-caring Disorders, 21 (June, 106),245-250.

RUTH G.

Evaluating Children's CompositionThe headmaster of a school on the fringe

of London has a delightful method of helpingchildreh to evaluate their own growth in writ-ten expression. As is true of most schools inEngland, each child in this school has in hisdesk several notebooks in which he writes fordifferent purposes. One notebook may be hisdiary, another for work in the social studies,another for "sums," and the like. Each child hasone notebook that is his "rough" book. In ithe may try out, any ideas or write anything hewishes, even to lampooning the teacher, be-cause this book if private no one looks intoit without being invited to by its owner. Aseach child in the school finishes a book he haswritten other than his "rough" book, he takesit to the office of the headmaster. Togetherthey look it over to see how much the childhas improved from the first page to the last.After they have discussed it the child leaveshis finished book in the office and goes backto his classroom with a new book and the de-termination to make this one even better. Theheadmaster keeps and binds together all of thebooks a child has finished from age six to theage of elevenplus, when he goes on to secon-dary school. Some time during the first term insecondary school the children are invited backto their primary school in groups of six oreight to look over their accumulation of note-books with the headmaster; then to take themproudly home as a record of their growththrough six years.

A great deal has been written regardingstandards for the evaluation of children's writ-ing. Teachers often feel defeated and frustra-ted as they see children content to do work thatis less than their best in spite of the teacher'sefforts. It would appear that the tey to goodwork may lie not in the standards the schoolsets for the children's writing, but in the RMdards each child is helped to set for himself,

64

STRICKLAND

because those are the standards he takes withhim out into life after he leaves the realm ofthe teacher's authority. Showing respect forchildren's compositions by keeping them insome sort of permanent form which makespossible both self-evaluation by the child andevaluation by the teacher over a period oftime long enough to show growth is onemethod of helping children to take pride Intheir growth and motivating them to stretchupward to new heights.

Tie Art of WritingThe art of writing as of speaking consists

in having something to say and knowing howto say it. It is taken for granted that what onehas to say should be worth the effort of speechor the far greater effort of writing. Contentand style must be thought of together since inany good composition content should determineform. Pew people would agree with the state-nitnt quoted from a 1941 report to the Glas-gow Education Authority which declared that," It is not the duty of the examiner In Eng-lish to assess the worth of the subject-matterof composition. His concern is not with thething said but with the saying of it" (27, I),119). Teachers who wish to help children be-come writers turn their attention first to whatthe child wishes to say and his purpose in siping it, and, last to an appraisal of the fordoin which the ideas are set forth. "Good English," says Vicars Bell, is "that which is force-ful, direct and intimate writing of a style pe-culiar to the writer." Correct English is "thatwhich is composed, spelt, and punctuated ac-cording to the best usage" (2, p. 77). GoodEnglish is the child's first need. It is impossibleto correct or improve a pupil's expression un-

Di: Strickland is Professor of Education atIndiana University add President of theNational Council of Teachers of Etiglish.

EVALUATING CIIILDRIIN'S COMPOSITION

:til he offers enough of it to work with. Whenit is flowing as freely as he is capable of atthe time, he is ready for help with form andcorrectness.

Writing'is one of the language arts, and itis highly dependent for its growth on thegrowth in the other language arts. The qualityof writing is closely related to the qu..;ity ofspeech. While an occasional secondary schoolstudent or adult writes better than he talks, itis a rare child who writes, at least in the earlygrades, any better than he talks. Few write asWell as they talk. If a child rarely uses a camOtte or grammatically standard sentence andstill more rarely twists his tongue or his mindaround a compound or complex sentence, hiswritten sentences will be as weak as those hespeaks. The sentence structure and grammar achild brings to school are those of his homeand neighborhood. He has learned themthoroughly by the time he enters school at theage of five or six. Many years of intensiveeffort will be required to change them.

Writing is a form of expression; therefore,the writer must have something to express.The subject matter and the ideas for writingare obtained through observing, listening, reading and other types of experience. The qualityof what is expressed in writing depends uponthe quality of thinking that undergirds It. Ifthe ideas a child expresses orally are meager,immature, and lacking in clarity, his writingwill exhibit all of these problems in evengreater measure.

Essential Tykes of Rya !NationEvaluation of composition in the schools re

quires looking at composition in a variety ofways and from a number of angles. No onetype of evaluation will serve the needs of anyteacher or any class or school. At least sixtypes of evaluation will serve the needs of anycontinuous application and some for periodicapplication: 1. There is the evaluation of apiece of writing. Teachers and pupils do thisin one way or another practically every day. 2.

65

There is the evaluation of the growth of anindividual child from day to day, within theschool year, and from year to year throughouthis school life. 3, Teachers are concerned withthe growth of the class as a whole and withcomparisons among classes. 4. Administratorsand supervisors as well as teachers are concerned with the quality of composition withinan entire school. 5, Both the school and theteacher evaluate methods of teaching writing.6. There is periodic evaluation of the totalcurriculum it writing within grade levels,within the sdiool as a whole, and within theschool system. Parents, employers who hire theschool's product, and the general public areconcerned with the quality of writing theschool produces, but their concerns will bedealt with only indirectly in this article.

Evaluating a piece of writing or many ofthem is an almost daily occurrence at all levels,of schooling beyond first grade, How it is donedepends on the level of maturity of the writersthe purpose for which the writing is done,and the needs of the writer at the time, Evaluatins the growth of a child is a longitudinal pro.cess and is the task of all leachers who deal withthe teaching of English. Evaluation of the writ.ing of a class is a continuous process thoughsome measures may be applied only Interinittently. Studies of the quality of composition inan entire school or school system, evaluationof methods of teaching, and of the total airriculum in writing may be periodic studies car,ried on by the entire staff at stated times or as"need arises.

Methods of evaluating composition differat the different levels of the khoors program.The emphasis placed on content and on formdepends on the stage the pupil has reached. Inthe earliest grades children may furnish thecontent, biit the teacher assumes full responsiWhy for the-form_ in which it is set out. Bythe end of the secondary school pupils are tit-petted to assume responsibility for both contentand form. A good program of evaluation is ac;

66 ELBMBNTARY ENGLISH

complished through adjusting criteria andmethods of evaluating to the level and needsof the individual, class, or school being studied.

The Beginning Stage of CompositionYoung children's first compositions are

dictated for the teacher to write. Frequentlythis dictation is guided by the teacher's com-ments and questions and thus represents bothchild and teacher. The teacher is responsiblefor the form which the material takes on thepaper, Its spelling, punctuation, and arrange-ment. The child furnishes the ideas and ex-presses them in his own way with a minimumof guidance. At this stage, the teacher's evalu-ation of the child's composition deals with thequality of the child's ideas and the evidencethese offer of the richness or meagerness of hisbackground of experience as well as with hispowers of expression. The purpose of evaluadon is clearly that of determining where thechild stands with regard both to content forcomposition and skill in expression so that theteacher knows where to start her guidance andhow to proceed with it. Her comments regard-ing what the child dictates ate designed to drawhim out, to help clarify his thinking, and toaid him in expressing his meaning.

Anecdotal records help the teacher of be.ginners to study each child's language abilityand his needs. These records tend to show thechild's attitude toward himself, the freedomand ease with which he speaks, and the qualityand maturity of his language and of his think-ing. They make clear the child's needs so thatthe teacher can devise means of meeting them.

The child's own evaluation of his compc-skims lies in the satisfaction he finds In watch.ing the teacher transfer his words to the paperand the use to which his contribution is put.Since expression is not forced and the childhimself determines its content, the values forhim are found In satisfying expression and inthe concepts of form that emerge is he sees hiswords take shape under the teacher's hand.The message Of the composition is the most im.

portant item for consideration in the mind ofthe child and should be kept so.

These same values obtain as the child be-gins to write his composition for himself. Spell'ing, capitalization, punctuation, and arrangement on the paper are guided by the teacheras she helps the child to say in writing whathe wants to say. All types of writing tend tobe managed in tliis way as long as Childrenneed such help though rmphasis on indepen-dence and the use of seifhelp resourceswordlists, picture dictionaries, models, and guidesheets for headings and the likeare encour-aged as the child is ready for them. Theteacher's evaluation of the child's progress is acontinuous one. The personality traits that thechild shows, the amount of help he needs, hisgrowth in interest, in initiative, in sustained at.tention to the writing task, In Independence, aswell as in technical skills of handwriting andspelling are all a part of the evaluation. Theteacher's observation of the child's behavior,her anecdotal records, and the writing thechild produces form the materials for evalua-tion. Though the teacher evaluates the child'swriting for content and for form, what Ishappening to the child is more important thanwhat he produces.

The lack of controlled research concernedwith evaluation of the compositions of youngchildren points to the fact that personality development and development of ability to writeare completely interwoven. Grading papers andassigning marks or ratings to them Istomplettlyinappropriate at this stage. Also InappropriateIs the assigning of writing which the child isto do independently and turn in for theteacher's comments. All writing of any consc.quence should be done when the reached!!free to guide and to help while the chidwrites. This early stage in learning to write Isa critical one. If a child Is asked to write onlywhen he has something to write, hake purpos4for writing, and can write with all the help,he needs, he is on the way to becoming a writer.

EVALUATING CHILDREN'S COMPOSITION

every teacher of older children and every--'11441t knows that there are people in any group

who dislike and actually dread attempting anywriting task. It appears true that for many, ifnot most bf_them, aversion to writing was de.'yapped at least in part by unwise requirementstluting-this Critical early period. Children who,,doting this period, find satisfaction and fulfill.

!-ftlent' in writing Bo on to achieve at higherwho find writing a laborious, die

*raging and distasteful experience carryihroughnut their lives the attitudes built during

..:-`this period unless at some later time a wise andunderstanding teacher takes active steps tobuild in these individuals a sense of personalworth and confidence In the worth of theirIdeas.

Every piece of writing produced by a childin the primary grade is a reflection of theoral work that goes on in that grade. A formerinspector In Her Majesty's service In Englandhas declared, " the atmosphere and generalattitude that give rise (to good writing) arealmost always those of constant conversationand oral alertness. It may be safely said that ifa teacher is having difficulty with the writtenEnglish of his school, and finds the childrenwooden, unresponsive and unwilling to puttheir thoughts on paper; the first thing heshOuld look at Is the oral side; it Is probablethat the (suit is there" (6, p. 65). Evaluationof the Child's level of operation in oral workmust accompany evaluation of his ability towrite and probably should actually precede it.The two cannot be separated because one isclearly the outgrowth of the other.

A recent study throws light on children'suse of sentences in their speech and thereforeIndicates what they are potentially capable ofIn their writing. Templln (21), in a studywhich brings up to date the earlier studies ofDavis (7) and McCarthy (14), found thatchildren e4a use longer responses and fewerftxtewn61 response than did children of threeto eight iearfof age twenty to thirty yearS ago.

47

This difference becomes significantly greaterwhen the older subjects are compared. Childrenof upper socio-economic status groups consis.tently used longer remarks than did childrenfrom lower socio-economic status groups. Whet;the sentence usage of the fiyear old Samplewas taken as a measure of terminal status over -the five-year span studied, there was a decreasein the proportion of incomplete Sentence/,little change in the use of sentences_ without a'phrase, and an increase in the use of all typesof sentences that involve increasing complexityof sentence structure such as coordination-Orsubordination (21, p. 103, 104). I; is interest.ins to note that Templin found no essentialdifferences In the use of various types of seattences by boys and girls. Of particular siva..once Is the fart that the structure of adultgrammar has already imposed the pattern ofword selection upon children by the age ofthree.

An early study by Berner shows the rangeof content and form found In original composhions dictated by children (3). It would beinteresting to know how different such dictatedcomposition might be today if children used the .

entire range of the possibilities they are cap.able of conceiving. Television, travel in parents'cats, books available in every supermarket, andthe breadth of other experiences available tochildren today may have pushed their potential',limits considerably higher.

Types of Written CompositionSevere, types of writing emerge as the cur.

riculum in writing expands through the grades.,These can be roughly distinguished as personaland Creative, utilitarian, and critical and intelectual. Utilitarian writing is found at all agelevels as an integral part Of school work.- Per.tonal and creative writing are encouraged fromthe beginning and form an- important part ofthe curriculum inwriting from thi primary -

grades` upward. Critical writing Is {mind id.frequently in the ea racks but appears etc.

68 ELIIMSNTARY ENGLISH

casiortalty even there as children indicate in tempt and try to incorporate point; of improvesment into his next effort. Writing, sharing,evaluation by the class and selfevaluation areclosely interwoven. The teacher enters into theclass discussion to raise children's sights re-garding techniques, help them appreciate thegrowth of the child who finds writing dial-cult, and to spur the competent or gifted childon to higher levels of aspiration.

Personal writing tlh,t is to be shared withthe group or used to serve a purposeananecdote, a report of experience, or possibly apersonal letter may be evaluated and revised Ifthe occasion warrants it. This may be done bythe teacher with the individual child or it mayserve as material for class discussion depend.ing on the teacher's judgment of the worth ofsuch discussion to the child or the group,

Utilitarian writing that is to serve a classor individual purpose Is usually carried throughseveral stages of refinement. After the mirk)for the report, announcement, or business letterhas been assembled, the pupil writes a roughdraft, reads it for clarity, completeness andsatisfactory presentation of content, reads itagain for form to catch and temedy any prob.lems of spelling, punctuation, and the like, liemay then take it to the group or the teacherfor reading and criticism before turning out afinal, carefully executed draft,

writing their reaction to characters and episodesin storks they have read or heard.

Many teachers maintain that the bulk ofwork designed to develop skill in dealing withform and correctness should be done on thepractical, Utilitarian writing. The elementaryschool, child should be encouraged to do asmuch free, creative writing as he is willing todo. Unless this is to be kept for permanent useor enjoyment it is not corrected and put intofinal form but merely shared with the groupthrough reading aloud by the author tar theteacher. Creative writing may take the formof imaginative stories, poems, plays, or, withthe older children, essays though it may be ofthe personal sort represented by personal letters,ancedotes, descriptions, and narratives based onpersonal experience, Utilitarian writing, on theother hand, is a servicetype of writing growingout of classroom needs and activities. It maytake the form of business letters, announce-ments, reports, direction and how-to-doitpapers, and the like. Critical writing consists ofexpression of thought and opinion by meansof short editorials, book reports, critiques ofliterature, and research papers. Usually theseare treated as teachinglearning experienceswhich call for reworking and refinement oforigh.al drafts.

Writing in Me Middle Grades In the middle grades, as in the priniaryChildren in the middle grades do a number grades, evaluition Is a part of the writing pro-

of kinds of writing and for a widening number cess. It is an integral part of the entire teaching-of purposes. The emphasis on imaginative, cita learning scheme. Assigning writing tosks, grad-ative writing continues with thought given to tog them and marking the errors, and hoodingwhat makes it interesting and how to achieve the papers back to the pupils is prolitiets se,it. Class discussion of quality may include at- tivity because it omits the best opporttinitiestendon to an opening sentence or paragraph for teaching while interest is at high level.which catches attention and interest, a plot The end result of such procedure is usuallythat is built up in an interesting manner, and a little actual teaching and still less learning. Atconclusion that is clear and satisfying. Through intervals, a set of papers may be studied by thediscussion and comparison of their own stories teacher to determine the progress of the classWith 'those in books- they become increasingly as a whole, to assess her own teaching Methods,good judges of qbality. Rif-Minn may follow and to compare the work of the class with.thatevaluation or the child may lay aside this or. of othei dosses or with available norms.

t .. , ,4b( tki -_ - -

-.

EVALUATThIO

4

Cnu.Diu3t's CoMPosrno 69

:Watts recommends the assignment of three- One wonders whether this record would be

sdntence compositions as a method of develop, different if elementary schools placed less em-In 4Iciplined writing. He would require chit. phasis on formal grammar and more on an ap.dren ftoht time to time to write all that is of proach' suggested by the studies of the struc-.Iniercac or (in cc to Lheln aboth a' cpplc mist linguists nd their analysis of English, AsIn no more and no fewer than thiee sentences. children progress In maturity they can be ledThis compels children to exercise their judg- to relle that sentences can be made to cx-merit and skill for a perfectly definite purpose. press thoughts with 1nreasIng clarity and In-They learn through this experience to get terest by the'addition of movables of a vIrietyquickly off the mark, to distribute Ideas among of sorts. The simple subject-predicate sequence,the sentences, and to give thought to sentence "Am came." can be enrlchdd by the additionconstruction and emphasis. The sentences chil of movables which tell where1 when, why, how.dre write dii (ersccordlgto age and maturity, and for what purpose, as In the follo4ng cx-Class dlcussion. and evaluation of the product amples; "Toni came borne yes;erday to visitprovide children with goals to work toward In his parents?' "Yesterday, because ft was theittheir Writing yet allow for lndlvLdUal differ. anniversary, Tom came home to vlit his par-ences In style as well as maturity. Watts has ents sAd surprise them with the gift of a newdevised thee-sentence written composition car." Changing the yrb In. the' predicate slotscale for judging the maturity of such compo-- adds neW possibilities, as In: "Becauseyesterday

.sltlons. (22w pp. 141.142). wis their anniversary, Tom flew home idiur--Develàpment of sentence structtire and "dc prise his parents and delight them with his

gree of grammaticalness' (a useful phrase unexpected visit." Children learn how to weavecoined by the structural linguists) enter into Ideas together into well-constructed longersAy appraisal of the growth of writing corn- sentences through opportunity to play withpetence in the middle grades. The most Inform- movabls and arrange them In different posi.ative research Oct the development of the sea- tions in elatin to the two essential slots, sub-tence i the writing of children is doubtless jeer and ptçd.cate. They detect the fact that athat of La Brant (12) ih analyzed the writ change In p'.4Itlon maj' alter emphasis or createlag of wet a thousand pupils from eight years a neW shade of meaning. bttonation and rnesn-upward, with a view to classifying the various ing determine punctuation within the writtentypes of dependent clause used at different ages. sentence (9, 17, 22).She found: (1) that dependent clauses ia While it is true that length of sentence andcreased In frequency as writers became mnre. number of dependent clauses are Indicative ofmature and that at the same time writing In- growth beyond the simple sentence, mere In-creased In complexity and clarity of thought; crease In the number of dependent clauses must(2) that the relation betwçen sentence- not be overweighted as evidence of progress Incomplexity and chronological age was closet the use of language. It may be found that athan between sentence-cnmplexity and mental 1ngte sentcnce pattern Is used over and overage, suggesting that experience plays ait izn again as it Is In tle folk story, "This Is theportant part in the mastery of language; and house that Jack built." Use of a variety of types(3) that the depenctenr clauses least used were of subordination represents a higher level ofnoun clauses and adverbial clauses of condition, Skill than much use of only a few (ornis. Asconcession, place, purpose, result, and compati children's writing skilL advances they tend toson. These conatituted at each mental level less use sImple sentences containing prepositionalthan 6 pet cent of *11 clauses used. p and infinitive expressions in place of

f--

70131.EM1 OITA

-,-,clauies (22). Examples such is the followingbegin to appear; "To. his suprise, the boy re-turned quickly." in place of "He was surprised

that. the bpi returned quickly." or 'Being very-tired, he sat down to rest." in place of 'He satdown to rest because he was very tired." Com-pression and use of fewer words may be evi,dente of greater- sophistication and command

- of language than the use of a larger numberof 'words.

Children of middle and upper grades learnto plan their composition with increasing skill,to utilize many, resources for the gaining ofcotr;ent and Ideas and to use effectively the

:'di..tionary, handbooks of form and style, andother self-help resources. Careful proofreading

_ _follows the writing'of a first draft an making- -a-final copy climaxes the effort of making

the necessary revisions In,expression of ideas,statement of fact, sequence; phraseology, andSpelling: The making of the final copy providesthe writer with the experience of putting everypart of his work into shape that will be acredit to him. It reinforces what he learnsfrom the corrections he has made. While thesefinal steps may seem to some children laboriousand distasteful, if the purpose for which the-*kiting 10009 Is One that the child can Identify_with,- he tends to view his final product withreal satisfaction. Self-evaluation with tecogniden of Personal needs and awareness of per-

- sortat growth can be encourage through utiliztrig' children's writing in a variety -of_ satisfy-

-. ins ways and in the kind of longitudinal over-'view provided for by the English headmasterifentioned at the beginning or the article.

:9000.114Prt Seiiin0y. School'WO1917 th Hoile:repOrt gnAlfsti in the

secondary sch6o1 criticized the program incomposition as too -ambitious; formal and liter.

-aryp, too' concetted 'With speech and toomuch concerned with grammatical and thetarical analisis; (tiVit recomMended bro#drange of composition activities with attentionto both -Utilitarian and imaginative *thing:it

RV ENGLISH

called for more emphasis on practical activitiesand less on the pUrely literary, more time degvoted to actual writing and less to theory, Itforeetadowed present Jay emphasis - on Oral"'expression and on the teaching of functionalgrammar.

Many writers from that time to the present..have reiterated the points made in this Orly'report. There have been far more studies of,composition on the secondary level than on theelementary. These are admirably stunmarliecl:in the section on English in-Encir/40(114'01'Pelfocirlionat Rol-web', (18); The trendsdeveloped from early studies were broUght-intofocus in kr Experience Cods:it:if', ha ONO&(10), published in 105.- This' pUblicatiOn,marked what was probably the first_attenlitIOdescribe -growth, sequences from kindergartenthrough tweifth:grade;-That a Unified pingrainthroughont this span has not _been achievedis evidenced by the fact that the Confeie_nCe on'-'Basic Issties in the Teaching of English heldin 19$9 listed as one of its major reconunendations the developttent of such a unified-pro-gram on a nation-wide scale.

Emphasis' on grammar Still holds a largeplace in the comPoSition prograM of the seton.dary school though there Is Hide agreement asto its value and the weight it shOuld. Cirryinthe total program.- The research on grammaris well ounrunarized and thoUghtfully evaltSkA`by-Defloo in this serlea. An-attitukthatpears to be growing in England as well as Inthe United States is set forth by Smith. 'Theplain fact is thai_no-One ee,'.--yrOte a whit thebetter for having atvonOateclmar open 00:114,1* (OMthat the`grammariaiss'-effottssto tfokine a trychanging usage with- their 'set fOrrnulae- must-inevitably leave them well in-the react -'ofrent practice The' belief ;that onecan write and speak- well only tint of baSkgrOund of grammatical knoWledge`ka'strongly.held "supefftition' (t9, -pp. -140.1$

ilueiriOn' asked: 4-0 Membera -of.

EVALUATING CHILDREN'S COMPOSITION 71

Conference on Basic Issues in the Teaching ofEnglish participated in by members of theAmerican Studies Association, College EnglishAssociation, Modern Language Association, andNational Cou. ail of Teachers of English is.'Could national standards for student writingat various levels be established, and what would,be their value?" The Conference recognizes

- that evaluation of student writing is difficult."Some teachers," they admit, "mark only me-&info! and grammatical errors, leaving star.

-- dents With the impression that learning to writea_ negative matterthe avoidance of such

: -errors: Others go too far in the other directionand grade very subjectively, leaving the studentwith the impression that the an of writingwell is merely the knack of appealing to thetastes and whims of his particular teacher." Re-COncifing these differences ,and helpingteachers understand what waiting is and howIt can be developed may prove more valuablethin any sort of norm. The research that isavailable Indicates what every teacher knowsthat the range of ability in any class is verywide. It would appear on the surface thatnational norms are unworkable though researchMight prove that some type of scale, flexiblyapplied, -would be useful.

`Rtmistoting a Piece of WritingAny manuscript written by a student should

be written for a definite_ and shouldteach its audience. Some papers are _written forthe class, some for the teacher. In any case

-Oleo should be some reaction to what has beenwritten. If the paper has been written for the

dais. the' author may-read it himself, or the'teacher may read the whole or selected parts ofIt to the class. Often, the author prefers to havethe teacher read it and lead the discussion re.girding it. if, in the reading, the teacher cot-teas unacceptable usage this is in itself away of teaching that Is highly acceptable to theauthor: The authors name should, not be di.vulged unled_he Is to have it known.Itetlialusition may be more fruitful without it.

Good discussion, La Brant says, takes timefor thought (13). Students should be en-couraged to take a moment for thinking be-fore commenting on a composition that is readto them. At all times, the first comments shoulddeal with the message of the paper and thepurpose it is designed to serve. Evaluationshould not result in rating the paper good orbad. It should deal with the thought that isconveyed, and young people should be led torealize that a good paper is one that does some.thing important to the reader or hearer. Alldiscussion should encourage the author to con-tinue writing and to write increasingly well.

Marking papers that have been handed incalls for the same care and the same attentionto -the psychological reaction of the writer thatis true of class discussion. Redi.encill4 errors:and putting down a grade Is profitless expends'ture of the time and energy of the reacher, ALess welltrained person than he could do that.The student who receives a-paper with many.errors marked and a poor grade rarely studieshis problems and corrects the errors: In con-,sequence, the same errors appear on the nextpaper and the next.

The comments on a student's paper shouldcause him to dig a little deeper, think throughhis topic and his purpose more carefully, andput his thoughts down more clearly and ac.curately._ Attention must include form as wellas content. if the writer is cigar about his put- =.pose and knows What he has to say; hewrites in complete sentences, but if the-thinklog lacks clarity the writing will present thesame problem.

Evaluating the Growth of qts fnrlfvfd 4lCase studies of children's progress in read-

ing are found In :matii books- but- similarstudies of children's writing are rare. Probablythe most extensive and inclusive studies avail-able in the literature-are those of tievillt children studied by Ntrows a;'.d othersW. These studies- present detailed' 'sketchesof each' child it a persOn with All his strengths

ELIMENTARY ENGLISH

and problems and the traits that are uniquelyhis. The samples of the child's writing arefitted into their setting and portray the growthtaking place in the child himself as Well as inthe writing.

Some principals have selected samples ofchildren's writing added each year to the children's folders in the official cumulative file.The series of ,compositions from a school inBaltimore which appears in the chapter onWriting In the book Language Arts /or Today'sChildren (1 5 )` is such a collection. Through itone can see growth in power to compose sett,tences, to spell, to write and to express ideasclearly and vividly. The emergence of indi-vidual style is interesting to trite.

Many teachers arrange a folder for eachchild In which samples of his work are accumuJared. Children find as much interest in the ac-cumulation as the teacher and frequently cometo her, a paper in each hand, to say, "Look,this is the way I wrote a way back last fall.Don't you think I'm doing better now?" Chitdren find great satisfaction and real motivationin evidence that they are growing in power.The teacher's evaluation of each child's progressis always with reference to himselfthe dis-tance from the point at which ht started to thepoint which he has achieved. Childree ate notJudged by the application of an arbitrary standard not expected to attain an established norm.Each child's work is judged with relation tohis own potential. Slow children develop pridein what they can accomplish, and gifted dill-(ken are encouraged to expand theit powers asrapidly as their capacity permits,

$rirveing OfitsPosfilott 4 &Apo?74%tieVithiation-Of 'composition in a-class of

school is a composite of appraisal of each In-dividual's ability to communicate his thoughtsand feelings in Various written forms appropri-ate to his purpose, to the specific occasion, and

-Co the reader whom he intetlds to ;each-Shirethe lingUage ate grows out of the experience ofthe ilmatiotf In *filch the act

is performed, and the skill of the individualIn the situation exact measurement is extremely:difficult. Language power and thought power,Smith states (19), go hand In hand. One Cannot be assessed without attention to the other.Language is a social instrument which cannot"be isolated and measured in the same sense thatspelling or arithmetic skill can be measured.For these reasons, evaluation in languag-e- has-remained an inconclusive field of edutational,research.

Whether the evaluation being attemptedis evaluation of the work of a class or Of aschool or school system some of the variablesmust be Identified as a starting point for _thebuilding of criteria. Smith (20) used the fol-lowing in her study of the English prognutin the elementary schools of New. York: the _

wealth and originality of Ideas and the Utility,of expression In handling the mechiliici oflanguage. The three variables that are almostcertain to appear In any list of criteria are Cotttent, logical sequence, and mechanics of expres-sion.'

The administrative and supervisory staffs,of a school or school system study the status ofcomposition at intervals or as need arises. A--setting may be arranged within which all chit.dren will write, possibly In response to aa dramatization, or some schoolWide ,oc-tir-Mite. Witty and Martini report a' study} ofcompositions children *tote in responsefilm (24). An 44rnitlistratot may -ask for *set of papers front a class or sets from all theclasses in a school or schOol sYstlint PaPeff '1?)q_be evaluated by a committee_ iOd .analvedcontent, mechanics,- anci'style. Seattle 484 froi-

-gram -6f evaluaticio which'Is rared theltcourse of study (16). Póttlind,'Osvin carfleson a program of city-wide evaluation (25).Composition scales are-difficult to, devise be.cause of the social content of writing. Thillr-vey committees which evaluate the ,cortipOsl-tiotis tend to devise- their own tieing schemeto fit' the' situation and 'the _type 61 Canposl-

EVALUATING CHILDRUN'S COMPOSITtON 736, Both is iba Primo, School.On which was required.

service a'school sue' vey ,of composition skills. pared with tog and Short Sentences 04 9 Re.Mettnte jAnin age Development,"

nient Setlei for grade's 4-6 and 6-9 constimte v,(octobet.

Oxford and: li Blackwell 1934,1 One Standardized test may be of limited 7. Davis, 'Mit A., "WO Sentence' itellph COM'

liable- 1.4 tdoguage Am tests of the $RA Achieve-

8. DeBoecChild Dtvoshloprfitt :6 fip6: /1913s!4eTegidi,

:st bit,* literacy measure in the form of a proof. 4 %Qt.. ..

reading test of capitalization, punctuation, and 9. Francis, W. Nelson, OS &row olAoseicoo

uPges iEngiish. New -York: The Itonald au Com,-..,_ ,..

. pany, 1958:go single Meastre can be accepted as 10. Hatfield, W. Wilbur (P.d.);44 ExPsrktlee Cat'.

z curately pottrayingth,. level of development of centic4toutri$y tic) tRAW. New Yotitt io._ Appleton..

--.; y:Writer._Several lc; rds_and unitsof writing 11. Hotic, Jan* P. (Comp.); Reottitnioiloto of

froin each individual should be examined be- Easush io SeeOttdol- Wools. Washlostotk:G 1 i Offi 17

Ok:paOing'iudgment_ on Writtn& 12. Ittr, 1.6' Ili A-Si y of _lowill:thiiidtipS.Thi-ppfl*eOfevaluatiOn is.-to find weak. vo oorts -.C6 ldr."--poottii 7c., to

Irembet,' 19) 1

strengthened and strengths to be tagetz!`7,1ii,sge'',

growth 11,1 writingpiOVsitY,her aspeciia30!

Teachers

tOShink ciet.OY an " 16.' Oiten,No as act ,these

his writing Individual help with problems t. 39 (194will improve the content nof,--

New Yorke

mechanics.. 18. Seatles,--; h n Robert.

oWn, go6d, Writing, and to recognize quality in g. Xorki' The, -!14151411 corn.

of :Others.- it, is thui that standards ca 171*, ESithi; 'MI- AtOderiV,

- Mattree, Cbildre&nWilio. 21. 'fond, if/ r -ceektits r.,41114,

nesses to bed Atot-progr'am nitroutt, The 40404.fliPitift,':'of

j_finetiTabieNiwiit11, -14,;:evalu44", w itjni, is closet)) tied ,,tre(0

41$' L/W1.11 tio--1;;-' Insights, "help-5oePen 19,z

106 which' be weak will improve his HArcowe,- titre ara 1936,"

CNIcittn lattl t9 take Pride' in their P'114:17S"ittil ktfojovpd brkgricel

hithe writingfpc:Orivosiii3O become the writer's own and London: Methuen Contrnt, Ltd

a cif?'

up witn all

to strengthenmust itrengtbenta:in* tip4446eCIM/then

tfieldic6.111m,

ZrItrir.crots,-- ine4

20. &wild), Dot* goillifilpg fijimtiloo.iit Ng.,Eftm atfe 4r6001/. of

e- oiltt latetnation,a extbeok pany, In 6 rot r itstriets

2- Bel %IV Oi sing 'tiy. Entlirb tos4me. niversity inuesOuC Press, neekells,1 $ t,

oftiue Q-608,43 Series

= London: fli,et 4A abet; 1953. -" 19'57 , _

= irlirr/44 blimfird me-1,tiu- COW, -snd Por-m 'Of Orient:1

-pt conto nom to Education,

2' V-Vik: tirnifeis 1 (3- (3 ')'

Burrows, Alyird T, los C0000,01liott:

of Classroom Teachiti, Americanbat RifetofSh Sat,i to' i Thicket, No. 18.

Oil Research Association of the NationalEdu002.101(7Modati'60:` Washington, The

. Asto4440A-= 1939.'S. Burrows, Ahlmi others. The Poi

(4.-` ,,Rettod rztitlott'NeW York: Prentice--- 64-1032._ .

r

22. Watts, A. it, /hi , 'fro-holofiato)Of C Veto, tt.notilt,

. 00104 conoy, ? gostont f;,;c.litat and Coo ,

23. 'Whitehall, 1-10- SIrncriontl 1410116111_01 Ettt;Ob. New Yorky HarcenK trite Put10,6,

24. Witty Paul and 11am Martin, "An Analystsof Children', Competitions Written in Responseto -a Firm," firemeithilly bitibbi 34:138.63;tirch,

2$. riln 1°.r4 lodtzte!rtIn

CS 201 195 Burrows, Alvina T.; And Others ChildrenIS Writing

Documents

Transcript of CS 201 195 Burrows, Alvina T.; And Others ChildrenIS Writing