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Assessing Writing in Elementary Schools: Moving Away From a Focus on Mechanics

Laura B. Casey, Neal D. Miller, Michelle B. Stockton & William V. Justice(2016) Assessing Writing in Elementary Schools: Moving Away From a Focus on Mechanics,Language Assessment Quarterly, 13:1, 42-54. Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2015.1136311
From a developmental standpoint the process of writing is orderly, and each step builds on thenext. The steps include prewriting, drafting,
conferencing, revising, editing, sharing, and publishing (Turbill& Bean, 2006). As learners becomemore proficient, they become increasingly independent at each step andgain the skills needed to move to the next phase of the writing process. This stepwise approach toconceptualizing writing has been widely adopted in the elementary literature. As a result, the early writingyears are focused on the first few steps with an underlying goal of developing confident writers. Rapiddevelopment occurs during these years, and it has been suggested “what young children write about andhow they approach writing is more important initially than their mechanics of writing” (Morrow, 2012,p. 273).
Curriculum-based measurement

Much educational research, particularly in the area of special education, has been conducted oncurriculum-based measurement (CBM) for formative assessment in the classroom. CBMs aremeasurement procedures that involve frequent ongoing direct observation and measurement toprobe a student’s progress (Deno, 1987, 2003). In other words, CBM provides information about thestudent’s abilities as they relate directly to the classroom curriculum across many subject areas.Shinn (1989) stated that CBM is founded on the basic premise that “astudent’s performance on a test should indicate the student’s level of competence in the local schoolcurriculum” (p. 31).
One advantage of the CBM approach is how well it fits the academic component of the Response to
Intervention (RtI), three-tiered model (Mellard & Johnson, 2008). Currently, the multitiered system isused for two primary purposes: (a) to evaluate a student’s progress and (b) as a basis for referral tospecial education services. The RtI approach involves providing varied levels of support ranging fromclass-wide, whole group interventions in tier 1, small group-focused interventions in tier 2, to intensiveindividualized instruction in tier 3. Many schools are adopting this model for screening, assessment,and progress monitoring across subjects areas. The model has been endorsed by several sources,including the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (Batsche et al., 2005),National Research Council Panel on Minority Overrepresentation (Donovan & Cross, 2002),National Summit on Learning Disabilities (Bradley, Danielson, & Hallahan, 2002), and the reauthorizationof the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004). RtI is grounded in theassumption that an effective core curriculum supports about 80% of learners with 20% needingadditional support.
However, for RtI to be effective, measures of student performancemust be sensitive to small changes over time, and teachers must directly assess the targeted skill.Within the existing research of RtI, CBMs are most commonly used as a universal screening tool anda means to assess progress within the intervention.
Gansle et al. (2004) stated, “CBM provides educators with a stronger link between assessmentand instruction than do standardized tests of achievement” (p. 291). These assessments can beadministered as needed to gauge student’s current level of performance or monitor progress once anintervention has been implemented. Thus, there is a strong foundation for using CBM within the RtImodel, specifically at the class-wide level as a screener and at the more intensive levels as a probeto assess progress; however, the specifics of how CBM is used to assess writing bear furtherconsideration.
Moving away from mechanics
Graham, Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, and Whitaker (1997) investigated the relationship betweenmechanics and other measures of writing quality. The authors found that these purely mechanicalfactors could serve as constraints on a student’s ability to compose a well-written passage. Qualitywriting involves more than simply spelling, writing neatly, and punctuating correctly.
If theassessment tool being used to determine writing ability is focused exclusively on mechanics, studentswho struggle with generating thoughts or constructing sentences may go unnoticed and not receivethe assistance needed in the classroom simply because they are successful with spelling andpunctuation. On the other hand, a student who is a fluent writer and who generates beautifulprose may be penalized unfairly if he or she is struggling with a higher-level aspect of writing, suchas comma or semicolon placement.
An approach without a focus on mechanics
Ideally, a new scoring method could be developed that would better capture written expression.
The features needed in this new approach to measuringwritten expression include (a) assessing syntax (Howell, Fox, & Morehead, 1993) and adequatedevelopment of ideas (Cole, Haley, & Muenz, 1997), (b) a deemphasis on mechanics (Stein, Dixon,& Isaacson, 1994), and (c) a more accurate, objective scoring system (Muenz, Ouchi, & Cole, 1999).

Ongoing assessment of elementary-aged students’ syntax may provide valuable information within the RtI model, by describing anaspect of their writing that may be in need of remediation. Assessing syntax may provide informationrelated to the students’ ability to generate propositions and ideas.
One promising method of addressing the issue of syntax is the use of a measure known as T-units(thought units). T-units were originally defined by Hunt (1965) as a measure to assess syntax ingrade school children’s writing samples beginning with fourth graders. Isaacson (1985) furtherdefined a T-unit as the “minimal group of words that can stand on its own as a sentence, withnothing left over” (p. 411). Simply put, a T-unit is a subject and verb plus any auxiliary components(e.g., adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions) that contribute to the overall meaning of a thought.Byusing T-units, as a unit of analysis, the scorer is focused on objectively identifying if the sentenceswritten by the student contain a noun and verb and are combined in an appropriate manner toformulate a sentence. If the sentence length increases over time while maintaining the structuralqualities needed to demonstrate good writing, such as syntax (e.g., ability to combine words intosentences), then syntactic maturity is evident, which may be a more appropriate goal for elementaryschool students than mechanics. Furthermore, mechanics may be less of a barrier to writtenexpression in today’s world, given the prevalence of computer technology that can check and correctpunctuation and spelling errors with considerable accuracy. However, clearly expressing our ideas issomething that modern technology cannot do for us.
Recently, T-units were used as a method to analyze writing proficiency of middle school students

Overview of study
The current study had three primary aims resulting in one key research question. The first aim wasto extend the literature on T-units and to assess the correlation between words per T-unit and othermeasures of literacy commonly used in elementary classrooms.The second aim wasto evaluate if words per T-unit written within a traditional three-minute time frame could be used todetect changes in writing ability over time as an assessment for fourth and fifth graders. The thirdaim was to evaluate the social acceptability of words per T-unit used within the CBM framework byschool personnel.Social acceptability has been defined as the extent to which treatments, procedures,or assessments are considered reasonable, justified, and fair to consumers, teachers, and caretakers(Lyst, Gabriel, O’Shaughnessy, Meyers, & Meyers, 2005).The primary research question was: “Can an analysis using words pert-units reveal incremental growth in upper elementary students’ writing across time as a formativeassessment within the CBM framework?”
Method
Participants/setting
Participants included 167 children enrolled in fourth and fifth grade in a rural public school district inthe Southeast United States. Eighty-one students were in fourth grade and 86 in fifth grade. Thedemographics were similar to other rural school districts across the Southeast United States with itsstudent body composed of 47% Caucasian, 52% African American, and 1% other ethnic identities. Ofthose students, 47% were female. In addition, 63% of the students were from lower income families and 15% received special education services. English language learners accounted for less than .01%.For this study, general education and special education students enrolled in inclusive generaleducation classes served as participants.The students’ classrooms served as the setting for the collection of writing samples. A total of 15classrooms were used in the study. The same classrooms were used for each administration of thewriting procedures.

Materials
The assessment materials used in this study were based on Shapiro’s (2004) CBM for writtenexpression. These included a blank sheet of notebook paper; pencil or pen for each student; a writtenprotocol for each teacher, including the date and time to administer along with an appropriate storystarter (prompt); a timer; and a labeled folder to collect all writing samples. The order of story starterswas specifically arranged to control for variability that may exist with different prompts. Eachtrimester (fall, winter, and spring) teachers were assigned three starters to be used on three differentadministration times during the assigned week.
Procedures
The procedures for collecting data included teacher trainings, the collection of student writingsamples, analysis of the writing samples, and a social acceptability survey given to teachers at theend of the study.
Teacher training on data collection
The trainings included an initial teacher training in the fall semester of the school year, twobooster sessions (one before each round of data collection in the winter and spring), and afollow-up session in late spring to debrief after the conclusion of data collection.
Writing assessments
Teachers conducted three CBM probes with the students in their classes at three separate times (fall,winter, and spring). At each of these times, three separate administrations of the assessment wereconducted across a week (at times predetermined by the researcher). For each CBM probe, teacherspresented a writing prompt (or story starter), gave students one minute to think, and then allowedthree minutes for the students to write. Teachers then collected the writing samples and sent them tothe researcher for analysis.
Primary analysis of writing samples
The primary researcher read each writing sample scoring each sample for the total numbers of wordsper T-unit. This yielded the primary analysis of words per T-unit. The researcher did not assessspelling or punctuation. To eliminate story starters as an independent variable and address it as aprocedural technicality, the teachers were instructed which story starters to use on which administrationdate. From these three probes, a median score was taken for each participant at eachtrimester (fall, winter, spring). This was done to rule out any bias inherent in the topic of thestory starter assigned to one of the three days within the assessment window.
Teacher perception survey
After the completion of the data-collection portion of the study, teachers were given a questionnaireasking them to rate the ease of conducting the procedures and whether or not the assessment provideduseful information for evaluating students’ writing skills.
Inter-observer agreement
Inter-observer agreement (IOA) is the extent to which two or more observers independently reporttheir observed values after the same events (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). It is an important indexof a measure’s believability or reliability. A second researcher scored 33% of the writing samples.
Preliminary data analysis
This initial comparison provided words per T-unit with a solid foundation from which to build theargument that words per T-unit do belong in the education world as part of the CBM writtenexpression measures because they correlate with current acceptable measures used across schools inthe nation to assess grade-level literacy. This comparative analysis was provided as validation forwords per T-unit as a scoring tool and was deemed necessary before testing for differences amonggroups and interactions across time and grade.
For scoring purposes, data entry consisted of typing up, verbatim, from each of thedocuments into a statistical program, Coh-Metrix, designed to analyze readability on multiplelevels.
Statistical analyses
Descriptive data included calculating means, standard deviation, minimum, scores, maximum scoresfor the variables, and writing quality indices.
Results
Descriptive statistics
Relationships with indices
The researchers ran correlations between words per T-unit and readability indices available viaCoh-Metrix (Graesser, McNamara, Louwerse, & Cai, 2004) in order to compare words per T-unit withother continuous variables that are valid and reliable indices of literacy by grade level (see Table 5).For fourth and fifth graders, words per T-unit and average sentence length were positively and highlycorrelated (r = 0.88 and r = 0.92, respectively). Words per T-unit and grade level were also highly andpositively related (r = 0.85 for the fourth-grade samples and r = 0.96 for the fifth-grade samples).
Moderate to high-negative correlations were found between words per T-unit and reading ease for fourthand fifth graders (r = −0.66 and r = −0.88, respectively).
Lastly, moderate positive relationships were identifiedbetween words per T-unit and the incidents of all connectives metric. The correlation for fourth graderswas r = 0.78 and the correlation for fifth graders was r = 0.73. All correlations between words per T-unitand the other measures had p-values of .05 or less, indicating statistical significance.Individual writing samples were also compared by using a repeated measures analysis of variance(ANOVA) to compare performance across time and grade (without a specific writing interventionother than exposure to core instruction during the school year). Post hoc analyses includedANOVAs on the main effects of trimester and grade followed by post hoc comparisons usingTukey HSD. All analyses were performed by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences(SPSS for Windows version 15.0 SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL).
ANOVA results
Results for simplemain effects indicated a statistically significant time effect for words per T-unit for all students, F(2,165) = 15.0, p = .000. This indicated differences in words per T-unit across the three time periods on whichthey were administered (fall, winter, and spring).
Next, results indicated that there was a statistically significant change in words per T-unit across thedifferent grades (fourth compared to fifth), F(1, 165) = 6.28, p = . 013. Fifth grade (M = 9.24) words perT-unit scores were significantly higher than fourth grade scores (M = 8.51).
Teachers’ perception of the measure
The results from the acceptability questionnaire showed that 88% of the participating teachers agreedthat using words per T-unit was a meaningful and effective way to score students writing, 86%agreed that spelling and punctuation should not be counted during an assessment of writtenexpression, and 74% agreed that simply counting the words is not a sufficient indication of a child’swritten expression. These results suggest that the majority of the teachers were supportive of usingwords per T-unit and agreed with a deemphasis on mechanics in the assessment and evaluationprocess of written samples.
Discussion
Words per T-unit had a strong correlation with severalcommonly accepted indices of writing used in the elementary classroom to determine the grade leveland readability of written work.Longitudinal data collected at three different times during the yearindicated that the measure was also sensitive to improvement in writing over time.This finding suggests that the measure of words per T-unit is sensitive to small, incrementalgains made by the student across a one-year time frame.
The study also revealed that with matriculation, students’ scores appear to improve significantlyfrom one year to the next, indicating that T-units can capture growth across grades.These findings suggest that words per T-unit may effectively identify growth in writing abilityas students’ writing becomes denser and the length of sentences written increases—appropriateprogress. Because of its sensitivity, words per T-unit lends itself to progress monitoring and theestablishment of local classroom normative data that can be used to frequently assess students toensure that appropriate gains are being made.
Limitations
Research limitations included the research’s cross-sectional design in that the study did not track thestudents two full years through the fourth and fifth grade but rather only followed students within asingle year.Another potential weakness in the current study is thatthe prompts (story starters) used across administrations of the assessment differed.An additional limitation is that although the words per T-unit appeared to be sensitive todifferences in writing ability, it remains to be determined whether this constituted an improvementover traditional CBM approaches such as WWP3M.Finally, using words per T-units does not inform the teacher of higher-order writingskill, such as planning, goal setting, writing for different audiences or purposes, and/or revising.
Future research
Research should be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of different tiered interventions withinthe RtI model on student writing skills using words per T-unit as a measure to differentiatestruggling writers from proficient writers and provide a baseline to compare students withingrade and across grade.
Implications for practice
This assessment could also be implemented during whole group or small group instruction in thetiered RtI model tomeasure growth and quickly identify areas of concern.Direct instruction of words per T-unit could also be used in isolation for the struggling studentwho is unable to get his or her thoughts organized on paper.In conclusion, the words per T-unit measure appears to hold promise as an approach to assessingstudents’ writing ability in a way that does not depend on mechanics.
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