Writing prompts: the role of various priming conditions on the ...faculty.washington.edu/rhudson/Hudson_Lane_Mercer...Reading and Writing (2005) 18:473–495 Springer 2005 DOI 10.1007/s11145-004-7042-2

Writing prompts: the role of various priming conditions

on the compositional fluency of developing writers

ROXANNE F. HUDSON1, HOLLY B. LANE2 andCECIL D. MERCER1Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University, USA; 2University of

Florida, USA

Abstract. This study addressed two questions related to the writing of second graders(n ¼ 195). The first examined the effects of writing prompts on the compositional flu-ency of second-grade students. The second considered whether these effects are differ-

ent based on spelling achievement and handwriting fluency. Students wrote sixnarratives in response to writing prompts presented in different ways (copying, dicta-tion, discussion, discussion-copying, discussion-dictation, and topic). An analysis ofcovariance (ANCOVA) with repeated measures showed that priming condition and

writing occasion were significant effects. Interactions were found between primingcondition, occasion, and each of the covariates (handwriting fluency and spellingachievement). Analysis of the sample based on the covariates revealed differential

effects for the slowest and fastest writers and poorest and best spellers.

Key words: Elementary; Fluency, Reading-writing, Writing, Writing prompts

Introduction

Fluent and proficient written communication abilities are important inour increasingly technical and literate society. Writing is a commonmeans of personal communication and can be a source of personalentertainment or enjoyment. It is thought that writing about a topichelps people to understand it better, and writing is the primary way stu-dents are asked to display their knowledge in school (Graham, 1992).Because writing is valued as an essential academic tool, it is an impor-tant component of the high-stakes standardized assessments adminis-tered to schoolchildren in the United States.

Such measures of written expression typically rely on writingprompts to elicit writing samples. During written expression instructionwith young children, teachers often use writing prompts to produce afacilitative priming effect on children’s writing. Such use of writingprompts is often recommended in teacher-oriented magazines and

Reading and Writing (2005) 18:473–495 � Springer 2005DOI 10.1007/s11145-004-7042-2

resources, but there is little research on the effects of using prompts toelicit writing. Although various methods of presentation of promptshave been recommended, little research has been conducted to measurethe relative effectiveness of these methods.

An examination of the results of assessments of written expression inthe last decade demonstrates that students in the fourth, eighth, andeleventh grades have not improved much in their ability to write con-nected text to a prompt. In an analysis of trends in writing fluency andwriting conventions from 1984 to 1996 on the National Assessment ofEducational Progress (NAEP), Ballator, Farnum, and Kaplan (1999)found that the students in Grades 4 and 11 did not significantlyimprove on holistic quality scales. On the 1998 NAEP, of the fourthgraders who were assessed, 60% scored at or below the basic level with16% falling below basic and only 40% reaching the proficient oradvanced level (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2002).

Review of related literature

One recommended method of increasing writing proficiency in children isproviding more frequent opportunities to compose text. Graham (1992)recommended that students spend approximately 45 min to 1 hour4 days a week writing in order to develop as writers. Finding ways topromote an increase in time spent writing is a challenge for teachers, whooften turn to writing prompts (i.e., story starters) to encourage childrento write connected text. In commercial materials, the most common formof writing prompt is a beginning sentence or sentences printed on linedpaper that is given to students to read and finish the story.

Previous research on writing prompts is extremely limited. Research-ers have addressed the effects of (a) gender stereotypes used in prompts(Trepanier-Street, Romatowski, & McNair, 1990); (b) prompts thatpromote story planning (Graves, Montague, & Wong, 1990);(c) prompts that use types of pictures (Knudson, 1991, 1992); and(d) prompts that provide the beginning of the story as compared toprompts that provide the ending (Isaacson & Mattoon, 1990) on com-positional content and quality.

No research has examined the facilitative effect of writing promptson children’s writing. A facilitative prompt should, by definition, makewriting easier for the student. One way to measure whether a prompt istruly facilitative is by examining a student’s compositional fluency.Compositional fluency, or the ease with which writers produce writtencomposition, is necessary for writing quality. Without the ability to

474 ROXANNE F. HUDSON ET AL.

translate oral language into written language quickly and easily, a writercannot produce a high-quality text. Much like effortless, automatic wordrecognition facilitates reading comprehension (Adams, 1990; Laberge &Samuels, 1974); effortless, automatic production of words make writtenexpression of ideas possible (Berninger, 1999; Graham, 1999b). Accord-ing to McCutchen (1996), transcription is often such a difficult task foryoung developing writers that they use a knowledge-telling approach,where children list everything they know about a topic, that reduces thecognitive load of processes such as revision that require a lot of process-ing effort. We base this view of compositional fluency on a theoreticalframework developed by Berninger and her colleagues (Berninger, 1999;Berninger, Abbott, Whitaker, Sylvester, & Nolen, 1995).

Theoretical framework

Berninger and her colleagues modified an earlier model of the writingprocesses of adult writers developed by Hayes and Flower (1980). Theresulting explanatory model of compositional processes in developingwriters includes three phases: planning, translating, and reviewing (seeFigure 1 in Berninger et al., 1995 p. 294). During the planning phase,ideas are generated and organized, and writing goals are set. The trans-lating phase has two portions: text generation and transcription. Duringthe text generation portion, ideas are turned into mental language.After the mental language has been generated, it is then transcribedinto written language. During the review phase, ideas, mental language,and written language are evaluated and revised (Hayes & Flower,1980). It is important to note that these phases are not linear but caninterrupt each other and can take place within each other. For example,for a writer who writes down her plans, the translating phase takesplace during the planning phase. Also, a writer who considers and thenrejects various topics is revising during the planning phase. Berningeralso incorporates the nonacademic variables of affect, motivation, andsocial context into the model.

For many younger writers, the transcription phase places importantconstrictions on the writing process (Berninger, 1999; Graham,Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, & Whitaker, 1997). When handwriting andspelling are not automatic, they use up critical processing resources inthe working memory of the young or disabled writer, which limits theresources remaining for idea and text generation (Berninger, 1999).Because of our interest in developing and struggling writers, we choseto focus on this part of the writing process model. We realize that plan-ning and revision are important parts of the process that may reduce

475COMPOSITIONAL FLUENCY UNDER PRIMING CONDITIONS

the speed of composition, and that a few well-chosen words are oftenpreferable to many poorly chosen words. We also recognize that with-out automatic and effortless writing of letters and words, developingwriters are unable to focus on the higher-level processes of planning,text generation, and revision.

According to Berninger (1999) and Graham (1999a), the transcriptionskills of handwriting and spelling are particularly important to youngdeveloping writers. These skills are not clearly represented in Berninger’swriting process phases. We believe that incorporation of Adams’s (1990)model of the reading process might clarify the role of these skills in com-position. Adams’s model, adapted from earlier connectionist models(Rumelhart, 1989; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986; Seidenberg & McC-lelland, 1989), represents the reading process as a collective effort of fourparallel-distributed processors: orthographic, meaning, context, andphonological. Each processor performs a portion of the reading task,but skilled reading requires the orchestration of simultaneous effortfrom each processor. Adams (1990) suggested that spelling words alsouses this interconnected system of four processors. The reading processbegins with the orthographic processor and spelling begins with the pho-nological processor. Just as reading is decoding print into speech, spell-ing is encoding speech into print. The Adams model provides anexplanation of the processes that occur during the transcription portionof the translating phase of Berninger’s model (see Figure 1).

Translating Phase

1. Text generation (word level, sentence level, discourse level) 2. Transcription

On-lineRevising

On-line Planning

Input fromPlanning

Input fromPlanning

PhonologyOrthography

Meaning

Context

Figure 1. Translation phase of Berninger et al. model modified by inclusion of

Adams’ (1990) reading and spelling model.


Writing comprises many interacting and simultaneous tasks, all ofwhich demand some of the writer’s limited cognitive resources(Graham, 1999a, 1999b). Some of these tasks can be thought of aslower-level tasks such as recollecting and forming letters, spelling wordscorrectly, and spacing words in a sentence. Other, higher-level taskssuch as planning, content generation, consideration of audience, andrevising, occur at the same time. These higher-level tasks require signifi-cant processing resources and cannot become automatized (Berninger,1999; McCutchen, 1988). Graham et al. (1997) found that handwritingspeed accounted for 66% of the variance in primary-aged children’scompositional fluency. Graham et al. also determined that, throughoutelementary school, the contribution of transcription skills accounted formore variance than working memory. In addition, they found thatspelling achievement accounted for 41% of the variance in composi-tional fluency at the primary and intermediate grades. Thus, how wellhandwriting and spelling automaticity are developed is the best predic-tor of the amount of written composition in the elementary grades.

Graham and Weintraub (1996) explained the difficulties in compos-ing experienced by slow writers. Their slow rate of handwriting maynot be fast enough to keep up with their thoughts, causing children toforget what they intended to write. The need to switch attention fromcontent generation to the mechanical demands of writing may alsocause writers to forget already developed ideas or may interfere withthe planning process leading to less complex and incoherent content.Graham and Weintraub also note that handwriting difficulties maycause struggling writers to develop negative feelings about writingbecause it is so laborious.

Priming

Facilitating the writing process should be the goal of writing instruc-tion. One way teachers can make difficult and complex processes lesslaborious for their students is finding effective means of priming thedesired responses. Priming occurs when a process is facilitated by apreceding stimulus (Forster, 1999). This facilitation appears to be pro-cess-specific; that is, the critical factor in priming is whether the previ-ous processing was relevant to the next task. According to Forster,the most common interpretation of priming is that the neural repre-sentations of the prime and target are interconnected or overlap inthe brain such that activating the prime automatically activates thetarget. Because writing prompts are used to facilitate written expres-


sion, the assumption is that writing prompts begin the processingneeded for the compositional task and serve as primes that increasecompositional fluency.

Considerable research has been conducted on priming effects in read-ing and spelling. In reading, evidence of a priming effect is found whenthere is an increase in the speed of identification of a target word as afunction of a recent experience with the word itself or with a relatedword (Rueckl, Mikolinski, Raveh, & Miner, 1997). Relationshipsbetween a prime and target may be semantic (e.g., nurse/doctor), repeti-tive (e.g., attitude/attitude), phonological (e.g., bed/said), orthographic(e.g., bead/head), or morphological (e.g., buy/bought). In spelling, prim-ing can be seen in how similar nonword spelling is to the prime that wasprovided before the task. For example, a priming effect would be shownby a student spelling /zop/ as zope after being presented with the primehope and as zoap after the prime roap (Campbell, 1983, 1985; Nation &Hulme, 1996). The effect in literacy activities is robust, especially forrepetition, morphological, and phonological priming. However, theeffects of different types of priming information on writing connectedtext have not been established. What also remains unclear is the effectwriting prompts have on the writing composition of children. Perhapsthey provide a facilitative priming effect, but perhaps they do not.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of presenta-tions of writing prompts designed to provide differential priming effectson the composition of children still developing in their spelling andreading ability. The two research questions guiding this study were: (1)What are the effects of writing prompts on the compositional fluency ofsecond-grade students? and (2) Are these effects different for studentswho vary on spelling achievement and handwriting fluency?

Method

Participants

Four schools in one north central Florida district were selected for thisstudy. The schools were selected to represent a distribution of bothlow- and middle-income populations as well as culturally and linguisti-cally diverse populations. The socioeconomic level of the schools isbased on the percentage of students in the school receiving free orreduced-price lunch. The schools ranged in percentage of students withdisabilities from 11.2 to 14.9 (M ¼ 12.7), gifted students from 2.7 to 9.5(M ¼ 5.7), students in English as a second language (ESL) programs


from 0 to 6.2 (one school was a center school for ESL programming;M ¼ 1.95), and students receiving free or reduced-price lunch from 49.4to 86.9 (M ¼ 69.4).

All second-grade students in the participating schools were invitedto be a part of the study and 348 accepted. Forty-two of these studentsdid not participate in the study because of scheduling problems orother logistical issues or because a teacher felt the tasks were inappro-priate for an individual student (e.g., a student with limited Englishproficiency or a student with autism). Our analysis method did notallow for missing data; therefore, only students who completed all sto-ries and covariate measures were included in the analysis. Due toschool scheduling restrictions, the study was conducted over a shortperiod of time that allowed minimal opportunity for make-up sessions.After removing students who did not complete all stories, spelling, andhandwriting fluency measures, the group was reduced to 195. Thedemographic composition of this sample is in Table 1. There were nosystematic differences between the demographic composition of the ori-ginal sample of 306 students and that of the sample of 195 who wereincluded in this study.

Second-grade students were selected because they typically haveacquired a working understanding of the alphabetic principle in readingand writing, but are still developing their expertise. The processes bywhich they encode words are believed to be still developing and moreamenable to observation than older students. The participants wereassigned to the sequence of writing conditions through random assign-ment of intact classroom groups by the teacher with each student writ-ing a story in each condition.

Priming conditions

The students were asked to write a story following each of six differentwriting prompts presented under different conditions. Each of theteachers presented each of the conditions to his or her class by follow-ing a script on each writing occasion.

Condition 1: Orthographic priming (copying). In Condition 1, a prim-ing condition was designed to prime the connections from the ortho-graphic to the phonological processor through copying a writingprompt. The writing prompt was printed on a transparency and placedon an overhead projector. The teacher told the students they were goingto write a story about the topic of the day and instructed the students tocopy the writing prompt, read it to themselves, and then finish the story.


Condition 2: Phonological priming (dictation). In Condition 2, thewriting prompt was presented through dictation in order to primethe connections from the phonological to the orthographic processor.The teacher told the students they were going to write a story aboutthe topic of the day and then read the entire writing prompt one timeto the students. The teacher then dictated it one word at a time as the

Table 1. Participant demographic information.

Writing condition sequence

Sample total S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6

Gender

Male 95 20 19 13 17 14 12

Female 100 18 16 16 19 15 16

Ethnicity

African american 66 7 10 20 12 11 6

Asian 1 0 0 0 0 1 22

Caucasian 113 28 23 6 19 15 0

Hispanic 9 1 0 3 4 1 0

Multiracial 5 2 2 0 0 1 0

Lunch status

Free 89 13 15 22 16 16 7

Reduced-price 13 3 2 1 2 3 2

Full-price 93 22 18 6 18 10 19

Title 1

Not enrolled 158 31 31 18 34 20 24

Enrolled 37 7 4 11 2 9 4

ESL

Not enrolled 192 37 34 29 35 29 28

Enrolled 3 1 1 0 1 0 0

Special education

Not enrolled 143 19 28 22 31 22 21

Learning disability 3 1 0 0 1 1 0

Gifted 31 15 4 4 2 2 4

Speech impairment 14 2 2 3 2 3 2

Language impairment 3 1 0 0 0 1 1

Behavior disorder 1 0 1 0 0 0 0

Total 195 38 35 29 36 29 28


students wrote it down on their papers. After the class finished writingthe starter, they were asked to read it and finish the story.

Condition 3: Contextual and orthographic priming (discussion-copy-ing). Condition 3 was designed to activate both the meaning processorand the connections from the orthographic to phonological processors.The teacher told the students they were going to write a story aboutthe topic of the day and then discussed the story using a scripted for-mat with the students. The teacher then placed a transparency of thewriting prompt on the overhead and instructed the students to copy thewriting prompt, read it to themselves, and finish the story.

Condition 4: Contextual and phonological priming (discussion-dicta-tion). Condition 4 was designed to activate both the meaning processorand the connections from the phonological to orthographic processors.The teacher told the students they were going to write a story aboutthe topic of the day and then discussed the story using a scripted for-mat with the students. The teacher stated the entire writing prompt onetime, then dictated it one word at a time as the students wrote it downon their papers, read it to themselves, and finished the story.

Condition 5: Contextual priming (discussion). In Condition 5, themeaning processor was activated through discussion prior to composi-tion. The teacher told the students they were going to write a storyabout the topic of the day and then discussed the story using ascripted format with the students before instructing them to write thestory.

Condition 6: No priming (topic). In Condition 6, no priming wasprovided. The teacher told the students they were going to write a storyabout the topic of the day and asked the students to start writing. Forexample, if the writing prompt was about a bunny that decides he doesnot like being a bunny anymore, in this condition, the students wereinstructed to ‘‘write a story about a bunny rabbit that does not likebeing a bunny anymore.’’

Writing prompt topics

Each teacher was given the story topic and directions for administeringthe writing prompt appropriate for the assigned condition before eachoccasion. The story topics were designed to elicit goal-based narrativeson topics familiar to second-grade students. The writing prompts canbe found in the Appendix A. Each story topic was used in all of theconditions on each occasion for a total of six story topics.

The writing prompts were equalized as much as possible in the fol-lowing ways. The topics are all familiar ones to second-grade students


in Florida, and character names are easy to spell. The length of eachstarter was equalized to 15 words, and each ended in an incompletesentence for the students to finish. The gender of the main character ineach was alternated; three starters featured female characters and threefeatured males. The starters were piloted on second graders notincluded in this study and revised after evaluating their response andability to copy and write from dictation. In this way, 15 words weredeemed a reasonable number of words, even for low-achieving andslow-writing students.

Measures

Participants were assessed on a variety of academic tasks in the con-text of a normal school day. These tasks were administered byclassroom teachers in a whole-group setting. The dependent variable,compositional fluency, was measured in each priming condition. Addi-tional measures related to compositional fluency were obtained,including handwriting fluency and spelling achievement (Berninger,1999; Berninger et al., 2000; Graham et al., 1997).

Compositional fluencyThe method of obtaining a writing sample was adapted from curricu-lum-based measurement procedures (Shinn, 1989) by taking two 3-minsamples and averaging them. In each condition, the teacher timed thestudents’ writing for 6 min. After administering the writing prompt, theteacher said, ‘‘Get ready,’’ and after determining that everyone wasready, ‘‘begin.’’ The teacher then set the timer for 3 min. When thetimer beeped, the teacher instructed the students to ‘‘circle the wordyou are writing,’’ and monitored compliance. Each teacher then set thetimer for another 3 min and told the students to continue writing. Atthe end of the writing time, the teacher instructed the students to ‘‘puta circle around the word you are writing and finish your story.’’ Theteacher ensured students had circled the final word and allowed themto keep writing. When all the students were finished, the stories werecollected and the class was praised for good effort during writing.

The number of words in 3 and 6 min was counted for each writingsample. The scores for the two 3-min samples were averaged to providea fluency score. One-third of the writing samples of each teacher ineach condition were randomly sampled and scored a second time for areliability measure. The resulting interrater reliability coefficients forcompositional fluency are 0.993, n ¼ 122 for the first 3-min sample and0.996, n ¼ 122 for the second. In addition, the word count scores for


the first and second 3-min samples were compared in a split-half reli-ability analysis. The Spearman–Brown reliability coefficient was 0.769.

Handwriting fluencyA task adapted from Berninger et al. (1997) and Graham, Berninger,Weintraub, and Schafer (1998) was used in the present study. Thestudents were provided with pencils without erasers and primary-linedpaper. The task was group-administered and timed for 60 s. The stu-dents were asked to write the alphabet in lowercase letters as quicklyand neatly as possible. The students were instructed to cross out anymistakes that they made. At the end of 60 s, the participants wereinstructed to stop and put down their pencils. The score consisted ofthe number of correctly formed letters in 60 s. To be scored as acorrect letter, it must be lowercase, recognizable out of context, andreasonably proportional and aligned with the three primary lines.One-third of the writing samples of each class in each condition wererandomly sampled and scored a second time by a second trainedscorer. The resulting interrater reliability coefficient was 0.973,n ¼ 112.

Spelling achievementThe spelling achievement of each student was determined by the briefscreening inventory of the Developmental Spelling Analysis (DSA; Gans-ke, 1999, 2000) that identifies a student’s stage of orthographic develop-ment. The screening inventory was administered by dictating 20 wordsin sets of five that become progressively more difficult. Each set ofwords focuses on a different developmental spelling stage (letter name,within-word pattern, syllable juncture, and derivational constancy).Each child was told to stop after missing four or more words in anyone five-word set. The screening inventory of the DSA is scored byawarding one point for each word spelled correctly until the stoppingpoint. No points are awarded after the child has reached the ceiling offour errors in a set. One-third of the writing samples of each teacher ineach condition were randomly sampled and scored a second time, andthe reliability coefficient was 0.973, n ¼ 113.

Experimental design

A six-by-six replicated Latin-square design (Myers & Well, 1995) wasused to control for variance due to classes, sequence, and writing occa-sion. Each teacher administered each writing condition to each student in


his or her class. The order of presentation was counterbalanced to controlfor possible order effects. In order to control for possible effects due tostory topic, all of the conditions used the same topic on each occasion.The classes were randomly assigned to each treatment sequence, but indi-vidual students were not randomly assigned due to classroom constraints.

Results

Students’ compositional fluency, spelling, and handwriting scores wereanalyzed to address the research questions. The two research questionsguiding this study were (1) What are the effects of writing prompts onthe compositional fluency of second-grade students? and (2) Are theseeffects different for students who vary on spelling achievement andhandwriting fluency?

Effect of writing conditions on compositional fluency

To answer the first research question, we analyzed the differences incompositional fluency across condition and occasion. The planned repli-cated Latin-square analysis was not used to evaluate group mean differ-ences because of interactions between the factors, which violated theassumptions of the model (Meyers & Well, 1995). Instead, the effects ofpriming conditions on the compositional fluency were evaluated usingan analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with repeated measures. Becauseseveral students were missed on the covariate measures, the total sam-ple for all of the analyses was 183. Condition was the between-subjectsfactor and spelling accuracy and handwriting fluency the covariates. Toevaluate the effects of writing occasion, another ANCOVA withrepeated measures was used with the same covariates. Descriptive statis-tics are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for compositional fluency by conditions.

Minimum Maximum Mean SD

Orthographic 0.00 68.50 24.43 11.57

Phonological 0.00 100.00 26.38 12.88

Context-orthographic 2.50 55.50 24.26 11.21

Context-phonological 1.00 87.50 25.31 12.11

Context 3.50 61.50 27.33 10.44

Topic 5.50 57.50 27.50 11.54


We used the Greenhouse–Geisser adjustment to correct for sphericitywhen appropriate. The results of both analyses are presented inTable 3.

After adjustment by the covariates, the main effect of priming con-dition remained significant (F[4.6, 829.16] ¼ 4.24, P ¼ 0.001). The sizeof the effect was small with a partial g2 ¼ 0.02. Post hoc analysesusing the Bonferroni adjustment showed that the context condition(adjusted M ¼ 27.32) was significantly higher than the orthographic(adjusted M ¼ 24.43), t(182) ¼ 2.89, P ¼ 0.001 and the context-ortho-graphic conditions (adjusted M ¼ 24.26), t(182) ¼ 3.07, P ¼ 0.000. Thetopic condition (adjusted M ¼ 27.50) was also significantly higher thanthe orthographic, t(182) ¼ 3.06, P ¼ 0.002 and context-orthographicconditions, t(182) ¼ 3.24, P ¼ 0.000. These results demonstrate that,overall, compositional fluency was better in the context and topic con-ditions.

The main effect of writing occasion was also significant (F[4.5,810.01] ¼ 2.62, P ¼ 0.028). The size of the effect was small with a partialg2 ¼ 0.01. Post hoc analyses using the Bonferroni adjustment showedthat occasion five (adjusted M ¼ 29.23) was significantly higher thanall other writing occasions: one (adjusted M ¼ 23.77), t(182) ¼ 5.44,P ¼ 0.000; two (adjusted M ¼ 25.19), t(182) ¼ 4.03, P ¼ 0.000;three (adjusted M ¼ 26.08), t(182) ¼ 3.14, P ¼ 0.004; four (adjusted

Table 3. Analysis of covariance for compositional fluency.

Source df Type III SS MS F g2

Covariates

Handwriting fluency 1 8223.91 8223.91 18.71*** 0.094

Spelling achievement 1 5490.28 5490.28 12.49** 0.065

Main Effects

Condition 4.61 1178.86 255.91 4.24** 0.023

Occasion 4.50 724.59 161.02 2.62* 0.014

Interactions

Condition X handwriting 4.61 877.49 190.49 3.16* 0.017

Condition X spelling 4.61 1893.51 411.06 6.811*** 0.036

Occasion X handwriting 4.50 644.50 143.22 2.33* 0.013

Occasion X spelling 4.50 833.01 185.11 3.01* 0.016

Error (condition) 829.16 60.35

Error (occasion) 810.01 61.47

Note. Greenhouse–Geisser adjustment used to correct for sphericity.

*p<0.05, **p<0.01, *** p<0.001.


M ¼ 24.65), t(182) ¼ 4.58, P ¼ 0.000; and six (adjusted M ¼ 26.27),t(182) ¼ 2.95, P ¼ 0.006. The sixth occasion was significantly higher thanthe first, t(182) ¼ 2.50, P ¼ 0.044.

The covariates explained much of the variance in compositional flu-ency. Handwriting fluency (M ¼ 23.07, SD ¼ 10.19) was a moderatelystrong effect (partial g2 ¼ 0.94), F(1, 180) ¼ 18.71, P ¼ 0.001 and spell-ing achievement (M ¼ 7.33, SD ¼ 3.18) a slightly smaller effect (partialg2 ¼ 0.065), F(1, 180) ¼ 12.49, P ¼ 0.001. In other words, students whowrote slowly or spelled poorly wrote fewer words during the time pro-vided.

An interaction between priming condition and both handwriting flu-ency (F[4.6, 829.16] ¼ 3.16, P ¼ 0.010 and spelling achievement (F[4.6,829.16] ¼ 6.81, P ¼ 0.000 was found. Small interactions between writingoccasion and handwriting fluency, F(4.5, 810.14) ¼ 2.33, P ¼ 0.047,partial g2 ¼ 0.013 and spelling achievement, F(4.5, 810.14) ¼ 3.01,P ¼ 0.014, partial g2 ¼ 0.016 were also found.

Differential effects of writing conditions

Because of the interactions found in the omnibus analysis and ourinterest in the effects of priming conditions on the lower-achieving stu-dents, the sample was divided into quartiles based on the two covariatesto answer the second research question (i.e., Are effects of writingprompts different for students at different levels of spelling achievementand handwriting fluency?). This allowed for a more in-depth look atthe differential reactions to the priming conditions that were found.

Each quartile of handwriting fluency was analyzed separately usingan analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures (see Table 4and Figure 2).

For students in the first quartile, the condition factor had a smalleffect (g2 ¼ 0.09), F(4.44, 204.28) ¼ 4.54, P ¼ 0.001. Post hoc analysesshowed that for students who wrote the slowest, the mean composi-tional fluency under the context-orthographic condition wassignificantly lower than the phonological, t(46) ¼ )4.41, P ¼ 0.001; con-text-phonological, t(46) ¼ )4.78, P ¼ 0.001; context, t(46) ¼ )5.14,P ¼ 0.000; and topic conditions, t(46) ¼ )4.98, P ¼ 0.000. Among stu-dents with the highest writing fluency, significant mean differences witha medium effect (partial g2 ¼ 0.07) were found in the condition factor,F(4.08, 188.05) ¼ 3.36, P ¼ 0.010. The mean compositional fluency inthe orthographic condition was found to be significantly lower thanthat of the context, t(46) ¼ )4.36, P ¼ 0.002 and the topic conditions,


t(46) ¼ )3.03, P ¼ 0.003. No other significant mean differences werefound.

Each quartile based on spelling achievement was also analyzed usingan ANOVA with repeated measures (see Table 5 and Figure 3).

The condition factor had a small effect (g2 ¼ 0.09), F(5, 255) ¼ 4.78,P ¼ 0.000. Post hoc analyses demonstrated that for students who had

Quartiles of Handwriting Fluency

FourthThirdSecondFirst

Mea

n C

ompo

sitio

nal F

luen

cy W

ords

per

3 M

in

35

33

31

29

27

25

23

21

19

17

15

Copy

Dictation

Discussion-Copy

Discussion-Dictate

Discussion

Topic

Figure 2. Graph of compositional fluency by writing prompt condition for quartiles

of handwriting fluency.

Table 4. Mean compositional fluency of handwriting fluency quartiles.

Quartile 1

(n = 47)

Quartile 2

(n = 50)

Quartile 3

(n = 44)

Quartile 4

(n = 47)

M SD M SD M SD M SD

Orthographic 21.22ab 9.99 22.17a 10.42 28.32a 14.40 26.16a 9.65

Phonological 23.00a 11.28 25.20a 14.78 29.73a 11.42 28.28ab 12.26

Context-

orthographic

18.59b 9.19 23.48a 11.36 27.64a 11.77 28.61ab 10.72

Context-

phonological

23.36a 10.40 22.70a 10.94 29.63a 13.53 26.03ab 12.73

Context 23.72a 8.71 25.39a 9.62 31.19a 9.63 30.52b 12.28

Topic 23.56a 9.84 25.04a 10.63 31.81a 12.06 30.38b 11.51

Note. Means in the same column followed by different letters are significantly different

at p<0.003. Average number of words written in 3 min.


the lowest spelling achievement, the mean compositional fluencyunder the topic condition was significantly higher than in the ortho-graphic, t(51) ¼ 5.02, P ¼ 0.002 and context-orthographic conditions,t(51) ¼ 4.57, P ¼ 0.003. Among students with the highest spellingachievement, significant mean differences with a small effect (g2 ¼ 0.06)were found in the condition factor, F(3.89, 210.26) ¼ 3.15, P ¼ 0.016.The context condition produced significantly higher compositionalfluency than in either the phonological, t(54) ¼ 3.73, P ¼ 0.002, or the

Table 5. Mean compositional fluency of spelling achievement quartiles.

Quartile 1

(n = 52)

Quartile 2

(n = 34)

Quartile 3

(n = 46)

Quartile 4

(n = 55)

M SD M SD M SD M SD

Orthographic 19.79ac 9.18 22.43a 8.51 24.48a 10.90 29.69abc 13.58

Phonological 24.40bc 12.29 26.06a 11.35 28.33a 15.02 26.37ac 12.56

Context-orthographic 20.24ab 10.68 24.87a 7.97 25.74a 11.92 26.12a 11.83

Context-phonological 20.75abc 10.48 24.60a 11.27 27.28a 9.78 28.19abc 14.45

Context 23.51abc 10.45 26.50a 9.84 29.17a 9.67 30.09bc 10.81

Topic 24.81bc 11.96 27.29a 10.15 27.95a 10.91 30.10c 12.51

Note. Means in the same column followed by different letters are significantly different

at p < 0.003. Average number of words written in 3 min.

Quartiles of Spelling Achievement

4321

Mea

n C

ompo

sitio

nal F

luen

cy W

ords

per

3 M

in

35

33

31

29

27

25

23

21

19

17

15

Copy

Dictation

Discussion-Dictation

Discussion-Dictation

Discussion

Topic

Figure 3. Graph of compositional fluency by writing prompt condition for quartiles

of spelling achievement.


context-orthographic conditions, t(54) ¼ 3.97, P ¼ 0.001. The topic con-dition had a significantly higher mean compositional fluency than thecontext-orthographic condition, t(54) ¼ 3.98, P ¼ 0.000. No other sig-nificant mean differences were found.

Discussion

This study addressed two questions related to the effects of writingprompts as priming conditions on the writing of second graders. Thefirst concerned the role of prompts on the compositional fluency of sec-ond graders, Would there be differential effects due to the type of writ-ing condition? The second asked, Would these effects be found amongsmaller subgroups based on measures related to compositional fluency?

Writing conditions had a significant effect on the compositional flu-ency of the students with the discussion and topic conditions producinghigher fluency than the copying and discussion-copying conditions. Thecovariates were also significant effects, showing that children who wroteslowly or spelled poorly composed fewer words in the time allowed.Interactions between priming condition and both spelling achievementand handwriting fluency were found. Further analysis by quartiles ofhandwriting fluency found that for the slowest writers, the discussion-copying condition was the lowest. There were no differences for thestudents in the second and third quartiles, and for the fastest writers,discussion and topic were the highest. An analysis of the quartiles ofspelling achievement showed that for the poorest spellers, topic was sig-nificantly higher than the copying and discussion-copying conditionsand no effects were found for the middle students (second and thirdquartiles). For the best spellers, topic was significantly higher than dis-cussion-copying. The effect sizes for the slowest writers and poorestspellers were considerably higher than for the sample as a whole.

The results of the analyses indicated that the writing prompts did littleto help students write more and, in fact, they may have inhibited stu-dents’ writing fluency. When the teacher and students discussed a topicand generated content together or when the teacher simply provided atopic and directed the students to write about it, students wrote morethan when they were provided with any specific ‘‘story starter’’ writingprompt. It appears that, for children who have handwriting or spellingdifficulties, any benefit of semantic priming through discussion may benegated by the effort required to copy the writing prompt. That is,although pre-writing discussions are helpful to all students, strugglingstudents’ compositional fluency may be reduced by the addition of an


orthographic prompt. Perhaps, the compositional fluency of studentswith slow handwriting or poor spelling is hindered in the copying condi-tion because their weak handwriting or spelling skills require more oftheir working memory to be devoted to the act of copying, leaving lessavailable for content generation. In contrast, the students with fast hand-writing and good spelling skills, because these skills are well developed,can continue to think about and generate story content as they copy.

This finding indicates that providing specific writing prompts mayactually constrain the flow of idea generation and writing fluency fordeveloping writers. As teachers and students discuss ideas for their sto-ries, students may be formulating ways of expressing these ideas in theirown language. Being provided with a specific set of words with whichto begin a story may interfere with both the planning and transcriptionphases of the writing process. In addition, while the method of topicpresentation made little or no difference for average or above-averagewriters and spellers, it clearly affected the lower-achieving students.

Writing occasion produced a significant effect. This effect was anuneven one, with occasion five producing significantly higher composi-tional fluency than all other occasions. This could be a result of differ-ential preference for the story topics because a new topic was presentedon each occasion. Perhaps the students preferred the topic presented onoccasion 5 more than those presented at the beginning. Given theuneven pattern of adjusted mean compositional fluency scores for occa-sions (1 ¼ 23.77, 2 ¼ 25.19, 3 ¼ 26.08, 4 ¼ 24.65, 5 ¼ 29.23, 6 ¼ 26.27),it is unlikely that this finding could be due solely to a practice effect,unless topics four and six somehow diminished such an effect.

Adams (1990) suggested that reading and writing use the same pro-cessors, with writing moving from the phonological processor to theorthographic (i.e., from sound to print). The finding that, for all of thegroups of students examined, the orthographic and context-ortho-graphic conditions produced the least writing fluency provides supportfor her contention. The overlap between the processing in the directionof reading (i.e., copying and reading) was less than providing an oppor-tunity to plan, generate mental language, and priming to the contextprocessor (i.e., discussing) and thus provided less priming effect. Forstudents with poor word representations, the priming that occurred inthe direction of reading actually produced an inhibitory effect.

Limitations of the study

Several important limitations must be considered in the interpretation ofthe results from this study. Because it was impossible to assign individual


students randomly to the sequences of writing conditions, they were ran-domly assigned in intact class groups. These groups may have been sys-tematically different from one another. It is unclear whether pre-existinggroup differences existed and if so, whether they were due to teacher,grouping, or individual differences. The size of the study prevented fidel-ity checks of how the teachers delivered the handwriting fluency assess-ment, the spelling measure, and the writing prompts. Some of thevariance seen in the findings may be due to differences in administrationnot included in the writing conditions as described.

There were several variables that were not included in this study. Itis possible that there were intervening variables (i.e., teacher, discussionbetween students, processing load of composing, help spelling words)between the priming condition and the composition of the students. Inaddition, the model of the compositional process includes importantvariables that were also not measured in this study. Specifically, a mea-sure of working memory (McCutchen, 1988) has potential to helpexplain some of the differences that were found. Also, affect and moti-vation are potentially critical variables that should be taken intoaccount. For example, it is possible that some of the results in thisstudy are due to students enjoying one priming condition over anotheror that previous difficulty in writing led to task avoidance amongslower or struggling writers.

Finally, the writing prompts themselves may be a limitation of thisstudy. Because the story topics and occasions changed at the same time,they are confounded and it is unclear whether the differences seen inwriting fluency due to occasion are a result of the occasion they werewritten on or due to how well the students liked the story topic. In theformulation of the writing prompts, we were concerned with factorssuch as the number of words in the prompt, ease of spelling the charac-ter’s name, and gender. We did not consider the story elements providedin the prompts. For example, the prompt used on occasion 1 provided asetting and a beginning while the prompt used on occasion 3 provided areaction and goal. Being provided with particular story elements in thedifferent prompts might have elicited different writing responses fromstudents. Because some story elements are more difficult to generatethan others, including those elements as part of the prompt may havecontributed in systematic ways to students’ content generation.

Implications for future research

The results and limitations of the current study provide implications forfuture research. A follow-up study analyzing the effects of the writing


conditions on the quality of the student compositions seems a naturalnext step in light of the finding of Graham et al. (1997) that handwrit-ing fluency and spelling achievement have significant effects on compo-sitional quality as well as fluency. Although writing fluency was notfacilitated by traditional forms of writing prompts, writing qualitymight have been enhanced; therefore, additional study of the effectsof prompts on compositional quality is warranted. Removing thecompound conditions that seemed to negate themselves (i.e., context-orthographic and context-phonological) could lead to make the inter-pretation of a future study more clear. Measuring nonacademic vari-ables such as working memory, affect, and motivation, would lead tobetter understanding of the multiple influences on compositional flu-ency. Because significant differences were found for students in the low-est quartile of performance in generating letters from memory andspelling achievement, further study of the effects of priming for thispopulation, which includes both students at academic risk and studentswith disabilities, is warranted. Research to identify the features ofappropriate writing instruction for these populations is a critical need.

Implications for classroom practice

There are several implications for educational practice resulting fromthis research: response differences among groups of children, impor-tance of modeling different approaches, and instructional recommenda-tions for struggling writers. One aspect that is clear is that childrenresponded differently to the various ways of presenting the story topics.Teachers should be sensitive to this and be flexible in how writing timeis structured and how topics are presented. Differentiating instructionbased on handwriting fluency or spelling ability could promote bettercompositional fluency among struggling students. In addition, it isimportant to provide instruction and modeling in a variety ofapproaches to writing narrative text. As more is known about learningpreferences, especially among culturally and linguistically diverse stu-dents, this may prove to be a powerful way to accommodate studentdiversity in the classroom and improve writing achievement.

For students who struggle in writing, teachers should pay particularattention to how story topics are presented. It is clear that studentswho write slowly or spell poorly experience differences in topic presen-tation more than their average or high-achieving peers. It is also clearthat these students compose more slowly and spell more poorly thantheir peers.


To facilitate the compositional fluency of their students, teachers ofstruggling writers should focus their pre-writing activities on generatingideas and language to express those ideas. When struggling writersfocus on content generation, their writing fluency appears less con-strained by their slow handwriting or poor spelling. Using written storystarters as writing prompts seems to interfere with the writing fluencyof less-able developing writers and copying of story starters should beavoided while more research is conducted on the effects of copying.

Instruction designed to develop handwriting fluency and improvespelling seems warranted for struggling writers in light of the importantroles in compositional fluency and spelling accuracy. Past research byBerninger et al. (1997) indicates that explicit and intense instruction inhandwriting fluency and spelling transfers to composition in strugglingwriters. This instruction should be provided in a meaningful contextwith transfer to composition as a goal.

Writing instruction is an increasingly important issue in schools, ashigh-stakes achievement testing becomes more common and standardsfor writing competence rise. Additional emphasis on both the researchof writing processes and classroom practices to support struggling writ-ers is warranted.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the children who participated in this study. Theirwillingness to try something new and persevere made this project possi-ble. They also acknowledge the assistance of the teachers and adminis-trators in the Alachua County Public Schools in Florida. This paper isbased on a dissertation submitted by the first author to the Departmentof Special Education, University of Florida, in partial fulfillment of therequirements for a doctoral degree.

Appendix A

Occasion Writing prompt

1 Sam Squirrel had a mouth full of nuts. ‘‘What should I do?’’ he asked his

2 Kim knew she could win the race, but just as the whistle blew, she felt

3 Dan was so happy he was at Disney World. He had always wanted to meet

4 Momma duck and her babies were swimming along when they heard a big

noise that

5 Buster didn’t like being a bunny because he was tired of carrots. One day, he

6 Jill won a million dollars! She knew just what to do with it. First, she


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Address for correspondence: Roxanne Hudson, 227 N. Bronough St., Suite 7250,

Tallahassee, FL 32301, USAE-mail: [email protected]


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