ABSTRACT

Early writing is a foundational component of emergent literacy. Despite recent increases in early writing research, studies often narrowly focus on transcription (i.e., letter and/or name writing, spelling) to the exclusion of their ability to compose or generate ideas and translate into writing. Research investigating composing approaches it in disparate ways without clear conceptual, empirical, or theoretical foundations. Research Findings: The current study sought to better understand early composing. A sample of 133 pre-kindergarten children completed four composing tasks and which were scored in multiple ways to understand relations between multi-perspective scoring systems and determine if children performed differentially based on task. Findings demonstrated that children’s performance, across task context and scoring conceptualization, was variable but mostly highly correlated. Further analyses indicated the overreliance of composing scoring methods on understanding children’s composing through a transcription lens, with expressed focus upon children’s abilities to transcribe within a composing task context. Results indicated that children performed differentially on tasks; however, this variability was dependent upon scoring method. Practice or Policy: Findings have implications for early childhood teachers given curricular and standards-based emphases on composing, despite the field lacking a strong understanding of the development and nature of composing in young children.

摘要

早期写作是新兴读写能力的基础组成部分。尽管最近早期写作研究有所增加，但研究往往只关注转录（即字母和/或姓名写作、拼写），而排除了他们撰写或产生想法并转化为写作的能力。在没有明确的概念、经验或理论基础的情况下，调查作曲的研究以不同的方式接近它。研究成果：目前的研究旨在更好地了解早期作曲。133 名学前班儿童的样本完成了四项作文任务，并以多种方式评分，以了解多视角评分系统之间的关系，并确定儿童是否因任务而表现不同。调查结果表明，儿童在任务背景和评分概念方面的表现是可变的，但大多高度相关。进一步的分析表明，作曲评分方法过度依赖于通过转录镜头理解儿童的作曲，重点关注儿童在作曲任务环境中的转录能力。结果表明，儿童在任务上的表现存在差异；然而，这种可变性取决于评分方法。实践或政策：尽管该领域对幼儿作曲的发展和性质缺乏深入的了解，但鉴于课程和基于标准的重点是作曲，研究结果对幼儿教师有影响。