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Predictors of Writing Ability in 4th Grade First- and Second-Language Learners

Gina L. Harrison, Lauren D. Goegan, Rachel Jalbert, Kelly McManus, and Jessica Spurling

University of Victoria

Department of Educational Psychology & Leadership Studies

Faculty of Education

Correspondence: Dr. Gina Harrison ([email protected])

Paper presented at the Canadian Society for Studies in Education Annual Conference (Canadian

Association of Educational Psychology), June 2013, Victoria, BC. This project was supported by a

Standard Research Grant to the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

of Canada (SSHRC).

Harrison et al., CSSE/CAEP 2013

Abstract

Writing skills and related processes were examined in 4th graders speaking English as a first

language (EL1) and as a second language (ESL). ESL and EL1 students achieved similar scores

on phonological processing, verbal short-term and working memory, rapid automatized naming,

word and non-word reading fluency, spelling, and handwriting fluency tasks. ESL students

performed more poorly on oral vocabulary and syntactic knowledge tasks. Students also wrote

paragraphs scored against quality indices for lower level (i.e., mechanics) and higher level (i.e.,

organization, theme development, lexical diversity) dimensions. Paragraph quality for ESL

students was similar to EL1 students across dimensions, but the processes involved in ESL and

EL1 writing varied. Linguistic processes were important for EL1 but not for ESL students.

Verbal working memory and phonological processing were more important for ESL students.

ESL and EL1 students also rely on transcription skills (spelling, handwriting fluency) to write,

but ESL rely more on spelling. Individual differences in writing ability were also examined.

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Predictors of Writing Ability in 4th Grade First- and Second-Language Learners

Writing is an essential skill that is critical to academic success. At a general level, writing

requires the translation of the writer’s internal ideas into language through words, sentences, and

discourse (Berninger, 2009). Recent longitudinal and cross-sectional Canadian research has

found converging evidence that children with English as a second language (ESL) consistently

lag behind their native-English-speaking (EL1) peers on oral English measures such as

vocabulary and syntactic awareness (Chiappe & Siegel, 1999; Harrison, Ogle, & Keilty, 2013;

Jean & Geva, 2009; Jongejan, Verhoeven, & Siegel, 2007; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Low &

Siegel, 2005). Despite ESL status and second language skills, ESL students (beginning formal

literacy instruction in kindergarten) achieve the same word-level literacy skills for reading and

spelling as their EL1 peers (Chiappe & Siegel, 1999; Jongejan, Verhoeven, & Siegel, 2007;

Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Low & Siegel, 2005). Irrespective of language status, students

knowledge and facility with English sound structures (phonology) are most predictive of word-

level reading and spelling achievement, and early literacy instruction across the studies cited

incorporated activities to build all students’ phonological awareness within balanced literacy

programs. ESL students also have phonological knowledge of their first language (L1) to draw

on in acquiring phonological knowledge of the second language (L2). Studies have shown

significant correlation between L1 and L2 phonological awareness (Cisero & Royer, 1995;

Gottardo, 2002; Gottardo, Yan, Siegel, & Wade-Woolley, 2001; Harrison & Krol, 2007) and

transfer of phonological skills between languages (Durgunoglu, 2002). This research is

consistent with Cummins’ (1979) linguistic interdependence theory where some skills are

common across languages and are thus independent of oral proficiency in the L2. Since writing

entails a broader array of language skills beyond phonology, and writers must translate their

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ideas into components of language, L2 language syntactic knowledge and vocabulary skills may

be expected to exert a greater influence on writing than word-level reading. To date we have

limited knowledge about how writing skills develop in ESL students, how their writing ability

compares to EL1 students in the same classrooms, and whether ESL students may be drawing on

a different array of cognitive and linguistic processes to write due to their L2 oral language

skills, as recent research has found for L1 Dutch students learning English (e.g., Dutch)

(Schoonen et al., 2002). Such knowledge is necessary to effectively inform instruction in today’s

linguistically diverse classrooms.

Writing draws on a constellation of cognitive-linguistic processes and knowledge

attributes that complement the processes required for reading (Fitzgerald & Shanahan, 2000).

Contemporary accounts of the multidimensional nature of the writing process elucidate a

functional system that involves the writer’s activation of prior knowledge from long-term

memory, word-specific knowledge (orthographic, phonological, and morphological storage

units) metalinguistic and metacognitive awareness, and working memory that is represented as

part of a distributed network of executive functions regulating focused attention to the writing

task (Berninger & Amtmann, 2003; Bourdin & Fayol, 2002). Until lower-order transcription

skills (handwriting fluency, spelling) are automatized, limited working memory resources are

available for higher-order translation skills (generating ideas, planning, organizing, and revising).

The present study is situated within this contemporary account of writing and examines the

predictors of writing across lower-order and higher-order dimensions in ESL and EL1 fourth

grade students. By fourth grade, children have typically developed automaticity in lower-order

skills and the quantity and quality of their writing increases (Berninger & Swanson, 1994),

presenting an excellent opportunity to examine writing across its multiple dimensions.

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Only a limited number of studies to date have examined writing in ESL students. Davis,

Carlisle, and Beeman (1999) found that the English writing scores (productivity, spelling, use of

long words, and discourse) of Spanish-speaking ESL first, second, and third grade children were

significantly correlated with their English listening comprehension skills, but a more in-depth

analysis of the relationship between linguistic complexity (t-units) and listening comprehension

in English was not significant. In two other studies with native Finnish-speaking children

learning English, concurrent measures of oral vocabulary and listening comprehension along

with a longitudinal measure of phonological memory predicted writing in English for third grade

children (e.g. Dufva & Voeten, 1999), and significant correlations were found among subtests

assessing English vocabulary, grammar, and writing on the Finnish National Test of English in a

group of sixth grade children (e.g., Lumme & Lehto, 2002). Harrison, Ogle, and Keilty (2013)

recently reported that English phonological awareness (PA), reading, and transcription skills

(spelling and handwriting fluency) but not oral vocabulary and syntactic knowledge predicted the

early writing skills of a group of ESL kindergartners who had been immersed in English

instruction for six months. Despite an EL1 advantage on the English oral vocabulary and

syntactic knowledge measures, ESL and EL1 performed similarly on the measures of reading,

spelling, and early writing. Likewise, in one of the only available studies examining the

cognitive-linguistic components of writing in ESL compared to EL1 children (grade 3 and

combined grades 5/6) Ball (2003) reported that an oral language proficiency (OLP) factor

(receptive and expressive vocabulary, grammatical judgment, listening comprehension, and

sentence memory) failed to contribute significant variance to either word-level spelling or to the

quality (based on an evaluation of prose, action, sequencing, and theme) of ESL children’s

written stories after controlling for grade and once the variance in cognitive ability (which

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included PA, rapid automatized naming (RAN) and verbal working memory (WM) and

sequencing measures) was considered. Cognitive ability accounted for 11.8% and 6.7% of

additional variance in spelling and writing respectively, after controlling for grade. Controlling

for grade and following the variance attributed to cognitive ability, the OLP factor accounted for

an additional 8.8% of the variance in word-level spelling, and an additional 17.2% of the

variance in writing for EL1 children. EL1 children across both grade ranges achieved

significantly higher scores than ESL on L2 receptive vocabulary and syntactic awareness

measures, but in the lower and higher grades, ESL outperformed EL1 on the single word spelling

and lexical access (rapid shape naming) measures. There were no differences due to language

status on any of the academic measures, which included word reading and comprehension, word

spelling and writing tasks. Consistent with the results reported by Verhoeven and colleagues

(2007) in relation to single word spelling, ESL children appear to be drawing on different

processes (PA, lexical access, verbal WM) in generating text, possibly due to their under-

developed oral language skills in the L2 compared to EL1 children. ELI children, in contrast, do

appear to be relying on their native oral language skills for writing. Based on this limited

evidence to date, it appears that ESL children (who begin English language and formal literacy

instruction in kindergarten) achieve similar levels of proficiency in writing skills as EL1

children, but that ESL children may be drawing on a different subset of skills and processes to

reach the same level of writing attainment. The present study was conducted to gain insight into

the skills and component processes of writing for ESL grade 4 students in comparison to their

EL1 classmates. Specifically, the following questions were addressed: (1) Are any performance

differences evident on the cognitive, linguistic, and literacy measures including dimensions of

writing quality? (2) What cognitive and linguistic processes are important to ESL and EL1

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writing ability? (3) Are transcription skills important to the quality of ESL and EL1 writing? (4)

What component writing skills and processes differentiate skilled and less skilled ESL and EL1

grade 4 writers?

Method

Participants

Participants were 74 grade 4 students (44 ESL: 24 boys, 20 girls; 30 EL1: 19 boys, 11

girls) from five elementary schools in an urban school district 60 kilometres east of Vancouver.

Students in the ESL and EL1 groups were about the same age (ESL mean age = 117.91 months;

EL1 mean age = 118.47 months). Students were part of a longitudinal cohort who had

participated the previous year when they were in grade 3. The ESL group was comprised of

students who had been receiving ESL services within the school since kindergarten and whose

first language was not English. Punjabi was the first language of the majority (93%) of the ESL

group. Only three students spoke a first language other than Punjabi. These languages were

Urdu, Malayalam, and Korean. Teacher reports and information from school files validated each

student’s language status. All students lived in predominantly middle class neighbourhoods and

none of the children had documented or reported history of neurological, motor, or

developmental disorders, uncorrected visual deficits or developmental delays. Grade 4 writing

curricula focuses on writing for different purposes (i.e., personal writing such as journaling,

writing to communicate ideas and information, and literary writing) and detailed rubrics

capturing aspects of form and content are used to formatively evaluate students’ writing.

Measures

The measures assessed component cognitive, linguistic, and literacy processes as well as

writing performance. All measures were counterbalanced in blocks (cognitive and language,

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reading, and writing) with a fixed order of tasks within blocks. With the exception of the

handwriting fluency task, all of the measures were norm-referenced and were administered

according to the instructions provided in the test manuals. Internal consistency reliabilities on the

norm-referenced measures as reported in the test manuals were within the high .80’s to .90’s at

the 9- and 10-year-old levels. Starting and stopping rules as described in the test manuals were

followed. Raw scores were recorded since the norm-referenced measures have not been

standardized with ESL students. All measures were administered in English.

Oral language measures. Two oral language measures were administered. The Peabody

Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition (PPVT-4; Dunn & Dunn, 2007) was administered to

measure receptive vocabulary. Students were required to select one picture from an array of

choices to correspond with a verbally presented word. The Syntax Construction subtest of the

Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999) was

administered to measure oral English syntactic awareness. Students were required to provide a

semantically and grammatically correct word, phrase, or sentence compatible with verbal stimuli

and pictures.

Phonological awareness. The Elision subtest of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological

Processing (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999) was administered to assess

phonological awareness. This task requires students to remove sounds from a spoken word (e.g.

say ‘blend’ without saying /l/) to form a new word.

Naming speed. The Rapid Letter Naming subtest of the CTOPP (Wagner, Torgesen, &

Rashotte, 1999) was administered to assess naming speed. Participants were required to read

selected lower case letters (a, c, k, t, n and s) randomly arranged into four rows and nine columns

on a 27.9 centimetre by 20.3 centimetre page as quickly and accurately as possible. Examiners

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recorded each student’s time and accuracy in reading all letters. Participants were required to

complete two trials of the 4 by 9 letter display, and their scores on the two trials were combined

to create the participant’s raw score.

Verbal short-term memory and verbal working memory. The Digit Span subtest of the

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003) was

administered to assess students’ short-term and working memory. Digit Span Forward assesses

verbal memory span by requiring participants to repeat increasingly longer strings of numbers

over the short term, and Digit Span Backwards assesses working memory by requiring

participants to repeat increasingly long number strings in reverse order.

Reading Measures. The Sight Word Efficiency subtest of the Test of Word Reading

Efficiency (TOWRE; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999) was administered to assess the

participants’ ability to accurately and quickly read real printed words in 45 seconds, a measure of

word reading fluency. The Phonemic Decoding Efficiency subtest of the TOWRE (Torgesen et

al., 1999) was administered to assess the participants’ ability to accurately read pronounceable

printed non-words in 45 seconds, a measure of nonword reading fluency.

Writing measures. There were three writing measures. Spelling skills were assessed by a

dictated spelling test from the Wide Range Achievement Test, Third Edition (WRAT-3;

Wilkinson, 1993). Handwriting fluency was assessed with the Alphabet Writing task (as used in

Berninger et al., 1997) where students were instructed to print as many lower-case letters of the

alphabet as possible, quickly and accurately, within 60 seconds. Letters were counted towards

the participant’s score if the letters were in the correct order and legible. Letters are counted as

legible if, in the examiner’s opinion, the letter is recognisable on the page without cues from the

surrounding letters. Spelling and handwriting fluency measures provided an index of students’

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transcription skills. Compositional writing skills were assessed with a paragraph-writing task.

Students wrote a paragraph about their favourite holiday and the instructions and scoring criteria

from the Paragraph Writing subtest of the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test – Second

Edition (WIAT-II; Psychological Corporation, 2002) were followed. Students were required to

include three reasons why the holiday they wrote about was their ”favourite” holiday, and that

using correct spelling and punctuation was important. Scores across lower-order mechanics

(correct punctuation, and spelling) and higher-order text generation (organization, content,

sentence structure, and vocabulary) criteria were recorded and a combined quality score across

both dimensions was also obtained. Paragraph word count provided an index of text writing

fluency, another aspect of transcription. A measure of syntactic knowledge in writing was also

obtained using only the grammatical and syntactic criteria for Correct-Incorrect Word Sequences

(CIWS) from the WIAT-III (Psychological Corporation, 2009). Two trained graduate students

scored for compositional quality and CIWS, and disagreements in scoring were resolved by a

third rater.

Procedure

Students completed all tasks individually in one session that lasted about an hour in a

quiet room in their school. Data collection took place in April and was conducted by the first

author and graduate students who received formal training in administering and scoring the

measures, and who were supervised by the first author.

Results

The present study aimed to: (1) examine any differences between ESL and EL1 students

on the cognitive, linguistic, and literacy measures, (2) identify the cognitive and linguistic

predictors for writing across language groups, (3) investigate whether transcription skills are

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important to writing quality across language groups, and (4) identify the component skills and

processes that differentiate skilled and less-skilled ESL and EL1 4th grade writers. A summary of

the descriptive statistics will be presented separately for ESL and EL1 groups, followed by an

analysis of group differences on the measures. Then the results of hierarchical regression

analyses on the predictors of writing for ESL and EL1 students will be presented. Finally, we

describe the analysis investigating writing subgroups (skilled and less-skilled) and present the

results of the non-parametric analyses of subgroup differences on the cognitive, linguistic, and

literacy measures.

ESL and EL1 differences on the cognitive, linguistic, and literacy measures

Descriptive statistics across all of the measures administered for ESL and EL1 groups are

presented in Table 1. A series of preliminary analyses were performed to investigate group

differences by language. EL1 students outperformed ESL students on the oral vocabulary

F(1,72) = 38.70, p < .0001 and syntactic knowledge, F(1,72), 19.92, p < .0001 measures. These

differences have been present over the last two years of the study, and are consistent with other

Canadian longitudinal studies of other researchers (e.g. Lesaux & Siegel, 2003). Importantly,

ESL and EL1 students were comparable in their writing performance across the assessed

dimensions, including the grammatical aspects of their written texts as measured by CIWS,

despite ESL students’ lower English language skills.

Cognitive and linguistic predictors of writing quality

Two hierarchical regression analyses were conducted separately for ESL and EL1 groups

to identify the cognitive and linguistic predictors of overall writing ability. Tolerance indices

were examined to identify problems with multicollinearity and none of the variables entered

demonstrated a tolerance value less than .20. Theory on the importance of component

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TABLE 1: Descriptive Statistics for ESL and EL1 Children (n =74)

ESL

(n = 44)

EL1

(n = 30)

Measure M SD M SD

PPVT-4 140.8** 14.4 164.2** 18.0

CTOPP - Elision 15.1 4.8 16.1 4.5

CASL 33.7** 5.2 40.1** 7.1

TOWRE – Word Reading 66.9 9.1 70.0 10.1

TOWRE – Decoding Fluency 36.0 11.3 39.2 12.0

WISC – Digit Span Total 14.3 2.6 14.6 3.3

WISC – Digits Forward 7.8 2.0 8.3 2.3

WISC – Digits Backward 6.5 1.5 6.3 1.5

CTOPP – Rapid Letter Naming 35.4 7.0 35.6 6.0

WRAT-3 – Spelling 30.8 3.9 31.6 4.8

Handwriting Fluency 50.1 15.1 55.1 13.7

Note. PPVT-4 = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4th Edition; CASL = Comprehensive Assessment of SpokenLanguage; CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing; TOWRE = Test of Word Reading Efficiency; WISC = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; WRAT-3 = Wide Range Achievement Test-3rd Edition. **p < .01. *p < .05.

processing skills to writing guided the order of entry of variables into the model. The results of

the hierarchical regression analyses are summarized below in Table 2. For each language group

variables were entered in the following order: phonological awareness (elision), RAN-letter, and

verbal WM (digit span) were entered separately at each step, followed by the oral language

measures (oral vocabulary and syntactic awareness) entered as a final block. As shown in Table

2, the final model accounted for 32% (adjusted R2 = .316) of the variance in overall writing

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ability scores for the ESL group. The significant cognitive and linguistic predictors of overall

writing ability were phonological awareness (β = .31, p < .05) and verbal WM (β = .29, p < .05).

For the EL1 group, as shown in Table 2, the final model accounted 58% (adjusted R2 = .577) of

the variance in writing ability. Unlike ESL, oral vocabulary (β = .39, p < .05) and syntactic

knowledge (β = .36, p < .05) were significant predictors of overall writing ability for EL1

students.

TABLE 2: Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Writing Performance From The Cognitive and Linguistic Measures for ESL and EL1 Grade 4 Students

ESL EL1

Step Predictor βa βb ∆R² βa βb ∆R²

1. CTOPP – Elision .50** .31* .23 .49** .08 .22

2. CTOPP – Rapid Letter Naming -.01 -.01 .23 -.16 -.17 .21

3. WISC – Digit Span Backwards .26 .29* .27 .19 .15 .22

4. CASL and

PPVT

.13

.23

.13

.23

.32 .39*

.36*

.39*

.36*

.58

Note. CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing; CASL = Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language; PPVT-4 = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4th Edition. a = Standardized beta coefficient for the step at which the predictor first entered the model. b = Standardized beta coefficient for the final step of the model.**p < .01. *p < .05.

Transcription predictors of higher-level writing

The second set of regression analyses investigated the transcription predictors of

students’ writing based on the quality of the higher-level aspects of their writing (organization,

content, sentence structure, and vocabulary) consistent with contemporary writing theory (e.g.

Berninger & Amtmann, 2003). The following transcription variables were entered one at a time

in the following order across both language groups; spelling (WRAT-3 spelling), handwriting

fluency (alphabet writing) and word count (text writing fluency). None of the variables entered

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demonstrated a tolerance value less than .20. The final model accounted for 39% (adjusted R2

= .386) in the higher-level aspects of writing for ESL writers. As shown in Table 3, spelling (β

= .49, p < .01 and text writing fluency (β = .39, p < .01) were both significant predictors. For

EL1 students, the final model accounted for 36% (adjusted R2 = .358) of the variance in the

higher-level aspects of writing with text writing fluency as the only significant predictor for the

EL1 group (β = .49, p < .01). Thus, both ESL and EL1 students appear to be drawing on

transcription in writing, but ESL students, unlike their EL1 peers, are relying on their English

spelling skills in addition to their fluency in producing text.

TABLE 3: Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Writing Quality (Higher-level Writing Skills) From Transcription Measures for ESL and EL1 Grade 4 Students

ESL EL1

Step Predictor βa βb ∆R² βa βb ∆R²

1. WRAT-3 Spelling .53** .49** .26 .43* .26 .15

2. Handwriting Fluency -.01 -.07 .24 .26 .06 .19

3. Paragraph Word Count .39** .39** .39 .49** .49** .36

Note. WRAT-3 = Wide Range Achievement Test-3rd Edition. a = Standardized beta coefficient for the step at which the predictor first entered the model. b = Standardized beta coefficient for the final step of the model.**p < .01. *p < .05.

Differences between skilled and less-skilled writers

A final set of analyses was conducted to examine writing subgroups. Overall writing

scores were converted to z-scores across language groups. Scores at or above a z-score of 1.00

represented skilled writers, and scores at or below a z-score of -1.00 represented less-skilled

writers. These cut-offs were highly conservative and ensured that we were capturing the top and

bottom 15% of students whose scores fell above and below the mean. Table 4 presents the

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descriptive statistics on the cognitive, linguistic, and literacy measures for ESL and EL1 across

writing subgroups.

TABLE 4:Descriptive Statistics for Skilled and Less-Skilled Writers (n =23)

Skilled

(n = 10)

Less Skilled

(n = 13)

Measure M SD M SD

PPVT-4 161.1* 24.0 140.5* 15.5

CTOPP - Elision 18.7** 0.7 12.4** 5.7

CASL 39.5** 6.8 30.7** 5.0

TOWRE – Word Reading 73.2* 8.4 60.7* 12.5

TOWRE – Decoding Fluency 46.8** 5.4 28.7** 13.7

WISC – Digit Span Total 15.9** 2.3 12.4** 1.6

WISC – Digit Span Forwards 8.9** 1.0 6.8** 1.6

WISC – Digit Span Backwards 7.0* 1.6 5.6* 1.0

CTOPP – Rapid Letter Naming 32.8 6.4 36.8 7.8

WRAT-3 – Spelling 35.4** 4.8 27.8** 3.6

Handwriting Fluency 58.8 18.1 49.0 14.6

Note. PPVT-4 = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4th Edition; CASL = Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language; CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing; TOWRE = Test of Word Reading Efficiency; WISC = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; WRAT-3 = Wide Range Achievement Test-3rd Edition.**p < .01. *p < .05.

An initial analysis comparing ESL and EL1 on the measures indicated was conducted using non-

parametric Wilcoxon W due to our small sample size and violation of the assumptions required

for parametric analyses. No differences were detected between ESL and EL1 less-skilled writers

on any of the measures. For the skilled writers, EL1 students obtained a significantly higher

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mean on the oral vocabulary measure than the ESL students (W = 28.00, p < .05), unsurprising

given students’ second language status, and the ESL students achieved a significantly higher

mean score on the verbal WM measure (W = 6.00, p < .05). We were most interested in the

measures that distinguished the less-skilled writers, and since there were no differences between

ESL and EL1 within this subgroup, we combined the language groups for the next analyses

examining skilled and less-skilled writers irrespective of language status. The results indicated

significant differences across most of the measures, with less-skilled writers achieving

significantly lower mean scores on oral language (W = 124.00, p < .05), syntactic awareness (W

= 106.00, p < .01), phonological awareness (W = 114.500, p < .01), word reading fluency (W =

116.00 p < .05), nonword reading fluency (W = 105.50, p < .01), verbal memory span (W =

109.50, p < .01), verbal WM (W = 120.50, p < .05), and WRAT-3 spelling (W = 103.00, p

< .001). No significant differences were found between writing subgroups on the RAN-letters

and handwriting fluency measures. Although these results are based on a relatively small sample

size, they provide some preliminary evidence that less-skilled writers are those students who are

less skilled more generally in important component cognitive and literacy skills related to writing

irrespective of language status.

Discussion

Compared to reading, the research on writing ability in ESL and EL1 students is

extremely limited. We examined writing and related skills and processes in 4th grade ESL and

EL1 students to address a neglected area in the research, and to inform instruction in today’s

linguistically diverse classrooms. Based on the present results, ESL and EL1 students performed

similarly on the measures of phonological awareness, RAN-letters, verbal short-term and WM,

reading and decoding fluency, spelling, handwriting fluency, and on a multidimensional writing

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measure. The ESL group achieved significantly lower scores than the EL1 group on the oral

vocabulary and syntactic awareness measures, as reported by others (see Geva 2006 for a

review). ESL status and L2 oral skills do not appear to impact writing ability, at least in the 4th

grade. These results are consistent with those reported by Ball (2006). We did find that ESL and

EL1 students are drawing on different processes when writing. Our regression analyses indicated

that phonological awareness and verbal WM are the best predictors of writing for ESL students,

whereas, oral vocabulary and syntactic awareness were the best predictors for EL1 students. It is

possible, as Verhoeven et al. (2007) also reported in predicting spelling in ESL and EL1

students, that the ESL group is drawing on other important resources when writing to

compensate for their lower oral English skills. Transcription skills were also important to the

higher-level aspects of writing across both language groups, especially students’ automaticity in

producing text. ESL students, unlike their EL1 peers, were also drawing on English spelling as

an aspect of transcription. In a study with high school Dutch children who had either English as

an L1 or as a foreign language (EFL), Schoonen and colleagues (2010) also reported that spelling

contributed to writing ability for EFL students but not EL1 students. Within the context of

contemporary writing models, it is possible that English spelling in text has become more

automatized for EL1 students, but ESL students continue to rely on their knowledge of English

orthography as an important aspect of transcription that is not yet automatized within the writing

process. Overall, our results suggest that different cognitive processes and a different distribution

of transcription skills are contributing to writing in ESL and EL1 students.

Finally our analyses of writing subgroups indicated that ESL and EL1 less-skilled writers

have similar cognitive and literacy profiles. Our cut-offs for subgroups were conservative (at or

above +1, at or below -1 z-score) identifying only the top and bottom 15% of students whose

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scores fell above and below the mean. No research to date has examined the nature of writing

difficulties in ESL compared to EL1 students, and our analyses were meant to be a first step in

identifying the possible underlying processes and skills that may be related to writing difficulties

in both groups. Our results indicated similar profiles amongst ESL and EL1 students, and less-

skilled writers achieved significantly lower scores on all but the RAN-letters and alphabet

writing fluency measures. These results suggest that similar cognitive and linguistic markers may

identify students at risk for writing difficulties regardless of ESL status. These findings parallel

the results from other studies conducted with ESL and EL1 students focusing on risk for reading

difficulties (see August & Shanahan, 2006 for a review). As our study was one of the first to

examine individual differences in writing, and our sample was small due to our conservative cut-

offs, more research is needed to inform the identification of struggling ESL writers. When we

compared ESL and EL1 skilled writers, some interesting differences emerged. Skilled ESL

writers exhibited higher verbal working memory skills but lower oral vocabulary than skilled

EL1 writers. However, there were no differences between ESL and EL1 skilled writers in their

syntactic awareness skills. It therefore appears that the group of skilled ESL writers were

students with better-developed L2 oral language skills, at least syntactically, than their ESL

peers. Despite having lower oral vocabulary skills than skilled EL1 writers, they produced text of

comparable high quality. These findings are only exploratory in nature, however, due to the

extremely small sample and the results should therefore be interpreted with caution.

Overall, the present study has indicated that oral language does not appear to be as related

to writing in ESL students as it is in their native English-speaking peers. Despite their ESL status

and L2 oral language skills, ESL students in grade 4 who have been immersed in English literacy

instruction since kindergarten are writing at levels similar to their EL1 peers, but they are

18


drawing on a different set of processes and skills than their EL1 peers. ESL students, perhaps to

compensate for L2 oral skills, are relying more on English sound structures, working memory,

and spelling to write, whereas EL1 students are drawing more on their oral language skills and

fluency in producing texts. Our study also provided some preliminary evidence that lower

achieving writers experience difficulties across a range of important writing related processes

and skills irrespective of language status. Importantly, our findings add to an understudied area

of research, and provide evidence to inform literacy instruction – particularly writing instruction

– within linguistically diverse Canadian classrooms.

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