Many of the more than 700,000 students who leave U.S. high schools each year without a diploma have low literacy skills. More than 60 percent of eighth graders and 60 percent of twelfth graders scored below the "proficient" level in reading achievement according to the most recent administrations of the National Assessment of Educational…

The purpose of the 2011 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Writing Framework is to describe how the new NAEP Writing Assessment is designed to measure students' writing at grades 4, 8, and 12. As the ongoing national indicator of the academic achievement of students in the United States, NAEP regularly collects information on…

The purpose of this report is to increase understanding of the achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), what they are, and what they are not. NAEP is a survey of American students' knowledge and skills in different subjects at grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP combines the samples of performances to provide…

Using data from descriptive essays written at three grade levels, this study examined the theoretical assumption that semantic abbreviation (an inadequate representation of situational and cultural contexts of language in student writing) is attributable to the influence of spoken language. (HOD)

The taxonomy of cohesion devised by M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasen was used to examine the kinds of cohesive ties used in argumentative prose written by 105 sixth, tenth, and twelfth grade students. In this way, the study sought to determine whether there were differences between grade levels in the kinds of ties used and in the numbers of…

To evaluate the writing abilities of American students, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) asked nationally representative samples of fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders--approximately 20,000 students in all--to perform a variety of informative, persuasive, and narrative writing tasks. In addition, students were asked about the…

Under the California Assembly Bill 665 of 1972, the state assessment program must test all students in grades 1, 2, 3, 6, and 12 in reading skills, and those in grades 6 and 12 to assess their skills in effectiveness of written expression, spelling, and mathematics. The state may develop its own tests, and a matrix sampling approach may be used…

Analysis of the development of realization of story structure in the written productions of fifth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders revealed development by age in the degree of realization of an "ideal form" of story schema, with the development rate depending on whether stories are true or invented. (Author/CB)

This report contains the 1982-83 results of the annual administration of the California Assessment Program's Survey of Basic Skills to 3rd, 6th, and 12th grade students in the Mount Diablo School District. The survey measures the reading, written language, and mathematics skill attainment of schools and districts, but not of individual students.…

The first segment of a long-term educational assessment plan, for which this three-part report was compiled, called for a study that would survey the status of English language arts programs in the province of British Columbia and serve as a pilot for future assessment programs. This portion of the study presents results from the third phase of…

During the 1979-80 school year, California public school students in grades 3, 6 and 12 were tested in the basic skills of reading, written expression, and mathematics. Complete statewide results of this California Assessment Program (CAP) are presented, including the following features that have become standard: (1) detailed findings including…

This booklet answers parents' questions about the following: Kentucky's Writing Portfolio program, the process which leads to effective writing, and the parent's role in the development of children's writing skills. The first section discusses the stages of the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) and how…

Prepared as part of a project designed to provide an objectively measured indication of the quality of student writing in one school district, this paper examines argumentative and narrative essays written by students at the fifth, eighth, and twelfth grade levels. The first section of the paper discusses the primary analysis of student writing…

Assesses students' responses to and production of story conventions in detective or mystery stories and explores students' responses to literature as potential connections between comprehending and composing text. (MM)

The relationships of quantitative measures of writing skills to overall writing quality as measured by the E.T.S. Composition Evaluation Scale (CES) were examined. Quantitative measures included indices of language productivity, vocabulary diversity, spelling, and syntactic maturity. Power of specific indices to account for variation in overall…