Extensive research indicates that there are more boys than girls who are struggling readers, although considerable variation in gender ratios has been reported as a result of a lack of consensus in defining and measuring poor reading. The purpose of this study was to establish stable and consistent gender ratios for poor reading using a single…

SMS language is English language slang, used as a means of mobile phone text messaging. This practice may impact on the written language skills of learners at school. The main aim of this study was to determine the perspectives of Grade 8 and 9 English (as Home Language) educators in Gauteng regarding the possible influence of SMS language on…

In this study, the purpose was to determine whether there was concordance among raters in the assessment of the writing performance using analytic rubric; furthermore, factors affecting the assessment process were examined. The analytic rubric used in the study consists of three sections and ten properties: External structure (format, spelling and…

Multifaceted Rasch measurement was used in the present study with 91 student and 4 teacher raters to investigate how self- and peer-assessments work in comparison with teacher assessments in actual university writing classes. The results indicated that many self-raters assessed their own writing lower than predicted. This was particularly true for…

The National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) assessments are designed to assess literacy and numeracy of all Australian school children in years 3, 5, 7 and 9, and to act as diagnostics as to whether children are meeting intended educational outcomes. Tests began in May 2008, and have been run annually since then. Results of the…

This article describes a project which identified the skills and abilities in written literacy of pre-service teachers, as well as their needs in this area. An intervention to address their needs is evaluated and its outcomes assessed, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Results show that it is possible to improve these…

Students in higher learning institutions need to write lots of reports based on the projects done. Since they are at the tertiary level of education, they are required to use English in their reports. This is to ensure that they are able to function well in English later at the workplace. Writing requires students to apply rules regarding sentence…

The study investigated EFL students' ability to comprehend and analyze advertisements and identify their stylistic features. Results of a test with sixty six EFL college students showed lexical and structural features that are easy to identify and those that are difficult to identify. Responses also reflected the difficulty level of the lexical…

This paper considers evidence from an intervention designed to raise standards in spelling and independent writing. "The Complete Spelling Programme" (McMurray and Fleming, 1998) is designed to ensure that all processes involved in learning to spell are activated and that the interaction between them is facilitated. In addition, a number…

Discusses the government-approved simplification of French spelling, and describes rectifications of spelling problems frequently found in forming or using accents, verbs, hyphens, noun plurals, and other anomalies. (CB)

This article reports that, after years of debate, representatives of German-speaking countries meeting in Vienna reached an agreement on measures to reform the spelling of the German language. Many linguists were disappointed that it was not decided to change the most unique characteristic of German spelling--the capitalization of German nouns.…

Two groups of 28 students each alternated as experimental and control groups in spelling and punctuation projects. Experimental groups used goal setting and self-evaluation to monitor learning, supported by class discussions. Results showed the intervention raised spelling scores 60-80%, punctuation scores 70-75%. Progress was achieved only when…

The 1986 report by the Canadian Task Force on Aboriginal Languages, which recommended that the writing systems used for the northern Dene languages be standardized within 10 years, resulted in the 1987 Dene Standardization Project. The mandate for the project was to make recommendations on orthography standardization as the first step in the…

Based on a two-year study of children in a classroom environment, this article focuses on an early period of writing development in which many unconventional punctuation behaviors occur. Describes a range of types of unconventional punctuation and assigns them a common underlying principle, that of using punctuation according to graphic principles…

Studied the use of punctuation in children's early writings in connection with organization of the text. Collected 134 stories of second graders written in Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian. Children tried to make sense of writing conventions, including the use of punctuation, and some tried to distinguish the functions of punctuation marks. (SLD)