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Component processes of early reading, spelling, and narrative writing skills in Turkish: a longitudinal study

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Abstract

The study examined: (a) the role of phonological, grammatical, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills in reading and spelling development; and (b) the component processes of early narrative writing skills. Fifty-seven Turkish-speaking children were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 2. RAN was the most powerful longitudinal predictor of reading speed and its effect was evident even when previous reading skills were taken into account. Broadly, the phonological and grammatical skills made reliable contributions to spelling performance but their effects were completely mediated by previous spelling skills. Different aspects of the narrative writing skills were related to different processing skills. While handwriting speed predicted writing fluency, spelling accuracy predicted spelling error rate. Vocabulary and working memory were the only reliable longitudinal predictors of the quality of composition content. The overall model, however, failed to explain any reliable variance in the structural quality of the compositions.

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Notes

  1. There are clearly important differences between syntactic and morphological processing skills and possibly clear differences also in their relationship with literacy skills. However, empirical distinction between these two metalinguistic skills becomes much more complicated within the context of agglutinating languages where a single word may correspond to a whole sentence or phrase. For instance, the Turkish word <gidebileceklerse> means ‘if they are going to be able to go’. For this reason, in this paper, the generic terms grammatical and morphosyntactic awareness were used and the relevant research evidence based on both syntactic and morphological processing skills have been reported.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participating teachers, parents, and children from the 23 Nisan Primary School and Karaoğlanoğlu Primary School for their willing participation and cooperation. Many thanks also go to Mrs. Arzu Cankoy and Mrs. Ülfet Canseç for their help with the scoring of the written compositions of the children. Finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and Prof. C. Hulme for their insightful suggestions on an earlier draft of the paper. Preparation of this paper was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship Award given by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, School of Life Sciences, University of the West of England (Bristol), Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK

    Selma Babayiğit

  2. University of York, York, UK

    Selma Babayiğit

  3. University of Reading, Institute of Education, Bulmershe Court, Earley, Reading, RG6 1HY, UK

    Rhona Stainthorp

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  1. Selma Babayiğit
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  2. Rhona Stainthorp
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Correspondence to Selma Babayiğit.

Additional information

All the data for this study were collected as part of Dr. Babayiğit’s doctoral research at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.

Appendices

Appendix A

See Tables 11, 12, and 13.

Table 11 Examples from the phonological awareness measures
Full size table
Table 12 Examples from the grammatical awareness measures
Full size table
Table 13 Examples from the reading and spelling measures
Full size table

Appendix B

Scoring the composition writing-structure

  1. a.

    Appropriate sequencing:

    1. 0)

      Incorrect

    2. 1)

      Correct

  2. b.

    Sentence Structure

    1. 0)

      Majority of sentences are incomplete, fragments or run-ons.

    2. 1)

      One or two incomplete sentences. Majority of sentences are complete.

    3. 2)

      Every sentence is a complete sentence.

  3. c.

    Sentence variety

    1. 0)

      Repeating

    2. 1)

      Varied

  4. d.

    Complexity of sentence structure

    1. 0)

      All simple sentences.

    2. 1)

      One sentence with one subordinate clause.

    3. 2)

      Two or more sentences with one subordinate clause in each.

    4. 3)

      One sentence with two or more subordinate clauses, and one or more sentences with one subordinate clause in each.

    5. 4)

      Two or more sentences with multiple subordinate clauses in each.

  5. e.

    Linking expression (and, or but, while, then, before, suddenly)

    1. 0)

      No linking expressions

    2. 1)

      Two or fewer linking expression of the same kind. E.g., if only one type of linking word such as AND is used.

    3. 2)

      Three or four linking expressions. At least one is a word other than AND.

    4. 3)

      Five or more linking expressions. At least three are a word other than AND.

  6. f.

    Consistency of tense

    1. 0)

      Switching of tense

    2. 1)

      Tense is appropriate and consistent

  7. g.

    Grammar

    1. 0)

      Very poor grammar that makes interpretation difficult

    2. 1)

      Some grammar errors that sometimes interfere with meaning or interpretation

    3. 2)

      A few errors but do not detract the overall quality of expression

    4. 3)

      Error free

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Babayiğit, S., Stainthorp, R. Component processes of early reading, spelling, and narrative writing skills in Turkish: a longitudinal study. Read Writ 23, 539–568 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-009-9173-y

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