Advanced Assessment: Literature Language Analysis Flashcards
Literate language develops through
narrative experience
Narrative experience includes…
Oral Language: Conversational, “Here and Now” (contextualized), Uses familiar terms/nonlinguistic/prosodic info, Colloquial expressions, simple/run-on structures
Literate Language: Narrative, “Not here, not now” (decontextualized), denser/more specific lexicon (literate lexicon), complex syntactic structures, metalinguistic focus on form/content/use, print experience
Literate Lexicon
Words that are important for the literate activities of reading, writing, listening to lectures, talking about language and thought, and mastering school curriculum (Nippold 1998, p 21)
Later developing words that occur in school related contexts… complex topics (learned once in schools and are experiencing various subjects)
The vocab required to comprehend and construct literate language
Literate language features
Elaborated Noun phrases
Conjunctions
Adverbs and adverbial phrases
Mental and linguistic verbs
Elaborated noun phrases:
2 or more modifiers preceding the noun
The indignant elderly neighbor laughed.
OR
Qualifiers following the noun:
Prepositional phrase( The gift from mom.)
Relative Clause (The girl who ate the pie died. )
Conjunctions
Subordinating
Coordinating
- but, so, yet, or are NOT used early on
- And, then ARE used early on
Adverbs and adverbial phrases (2 or more words that act as an adverb)
Modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, about:
Time: e.g. tomorrow, today, later, soon, now
Manner: quietly, timidly, without, fast, slow
“We ate as quietly as possible” “Dad spoke softly without humor”
Place: here, there, prepositional phrases
Mental and linguistic verbs
Cognition: eg think know choose determine
Communication: eg said, whisper, exclaim
Mind your PPs…
Prepositional phrases are often part of NP (elaborated NP) and can be appended to verbs- in which case they are an adverbial phrase (both PP and AP)
Literate language analysis can be done in….
a systematic observation: either in academic activities (work products, observations in context of school day) or speech and language probes. VERBAL OR WRITTEN SAMPLE
Analyze
Multiple samples, multiple contexts, errors of commission, errors of omission
When analyzing how much is enough?
When you see consistent feature patterns (or lack thereof)
When you have evidence of educational impact (or lack thereof)
Interpret and Summarize
What is this student’s performance across contexts? (Slp probes vs academic activities): How does it show up in the different contextualized forms of achievement- across ALL 4 sources of data
What are the student’s relative strengths and weaknesses (internal, personal to them)
Are there contexts/scaffolds
Compare this students performance to that of their peers
What are the skills that are expected in this student’s grade (common core, state expectations: SOLs)
Evidence
Preschool age related changes in oral narratives (Currenton and Justice 2004)
- Conjunctions
- Mental Verbs
- Linguistic verbs
No difference between AA and White usage
Differences between LI and TL in narrative retells (Greenhalgh and Strong 2003)
- Conjunctions
- Elaborated NPs
Abstract Nouns (ABNs)
Intangible entity, inner state, or emotion: nature, independence, loneliness
Evidence for reading comp and expository contexts
Associated with reading comprehension (Nippold 1999)
Occur more in expository contexts than narrative essays
Evidence MCV and academic achievement/performance
Metacognitive Verbs: mental events or activities of the mind (decide, ponder, contemplate)
Closely associated with performance on tests of academic achievement: vocab, critical thinking
Evidence of developmental progression
Adolescents: written narratives (11, 14, 17 yrs)
Dev prog in abstract nouns, metacognitive verbs, total t units, mean length of t unit, clausal density
Evidence Sun and Nippold 2012
By 8th grade:
Mean length of t unit 11.9
Clausal density score 1.71
Evidence of NP Elaboration in Stories
All children produce more NP in object position, more NP in a single pic than a seq of pics, by 5 they are simple designating NP (det + n), by 8 they are simple descriptive NP (Det + Desc + N), by 11 they are NP with post modification (NP or clause)
Reporting
Write a coherent paragraph that describes
- how many samples, contexts
- How each sample was elicited
- each area of literate language: counts of correct/incorrect prod., stimulability (if probed), clausal density (if calc)
- performance indicators for the features that you analyzed: performance expecations (SOLs, CC, teacher, community)
Include this in eval report
