Fourth Grade Writing Achievement and Instruction, 1974-1984: NAEP’s Report Card

Abstract

The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports its trend results for the writing achievement of 9-year-old students from 1974-1984. The results are based on writing exercises which were administered using identical administration procedures in at least two of three assessments. The nationally representative sample of responses was scored using two methods, primary trait scoring (task accomplishment) and holistic scoring (fluency). Three types of tasks were given to the students, persuasive, imaginative, and informative. Performance on the persuasive task was somewhat less successful in 1984 than in 1979. Nine-year-olds showed steady improvement from 1974 to 1984 in their ability to write in response to an imaginative task. Improvement on the informative task was very slight. The results for various subgroups reveal that Hispanics made the greatest improvement.