The Relationship Between Reading Medium and Prose Writing.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of two methods of reading instruction on children's ability to write original compositions. The subjects for this study were 684 first and second graders. Of the 293 first grade children, 130 were receiving their reading instruction in i.t.a., while the remaining 163 children were working in traditional orthography. All of the 391 second graders were in traditional orthography reading programs using a basal reader for reading instruction. All of the subjects wrote two compositions which were evaluated on length, vocabulary level, content, and originality. At both the grade one level and the grade two level, the essays of the i.t.a. sample were longer and at a somewhat higher vocabulary level. Further, in terms of both the Content and the Communication scales, there were statistically significant differences in favor of the i.t.a. group at both grade levels. (Author/WR)