Textual production of children without learning difficulties

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Writing Pedagogy
• Comparative Education

Background:

• Student writing proficiency is a critical educational outcome.
• Understanding differences in writing skills between public and private school systems is essential for targeted educational interventions.
• Assessing skill development across school grades provides insights into curriculum effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze and characterize student writing abilities.
• To compare writing performance between students in public and private educational institutions.
• To identify developmental trends and improvements in writing skills throughout the academic year.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of three distinct text types (narrative, game rules, note/letter) from 160 students.
• Utilized a specific protocol for evaluating writing aspects like aesthetics, coherence, clarity, and concision.
• Employed statistical tests including Kruskal-Wallis, Miller, and Mann-Whitney for comparative analysis across grades and school types.

Main Results:

• Public school students' writing scores, particularly in game rules description, were consistently one point below the maximum.
• Private school students achieved higher median scores across assessed writing components.
• Significant performance differences were observed between private and public schools, with private institutions showing better results.

Conclusions:

• Private school students exhibited consistent skill consolidation across grades, whereas public school students showed this consolidation by the sixth grade.
• Students in private schools generally outperformed their public school counterparts.
• A developmental progression in writing skills was noted in public school students from fourth to sixth grade, while private school performance remained stable.