Assessing children’s writing products using curriculum-based measures of writing (CBM-W)

Abstract

AimWriting is key to academic success and job opportunities later in life. Nevertheless, every year children leave primary school struggling to write and few assessments enable schools to reliably identify and target weaknesses in children’s writing. This study explored curriculum-based measures of writing (CBM-W) for assessing writing in primary schools in the United Kingdom (UK).MethodTwenty-seven children from a Year Five class in an English primary school responded to a narrative prompt administered for five minutes once a fortnight for a 10-week period. Children completed a standardised assessment of writing quality (the WIAT) prior to the first CBM-W assessment. CBM-W measures included number of words written (WW), words spelled correctly (WSC), correct word sequences (CWS; any two adjacent words used correctly in context) and correct minus incorrect word sequences (C-IWS).FindingsAll four CBM-W measures demonstrated concurrent validity in relation to the WIAT and captured significant differences in writing performance between children with and without a SEN. Measures also captured pupil growth, demonstrating the utility of CBM-W both as a tool for screening and progress monitoring.LimitationsThe small sample placed limits on the generalisability of findings. Additionally, piloting the equivalence of the writing prompts used in this study may have reduced the risk of measurement error.ConclusionFindings demonstrate the technical adequacy of CBM-W and promising evidence of its potential use by teachers, SENCOs and EPs to assess the writing of primary school children in the UK.