Individual differences in literacy: Effects of gender and language background on primary school writing

Lillich, Liane; Utesch, Till; Graham, Steve; Busse, Vera

Abstract

The ability to write is essential for a successful transition from primary to secondary school. Research suggests that writing can be particularly challenging for boys at primary school age and children whose family languages differ from the language of instruction, but the interplay of these factors has received little attention in previous studies. Our cross-sectional study addresses this gap by examining narrative text quality and text length in a sample of 1007 children in Grades 3 and 4 from eleven primary schools. Children wrote narrative texts in German in response to picture prompts. The statistical analyses comprised a multilevel linear mixed-effects model with children nested in classes. While boys with other family languages displayed the lowest scores descriptively for both narrative text quality and length, the model revealed main effects of gender (large effect sizes for both text quality, β = 0.42, and text length, β = 0.45) and language background (medium for text quality, β = -0.24, and small for text length β = -0.12), but no significant interaction between these factors. A notable proportion of the variance in outcomes occurred at the class level, as indicated by the intraclass correlation coefficients (null model: 0.46 for text quality and 0.44 for text length, full model: 0.14 for text quality and 0.12 for text length). These findings underscore the need to better support boys and children with other family languages in narrative writing and highlight the strong gender disparities in this area. Results are discussed against the backdrop of pronounced classroom effects.